"Keep clear of the dupes that talk democracy,
And the dogs that bark revolution.
Drunk with talk, liars and believers.
I believe in my tusks. Long live freedom and damn the ideologies!"
(Robinson Jeffers)
People have been writing to ask what happened to Liberty’s Torch V2.0. They’ve also been asking where to go for all the essays that were posted there. The first question is easily answered: Hosting Matters, which was recommended to me as a Web host by a friend – “You’ll love it, Fran!” – rendered the site inaccessible in the process of some back-end maneuver that was never explained to me. After several exchanges of emails with their “support” personnel, I became enraged and decided to terminate my account with them. Frankly, it was overdue; Hosting Matters had provided me many reasons to dislike their services over the not-quite-five years I’d dealt with them.
The second question is also easily answered: At this time, those pieces are unavailable. There were a lot of them: more than four thousand. As I’m mortally weary of this business of changing hosts and reposting old material, they’ll remain unavailable unless something highly improbable should occur.
For the time being, whatever I write will appear here at Liberty’s Torch V1.0. Blogger, whatever else might be said about it, is a reliable Web host. I’ve never had an outage here, nor any loss of material. So when the Spirit moves me, here is where any new pieces will appear.
But I’m tired and sorely tried. I don’t have much left in me. I got up this morning, poured my coffee, perched before this computer, and asked myself, “What will today’s piece be about?” And in contemplating that question, I realized that I’ve come to dread continuing as I’ve done.
After three decades of regular posting – usually at least one piece per day – I think I’ve shot my wad. It may have been the disaster with Hosting Matters that precipitated the realization, but it’s accurate nonetheless.
So posting will be irregular henceforward. Apologies to those Gentle Readers who’ve enjoyed the fare here. Unless someone with a better compass than Ponce de Leon should discover the Fountain of Youth, that will be the way of things from here on.
Yes, I’ll still be writing fiction, though that, too, will slow down. Once again, my apologies to anyone disappointed by these announcements. Be well.
From too much love of living,
From hope and fear set free,
We thank with brief thanksgiving
Whatever gods may be
That no life lives for ever;
That dead men rise up never;
That even the weariest river
Winds somewhere safe to sea.
The world of Internet acronyms moves much faster than I can track it. Just a few days ago, I learned about DARVO: “Deny And Reverse Victim and Offender.” It’s easier to pronounce than many of the others, which is a blessing. The tactic to which it refers is a strictly Leftist thing, well exemplified by Leftists’ insistence that the murdered Charlie Kirk was a “fascist” and that assassin Tyler Robinson is merely a “troubled kid” who needs “help.”
Owing to the rise of popular fury over that assassination and other attempts to gun down Republicans and conservatives, the DARVO gambit isn’t getting much traction lately. So the Left’s spokesmen are trying another, which – so far as I know – doesn’t yet have its own acronym. The new mantra is “Both Sides Are Responsible.” (BSAR, anyone?)
Given the reported acts of violence of recent years, that’s more than a little disingenuous. At least, I can’t name a conservative who’s targeted a Leftist. While the initial attempts to characterize Tyler Robinson as a MAGA fan failed miserably, the attempts themselves are a giveaway of the Left’s rhetorical desperation. “Racist,” “fascist,” “homophobe,” “Islamophobe,” and “xenophobe” haven’t been carrying their weight lately. The first two have been brutally overused, whereas the other three simply haven’t gained traction.
Political polemicists have to work with what they’ve got. On the Left, that’s precious little. They’ve striven to equate the murder of a popular conservative by an AntiFa-aligned killer to an intemperate statement from the chairman of the FCC. If that doesn’t suggest desperation, I can’t imagine what would. Still, the chant has gone up that “both sides are responsible” for political violence in the Twenty-First Century United States.
As the major channels of communication continue to be far more friendly to the Left than the Right, there haven’t been many prominent slapdowns of the BSAR assertion. One must stand for many: Greg Gutfeld’s evisceration of Jessica Tarlov yesterday night. A choice snippet:
The left calls Trump a hate monger. They’ve called me a hate monger because I ridicule the left. I ridicule protesters. I ridicule academia, Hollywood, the news media. I make fun of The View every day. I make fun of the UN. Guess what? No one acts on the things that I say because my side doesn’t do that!
