Resist Tyranny: abolish Fed Ed

 

The Federal Department of Education is deeply un-American and must be abolished. Federal control of education is inherently tyrannical because any central government has a vested interest in keeping the populace ignorant. We know this deep in our bones, which is why the semi regular triumph of conservative politicians is always accompanied by a solemn promise to abolish the Department of Education. With equal regularity, just like Charlie Brown, Lucy, and the football, the first policy of the incoming administration is that actually abolishing it was never really going to happen.

Not this time. 2024 is not going to be like 2016, or 1980, or any of the other times Republicans promised to end federal education and didn't. This is the perfect issue, and it has come, this time, at the perfect time. This time around, due to the Covid experience, the nation is much more wary of encroaching tyranny and preventing tyranny is why abolishing the Department of Education is such a timely idea.

Education is clearly, after the military, the most important lever a wanna be tyrant has to control. Central government having control of education is the one essential ingredient needed to maintain a long term tyranny. They must be able to teach the young their lies. That's why it is so disturbing that Republicans have been curiously unfaithful about this one promise, and the party as a whole has, once again curiously, not called them to account for this unfaithfulness.

Whether it is Democrats or Republicans, it seems that all federal officials continue to stubbornly insist that this one ingredient, the one ingredient essential to the erection of any potential federal tyranny, remains available in the federal pantry. This certainly does not prove that some kind of tyrannical structure is already in place but it leaves that possibility open. It does seem rather foolish to just hang around in this particular political situation, flirting with despotism. What are we doing, just waiting for the right “One” to come along, pick up that tool of tyranny and use it ?

This is just Civics 101 people. Of course the central government, especially if it is corrupt, has a vested interest in dumbing down the people. Don't let the feds control education! If they do, the people are easily oppressed. The Founders would, literally, get sick to their stomachs if they learned we have allowed a federal department of education to even exist ! They tried to ensure the distant, unaccountable central government would never get its' filthy hands on any part of public education. All the feds are supposed to do is encourage education from afar.

Our system of government is very complex, so we citizens must be educated to know how to run it well. Since around the time of the creation of the Department of Education in 1979, civics education has declined to near zero, while civil engagement and general civility have faded from the public square. Our educational standing in comparison with the rest of the world has steadily gone down in this time period. It seems as though we have been getting dumbed down, maybe on purpose, ever since the federal government started having some control over K-12 public education..

Our educational system has been crumbling around us while we are spending two to three times as much, per pupil, as other developed nations. The federal economic assistance to education comes to about a tenth of most local education budgets. Losing that tenth would leave most places still spending more per pupil than other nations who get better results. Without those attached federal mandates, innovation would undoubtedly blossom while outcomes and results improve.

Let's get real here. In this time of quantum and exponential growth in information technology, how can education, which is essentially just the imparting of information, be such a big, expensive problem?

Looking at it objectively, it appears the high cost of big education, with all the attendant specialized supervisory staff, is due to the fact that it costs a lot more to indoctrinate children than it does to educate them. Especially, as might be true in some cases, when you are indoctrinating them against the values of their parents, while they are still living in their parent's homes. That caliber of indoctrination probably does take a lot of funding.

Much of the resistance to devolving the powers of education back to the states resembles the alarmist warnings against home schooling decades ago. “Without government control, parents will mis-educate their own children,” we were warned.

Those fears proved to be baseless and overblown. We will find that returning control of education to local communities and the families who compose them will likewise not be the horror show the big education types are warning of. In fact, we can realistically expect our educational outcomes to improve from day one after making this change.

We should probably investigate some of the indoctrination that has gone on, it have been criminal. However, before going too far down that path, we should first obviate any such potentially tyrannical agenda by simply abolishing the Federal Department of Education. That is the one proven, historical way to ensure that no tyrant can gain control over the education of the children.

What's more, Civics 101 again, that local level, with parents in charge of education, is the one level of government that has a long term vested interest in teaching the children to be strong, self governing citizens. Imagine what we could do these days, even in localities with limited resources, if we creatively used high tech to teach those traditional American values to our children.

Finally, abolishing the Department of Education is the perfect issue at this time because it can lead the way for a whole raft of other issues which are ripe for federal devolvement. Successfully navigating the devolving of education back to local control will demonstrate that a more general devolving of powers from the federal government, back to states and locals, is both feasible and attainable in a regular, orderly manner.

We can confidently anticipate that once local communities gain control of education, results will improve and costs will go down. It is just in the nature of the technology once set loose from artificial restraints.

With the success of localizing education, the cultural diversity of our nation will likely assert itself, and with that rise in local identity a vibrant consciousness of self government might arise, encouraging even closer compliance with constitutional strictures and then even more awareness of the duties and powers of citizenship. Wash, rinse, repeat. A positive upward spiral of synergy, of liberty, might consequently be re-ignited.

So we call on our conservative leaders, especially President-Elect Donald Trump. It is time to keep this long denied promise.

Abolish the Department of Education.