We say people are stupid, we say people are wrong, but we don’t say they’re evil. That is YOUR game!
And then you come and you say, ‘This is a mentally ill loner.’ Well, who do you think does this stuff? It’s not Ben Affleck, it’s not Tom Brady…People who do this stuff are always that way.
The question is, who points them in that direction? Why pick ICE? Why pick Charlie Kirk? Why target TV stations and put bombs under FOX trucks? Why vandalize memorials? Why kill kids in Catholic schools?”
And indeed, both the vicious rhetoric and the consequent violence are emitted solely by the Left. The Right has produced no James Hodgkinsons or Tyler Robinsons. But even one act of violence from a conservative against a popular Leftist could provide BSAR the grounding it seeks. The Right must be careful not to provide even the slightest substantiation for the Left’s calumnies against us. Else BSAR’s ceremonial tune will resound from coast to coast. The Right, with its far lesser media presence, will be hard pressed to counter it.
Long, long ago, in a suburb not too far away, I had a teacher for American history who started the year with a striking proposition: specifically, that American history education has been forced into a “good guys versus bad guys” model. (Henceforward, the Model.) He could have named names, but he didn’t. Instead, he presented the Model to us and asked us whether it accurately summarized the way we’d been taught to view American history in our earlier school years.
It did. It does. It continues to dominate the teaching of American history to this day. It will come as no surprise to my readers that the Model proposes that the “good guys” are on the big-government / international-interventionist left.
Now, that teacher had a screw or two loose. He thought compound interest on mortgages (especially his) was “unfair.” He felt it was entirely acceptable to belittle those of us who sought careers in science and technology. And he was an ardent, evangelistic political conservative, one of the very few I encountered in my school years. I shan’t describe his idiosyncrasies any further than that. But he did capture the prevailing Model of American history accurately. (Needless to say, he taught from the opposite perspective.)
One of the implications of the Model is, of course, that those administrations opposed to big government and international meddling are therefore bad. A teacher presenting American history to his students under the Model faces certain challenges. For example, he must reconcile the admiration of the administrations of Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, and Grover Cleveland – three Democrat presidents – with the Left’s disapproval of limited government / noninterventionist sentiments. Preserving the Democrat label from association with limited government and noninterventionism can be a chore, especially when the first genuinely “progressive” president, in the contemporary sense, was Theodore Roosevelt, a Republican.
To that end, American history before the Wilson Administration is glossed over rather than treated as a serious subject worthy of detailed attention. When the teacher presents details for study, they’re the ones that run counter to the sentiments that prevailed in those years: Jefferson’s Louisiana Purchase; Jackson’s support for slavery; Cleveland’s intervention in the Pullman strike. The rest is wrapped in murk, lest the young mind be drawn to the limited government / noninterventionist way of thought.
The Model can follow the young person into his adult life, and often does. It can warp his perception of social and political developments. It can predispose him against public figures identified with the small-government / America-First ideology. That the big-government / globalist model is antithetical to the principles on which the country was founded doesn’t get his attention, much less serious study.
This comes to mind this morning for reasons disconnected from most current events. However, it does explain the Left’s sanctification of Democrat administrations starting with Woodrow Wilson, America’s first openly globalist president. It also explains the Left’s vilification of the administrations that have run counter to the big-government / globalist pattern. If the former is Good, the latter must be Evil, regardless of any other considerations.
A little while ago, I encountered a poster on X / Twitter who claimed, quite barefacedly, that it’s been Republican administrations that have been responsible for America’s involvement in foreign wars. I couldn’t quite believe my eyes, as that poster has said many intelligent and observant things. But she had not paid attention to the details of history since 1900:
World War I: entered by Woodrow Wilson.
World War II: entered by Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Korean War: entered by Harry S. Truman, concluded by Dwight Eisenhower.
Vietnam War: entered by John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, concluded by Richard Nixon.
Only the grip of the Model can explain that degree of historical ignorance in an otherwise intelligent, generally erudite person.
If you’re the parent of a young American in high school today, watch for the effects of the Model. Chat with Junior about what he’s being taught about the history of his country. If you sense the Model in operation, do what you can – gently, of course – to correct its influence. Introducing your child to the facts, and to other historical perspectives, is critical. In this regard I heartily recommend the late Clarence Carson’s six-book series A Basic History of the United States, which is suitable for teenaged readers.
Historical literacy is among the things the Left fears most. Consider only the effects of the Model on contemporary left-inclined Americans. How many fewer would there be, were it not for the tendentiousness of juvenile education in American history?
Just in case you’ve spent the month of September on Ganymede, Charlie Kirk’s memorial was held yesterday. It overfilled a giant stadium. It included the president and vice-president of the United States, most Cabinet secretaries, and a number of other notables. The estimates of the crowd in attendance, both inside and outside State Farm Stadium, hover around 300,000. That makes it the largest scheduled event to have occurred in America in the Twenty-First Century.
One must conclude that it drew some interest.
I shan’t go on about Charlie Kirk. Plenty has been said about him by people who actually knew him. I didn’t, so my opinion counts for little. But his murder has proved to be a galvanizing event. Various people have said it’s sparked a revival of Christian faith. That’s notable in a nation that’s been trending secular for some decades.
How? Why?
I could go on about that, too, but I’ll spare you. If you’ve been reading my crap for any length of time, you know I’m a serious Catholic. You also know that I’m an unabashed promoter of the Christian faith. Denomination matters less than the acceptance of the Resurrection. That underpins everything else.
There’s a book on my shelves by a certain Richard Rubinstein, titled When Jesus Became God. It’s about the doctrinal conflicts within early Christianity that eventuated in the Council of Nicea and its proclamations. It makes fascinating reading. But what I have in mind at the moment is a passage from the very beginning of the book, when the author is talking to a Catholic priest about the various notions that circulated in the late Roman Empire about Christ. Rubinstein says point-blank that except for the assertion that Jesus of Nazareth was divine, he could become a Christian himself.
That’s the impact the life and teachings of Jesus have on people today, quite apart from Christian doctrine that He is the Second Person of the Divine Trinity.
Unfortunately, Christianity today is in the hands of conservators and promulgators who are at best inept. Many of them act as if they’re embarrassed by their faith. Nearly all of them seem reluctant to talk to non-Christians about it.
From what I’ve read about Charlie Kirk, he was the reverse of reluctant. He took pride and pleasure in his faith. It was the foundation of his identity. It pervaded his marriage and family. He would talk about it with anyone who would listen.
It made Kirk the most effective evangelist for Christianity since Aimee Semple McPherson. Forget the televangelists and the revival-tent preachers. Their events are attended almost exclusively by the already persuaded. Kirk was the real deal: a speaker who could bring even a lifelong atheist to Christ.
Never mind the politics. Kirk was first and foremost a Christian and an evangelist for Christ. His words reached open ears, not because of the words themselves – plenty of preachers have said the same things, sometimes more eloquently – but because those who listened to him knew at once that he was wholehearted and sincere. Admirable.
An admirable man draws admiration. That brings about emulation. But the emulator realizes at once that the admirable one’s foundation is utterly vital. He must start from there, for all else is built upon it and would collapse without it.
If there is to be a revival of Christian faith and adherence in the United States, Charlie Kirk must be credited with a great part of it.
The world will miss Charlie Kirk. We needed him more than anyone knew. It doesn’t matter that not everyone will accept all of his prescriptions and proscriptions. The Christian denominations vary somewhat, too. But all of them accept the Resurrection.
Accepting the Resurrection is the key to all the rest. Lee Strobel learned that by trying to refute the Resurrection... and failing. His book, not long ago dramatized in an exceptional movie, tell a compelling tale of a man’s transformation from atheist to believer. Yet Strobel, a well-regarded journalist, was unexceptional in any way but this: he was willing to look at the evidence.