Confirm RFK Jr. to HHS

The nomination of Robert Kennedy Jr to the office of Secretary of Health and Human Services could help move this nation in a very good direction when it comes to health, not to mention it proves we were well advised to elect Donald Trump President. Keeping his word on MAHA is a very big deal.

Robert Kennedy Jr. simply seems to be the most informed and seemingly well intention-ed advocate for the vigorous health of the America people on the current national stage. Some try to slur him about vaccines, but their accusations ring hollow. When you listen to his expansive erudition on the subject you realize that slur, even if slightly true, is at worst a tiny wavelet compared to the veritable tsunami of knowledge and dare we say it, wisdom, he brings to the discussion about our national crisis of chronic disease. With his proven record as an activist lawyer, we can expect him to be as good as his word, and sincerely work to improve our national health.

While Big Pharma, Big Money, and just about Big everything will surely resist him, and be aided (after his confirmation) in their resistance by the most sluggish, sly, corrupt and disobedient bureaucracy in the history of failing empires, it won't really matter. Once in office Secretary Kennedy will probably prevail, since he will, at long last, have the weapons at hand with which to slay some real dragons, and he seems to have a good idea of how to go about it.

When Secretary Kennedy announces some obviously beneficial policies (as I think, hope and expect he will) more than the 51% of the people who voted for MAGA, (it will become more like 75%) will begin to clamor for rapid implementation of the new rules. Many, especially those who are already clients, will appreciate and know how to make use of the Secretary's latest edicts.  All of which is to say that even though once in office Secretary Kennedy will still face fierce and formidable bureaucratic opposition, it could realistically be overcome because the bureaucracy will face pressure from both above and below.

Probably the central malfunction in our system of government for the last seven or so decades is that we have gotten trapped between two permanently competing but completely moribund political coalitions. Our vaunted two party national divide. Some coordinated political moves by Donald Trump and Robert Kennedy Jr. combined to break that trap by reintroducing true coalition politics to our electoral process. This new/old way of doing politics will tend to give more power to smaller voices, and put a premium on debate and persuasion. So Kennedy's 2024 campaign has already resulted in an improved American political dynamic.

Even before he joined with the Trump campaign, many people on both sides regarded Kennedy as a good, but impossible to elect, second choice. Almost every one who listened to him thought he should be named to head HHS. In a lot of ways, we should think of it as though Robert Kennedy Jr. is still running, only this time for President of the Department of Health and Human Services.

Anyone who thinks he would make a good president of that department has one more chance to vote for him, and that is by writing a letter to each of your senators telling them your opinion. All it will really take, if we are being honest about our partisan paralysis, is for a lot of well meaning, health minded progressives to drop their unthinking resistance to every aspect of the incoming administration. Especially if you are dyed deep in the wool blue living in a sky blue state. Any word from you in favor of Mr. Kennedy's confirmation will carry tremendous weight.

I know for a fact that there are many health minded people in the progressive movement because I used to be among your number. Now I'm a health minded conservative. If we can get all of us health minded Americans, from all sides, supporting the Kennedy nomination, the overwhelming influence of Big Pharma might actually be overcome. We all know, and have known for decades, that Big Pharma must somehow be taken down a peg or two.

These senators are under heavy pressure from their Big Pharma and Big Food donors to reject his nomination. The only way to overcome that pressure from above is even greater pressure coming from below. Everyone, and that means every ding dang one of us, has to contact their senators.

So it has come to this, our true moment of revolution.

At this time, we the people must make our voices heard in the halls of congress. Anyone who is already convinced by having heard Mr. Kennedy speak regarding health, nutrition, and chronic disease, it is time for you, for once in your life, to send an actual letter to your senator. Both of them in fact, because all senators will vote for or against his confirmation.

For those of you who have never heard him speak to the issues, by all means find some of Robert Kennedy Jr.'s speeches online. I am confident most of you will come to agree with almost everything he says. When you do find yourself in agreement with him, then you also, for once in your life, should make your voice heard in the halls of congress. Write a senator or two.

Finally, let me further emphasize this point. Actually writing a letter (call, text, FB, email, X whatever, Make contact !!), at this time, on this one issue, is probably more important than any vote you have ever cast or will ever cast. There are some terrible and powerful forces arrayed against Mr. Kennedy, undoubtedly among the most evil forces in history, well known to the Kennedy family. This is a real chance to defeat them, possibly the first and last chance we will ever have. If what Mr. Kennedy espouses is true, and it sounds logical and feels true to me, then we absolutely must reverse the chronic decline of our nation's health if we are to survive. Happily, Robert Kennedy Jr. is just the person to get that reversal accomplished.

Getting him confirmed gives us the first real hope we have ever had that we might get out from under the thumb of Big Pharma. Kennedy's only real protection against the onslaught of evil he faces, and thus his only real prospect of confirmation, is us; our prayerful, collective, vigilant, intentional and active participation as citizens of this blessed nation.

Write a letter. Confirm RFK Jr to HHS.