It’s the evidence that transforms the unbeliever into a believer. From that all else follows: Christ’s teachings, His miracles, His combined human-divine nature, and what follows from them.
And it is exactly what we need today.
Rather than belabor this still further, herewith please find a piece from Liberty’s Torch V2.0 that first appeared there on May 19, 2024. It’s mostly about another young Christian who experienced a great deal of vilification for daring to express his faith and its teachings in a forum much smaller than State Farm Stadium. Concerning the predicted revival of American Christianity, let’s hope Charlie Kirk’s memorial is only the beginning.
Births And Rebirths
Happy Pentecost, the birthday of the Church. On this day two millennia ago, the Apostles were granted the gift of the Holy Spirit, which emboldened and equipped them for the mission with which Christ had charged them:
Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them. And when they saw him, they worshipped him: but some doubted.
And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.
[Matthew 28:16-20]
Christ’s final promise to His Apostles was that He would send the Holy Spirit to them, that they might fulfill that mission. That promise was kept ten days after His Ascension. That was also how the Apostles finally gained the courage to leave their refuge and begin their public ministry.
They needed courage. They had seen Him crucified. Were they to reveal themselves as His Apostles, would not the same fate befall them? And indeed, all but one of the Apostles were martyred in the course of their ministry. Only John, youngest of the Twelve, escaped that fate.
And two millennia later, we confront a new age of disdain for Christ’s teachings and persecution of those who follow Him. It sometimes seems we have learned nothing from our trials and the sorrows of our forebears. But our enemies have learned something. They no longer crucify. Today they wield weapons far more formidable: ridicule and deceit.
***
We were warned:
Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you. [Matthew 5:11-12]
You don’t need to look very hard, or very far, to see that Christ spoke truly. Some of the abuse even comes from within our own number. Note what’s happened to Harrison Butker. You’ve heard about the talk he gave at Benedictine College’s graduation ceremony, haven’t you? Well, just in case you haven’t:
I didn’t know the first thing about Butker before the contretemps over that talk erupted on the Web:
I didn’t know he’s an NFL placekicker;
I didn’t know he has two Super Bowl rings;
I didn’t know he’s a Catholic, or a married man, or the father of two children.
Today I know all those things, and that he’s an admirable speaker as well. I also know this: he is currently experiencing exactly what Christ predicted:
Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.
The sisters of Mount St. Scholastica do not believe that Harrison Butker’s comments in his 2024 Benedictine College commencement address represent the Catholic, Benedictine, liberal arts college that our founders envisioned and in which we have been so invested.
Instead of promoting unity in our church, our nation, and the world, his comments seem to have fostered division. One of our concerns was the assertion that being a homemaker is the highest calling for a woman. We sisters have dedicated our lives to God and God’s people, including the many women whom we have taught and influenced during the past 160 years. These women have made a tremendous difference in the world in their roles as wives and mothers and through their God-given gifts in leadership, scholarship, and their careers.
Our community has taught young women and men not just how to be “homemakers” in a limited sense, but rather how to make a Gospel-centered, compassionate home within themselves where they can welcome others as Christ, empowering them to be the best versions of themselves. We reject a narrow definition of what it means to be Catholic. We are faithful members of the Catholic Church who embrace and promote the values of the Gospel, St. Benedict, and Vatican II and the teachings of Pope Francis.
We want to be known as an inclusive, welcoming community, embracing Benedictine values that have endured for more than 1500 years and have spread through every continent and nation. We believe those values are the core of Benedictine College.
I could hardly have believed it, were it not an official, public statement from the Daughters of St. Scholastica. That it misstates Butker’s speech in the sole objective criticism it makes is merely icing on an already distasteful cake. Clearly, that order of nuns has “gone woke.”
Isabelle Butker stands staunchly behind her husband. You can read about her at several places on the Web. Her faith is as joyous as his, and just as undisguised:
Much like Harrison, Isabelle was also a college athlete, playing women’s basketball at Rhodes College in Tennessee. According to her player bio, Isabelle played in 26 games and averaged seven minutes per game.”
During his controversial speech, Harrison revealed that Isabelle converted to Catholicism after she began dating him. “I had a moment one day where I was asking God, you know, ‘OK, can you just show me what is the right path? Do I go this way or do I go with what Harrison’s doing? And it was weird in that moment, I actually felt like I was physically being embraced,’” Isabelle shared in a May 2019 interview with EWTN. “And we were at Mass at the time, and that was kind of the moment when I decided, ‘I want to be Catholic. This is real, this is the truth.’”
Harrison and Isabelle tied the knot in 2018. “I will continue to pray for the strength and perseverance to sacrifice for you everyday [sic] of our marriage,” Harrison captioned photos from their big day via X in April 2018. “I love you Izzy!”
The couple went on to welcome their son, James, in January 2019, followed by their daughter, whose birthday and name have not been publicly revealed. The couple are currently expecting their third child.
The Butkers stand above all of the Sturm und Drang. They have something their attackers don’t: the gift the Apostles received on that first Pentecost, two millennia ago. In every individual who prays for and receives that gift, the Church is reborn.
***
I’ll say it again, and in large font so that there’s no mistaking it:
We don’t need governments. We need Christ.
That’s what Harrison Butker and Isabelle have: a genuine, undisguised, Holy-Spirit-powered faith and the courage to live and proclaim it.
What do their detractors have? What do they have to show that compares at all to the Butkers’ unconcealed joy in their marriage, their children, or their faith? What if they were to succeed in destroying him utterly? What joy would that bring them? Wouldn’t they just go hunting for new victims – more of Christ’s people to denigrate and destroy?
C. S. Lewis called them “those who have not joy.” He was quite accurate in that, possibly more so than even he knew. Their pleasures come from destruction, like the apotheoses of O’Brien’s vision in 1984:
“The old civilizations claimed that they were founded on love or justice. Ours is founded upon hatred. In our world there will be no emotions except fear, rage, triumph, and self-abasement. Everything else we shall destroy everything. Already we are breaking down the habits of thought which have survived from before the Revolution. We have cut the links between child and parent, and between man and man, and between man and woman. No one dares trust a wife or a child or a friend any longer. But in the future there will be no wives and no friends. Children will be taken from their mothers at birth, as one takes eggs from a hen. The sex instinct will be eradicated. Procreation will be an annual formality like the renewal of a ration card. We shall abolish the orgasm. Our neurologists are at work upon it now. There will be no loyalty, except loyalty towards the Party. There will be no love, except the love of Big Brother. There will be no laughter, except the laugh of triumph over a defeated enemy. There will be no art, no literature, no science. When we are omnipotent we shall have no more need of science. There will be no distinction between beauty and ugliness. There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed. But always — do not forget this, Winston — always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face — for ever.”
If you ever yearned to know toward what end, what ultimate satisfaction, the enemies of Christ are aimed, there it is. The label doesn’t matter. Socialist? Communist? Humanist? Atheist? Pagan? Satanist? Muslim? Environmentalist? Feminist? They all have that one thing in common: they want absolute and unbounded power over you: what you do, what you say, even what you think. Because it’s the firmest barrier against them, they hate the Church that was born on the Pentecost. And they will do anything whatsoever, including things no decent man could imagine, to tarnish and damage it.
***
Today of all days, let the Church be reborn in you. Profess Christ. Embrace Him and His Gospel. Denominational differences fade in importance if you can do that one indispensable thing. For as He said to the Pharisees:
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” [Matthew 22:37-40]
Let the Pentecost come upon you as it came upon the Apostles two millennia ago. And may God bless and keep you all.
Having reviewed the various topics I have in mind for new pieces, I’ve decided to take the rest of today, September 21, 2025, off to read and reflect. Enjoy your Sunday.
The following tweet offers a penetrating analysis of what happens when migrants from low-trust societies enter a high-trust society:
What I call “The Candy Bowl Problem” is the reason why Indians, who almost no one in the our country thought about 25 years ago, are increasingly hated.
During Halloween, kiddos go door-to-door saying "trick or treat" and receive candy. Sometimes, a person isn't home and so they…
Please click through and read it all. Then extend the reasoning to domestic exploiters: those who, owing to unnatural and unjustifiable restraint on the part of law enforcement, justice authorities, and decent persons generally, have concluded that they can violate the norms of a high-trust society with impunity.
In yesterday’s piece, I suggested that we should get off the Mishnory Road when it comes to the education of our young. Most “educational reformers” concentrate on curricula, discipline, and the purging of teachers who indoctrinate rather than teach. They seldom contemplate the truly dramatic step I have in mind.
Government-run schools are a total disaster just about everywhere in this country. They produce the lowest-quality graduates in American history: not merely ignorant, but functionally illiterate, innumerate, and uninquisitive. The parents of school-age children agree on this by an overwhelming margin. Yet the system continues. It acquires more “responsibilities” with every passing year. The amounts of money being poured into the schools, already torrential, are regularly criticized as “not enough.”
Clearly someone must be benefiting from all this. Or perhaps we’ve wedged ourselves into a metastable state, such that even small changes could topple the whole edifice. So for a first step, let’s retreat to a comfortable distance. Perhaps the change in perspective will improve our understanding of what we see.
Schooling is one of the largest “industries” in America. It employs millions of teachers, aides, counselors, administrators, and maintenance staff. It requires tens of thousands of buildings and a proportional number of acres of land. It expends nearly a trillion dollars per year to do... whatever it is that it does.
So the system provides a great many jobs. The people who hold those jobs would be as unhappy about losing them as you or I would be about losing ours. And of course, they want their incomes to increase over time. They constitute a formidable political force – so formidable that when he campaigned for the presidency, Jimmy Carter had to sway them to his side by promising them a federal Department of Education.
Now let’s look at the “customers” of the public-schooling “industry:” the school-age children and their parents or guardians. Ultimately, the system must satisfy them to some extent; the public schools are funded mainly at the state and local levels, where they can be (partially) defunded by community votes. So what are those customers getting from the system?
Parents are getting a reduction of their responsibilities. Schoolchildren get access to facilities and activities they might not have otherwise. The kids don’t feel the direct impact of the system’s cost. The parents certainly do. Many families wouldn’t need a second income, were school taxes and other schooling-related expenses to vanish.
Schoolchildren pay a kind of price for the system, too. They pay through their enforced endurance of things they could otherwise avoid. Indoctrination. Hostility. Violence.
No overview would be complete without taking note of the third parties that benefit from the schooling system: labor unions, bureaucrats, and the vendors of “educational materials.” With nearly a trillion dollars per year being spent on the schools, they have a powerful incentive to keep it going – and growing.
Taxpayers routinely find themselves outmaneuvered politically by the system’s beneficiaries. At any rate, the costs keep increasing. Teachers, aides, and administrators want more money. Special interests clamor for the schools to take on new activities. Sometimes school districts float bonds to fund the mounting costs, which only increases them. The special interests, of course, will always push for more.
At the center of it all is the public school: a building, or a cluster of buildings, perched somewhere near the center of the district. Each day ten months of the year, hundreds of individuals of all ages trudge in at an early hour and trudge out at a later one. And the system rolls merrily along.
Now imagine that a hand reaches down from the clouds, plucks the public schools out of our reality, and removes them to some unknown realm. It may be the hand of God. Or perhaps it’s the collapse in birthrates. In either case, what would come next?
First, school taxes would vanish. As they constitute one of the largest expenses families face, the economic relief would be considerable. Mandatory-schooling statutes would lose force, and would probably be repealed.
Some parents would seek a private school for their kids. Without the school tax burden, that would become much more affordable. In response to the demand, private schools would increase in number. Whether their quality would improve is debatable, though the market incentives would favor it.
But some parents would homeschool.
Many working mothers are unhappy with the demands of the working world. They’d rather be with their kids while the kids are young. Once the school taxes are gone, a good percentage of them would calculate that they could leave their jobs without depriving the family of what it needs. These would take the responsibility for their children’s educations onto themselves, whether alone or in combination with some of their neighbors. Home education has proved superior to schooling in nearly every known instance.
Not all mothers would opt to do that, of course. But the sense that American women are made unhappy by the combination of child-rearing and contributing to the family income suggests that many would find it an attractive course.
There would be negative effects as well. A great many persons whose incomes depend on the public schools would need new jobs. The educational labor unions would lose many members. Vendors who sell to the public schools would need to find new markets. Other interest groups would shrink as their participants decreased. Bureaucrats, no longer charged with responsibility for overseeing American education would... well, honestly, who cares what would happen to bureaucrats?
With parental choice in education restored, the homeschoolers would be in direct competition with the private schools. Over time, the more successful model would be revealed. The less successful one would diminish, though probably not to zero.
And that’s just the view from thirty thousand feet.
It won’t happen, of course. “Too many rice bowls,” and so forth. But it’s a very appealing scenario. Among its most attractive aspects would be the diminution of opportunities for political and social indoctrinators to work their wills on our kids. Parental choice would put a severe clamp on such things.
While the public schools are the worst in that regard, private schools are affected by it as well. The parents of privately-schooled children can be as contentious as those of public schoolers. Many political or social axes to grind. Schools, being inherently collectivizing institutions, are always attractive to persons with that agenda.
I suppose that’s enough fantasizing for a Saturday morning. Please add your thoughts in the comments section. And do have a nice day.
Americans in the Right have been exercised about the sad state of American education for decades. While relying on any individual metric is dangerous, as “educational quality” is inherently immensurable, education appears to have hit its peak in the years immediately after World War II and started to slide thereafter. Today it’s a joke. American teens leave high school knowing less, and being less prepared to think for themselves, than at any time since the founding of the nation. The schools largely exist to provide jobs to “educators” and administrators.
The defenders of mass education – note and remember that term, please; its significance will soon be apparent – have all sorts of rationales for it. Remember “basic skills?” Remember “socialization?” Remember “keeping the little monsters out of the labor pool?” No, that last one has never been discussed a lot, but it was among the first of the real reasons for compulsory schooling. The labor unions were big backers.
We in the Right have grappled with all those arguments. Given the abysmal performance of the schools – note this too; with few exceptions, the private schools barely exceed the performance of the “public” ones – we’ve displayed a notable reluctance to break away from the public-education model. Instead, most conservative education activists focus on “reform.” But the notion that one can reform a government-run institution in a significant and enduring way is inherently foolish. Governments and their institutions obey a dynamic wholly different from that of wholesome ones.
Public education and mandatory schooling are inherent to the problem. If we want real, enduring improvement in education, those things must end. Conservatives are steadily moving toward that realization. But the problem doesn’t end with them.
Schooling collectivizes education. Even in its best instances – curricula that omit everything but actual education; teachers who really teach rather than indoctrinate; students who earnestly seek the improvement of their minds – it bends inexorably toward uniformity. Worse, that uniformity gravitates toward the students least ready, willing, and able to learn.
Collectivization is something freedom lovers should know to avoid.
I had a “Mishnory Road” moment a little earlier. A fellow-traveler in the Right was ranting about educational reform. I found that the subject made me unbelievably weary, in that Dear God, haven’t we been here before? fashion. So did my colleague’s prescriptions. All of them were as familiar as leftovers eaten for lunch.
That weariness made me say to myself Why not break the mold? Why not ditch the schooling model instead of trying to make it serve purposes it probably can’t serve?
I didn’t say anything then and there. I just started to think from the premise that the model itself – education collectivized via schooling – is the source of our troubles. The more I thought about it, the more I liked it.
Rather than pursue this further at this early hour, I’ll leave it here for you, Gentle Reader. To think about. What current, widespread practices would have to change were Americans to avoid schooling our kids? Would those changes be beneficial:
To the children;
To their parents;
To their communities;
To the nation?
Please try to be specific about the costs, benefits, and demerits.
I’ll be back later or tomorrow with my own thoughts. Meanwhile, enjoy your day.
