Twain knew what was up!

A far cry from the factory public schools, St. Bernard's School, one of, if not THE top secondary school in NYC (of course, it's a private school), has a beautiful "Statement of Purpose" here: http://www.stbernards.org/about_us/purpose

Today's quotation says it all. Politicians have destroyed America's once great public school system. The quality of a public school education through about the early 1960s was impressive. Now, all this "feel good" stuff is enervating and undermining America's youth.

Thanks, Ann! I've just bookmarked "The Philosophy of Liberty". Freedom requires discipline, hard work, and constant vigilance. Slavery is the easy way out, but it isn't living.

When I was growing up, Richard "Tricky Dicky" Ando, then Head of the Hawaii State Teachers Association, sent his son, Dean, to private school. What better commentary on public education do you need?

Hey, Waffler, you said, "Public school kids don't generally march into the classroom, wear a uniform etc.". Public school kids don't wear uniforms, but they *have* been known to stab one another over the latest basketball shoes, or over leather jackets. School uniforms remove the fashion-competition component from education.

Academia is the ivory tower of b.s. that needs to fall. I've had several tenured computer science professors "teaching" the C programming language out and out incorrectly. I've had a tenured professor of German mispronouncing German names (and "correcting" those who pronounced those names properly). I've had Art History instructors mispronouncing French names. Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach. If I had children, I'd take responsibility for their education and home school them.

cal is right! Before WWII, more individual Americans could *do* things, such as home repair, sewing, growing food. Nowadays, it seems more Americans are managers and academics--people who can't *do* anything themselves. Compare that to China where, I've heard from American expatriats, that everyone knows how to repair things, sew, grow things. Which nation do you think will come out on top? The nation of Affirmative Action, Unions, and Welfare, or the nation of poverty and drive?

"a slavery so complete that people dont even know they are in it"--Don't ALL organisms have the tendency to accept ease at the price of slavery? This enslavement comes in the guise of convenience. "We have given our hearts away" (Wordsworth) for convenience. Fight convenience at every turn.

"the example of weak and unworthy authority, longstanding custom"--The ivory tower of academia embodies these most of all. It's the next idol that needs to be toppled. I've observed many professors who, believing themselves unerring, have been out and out wrong about everything from the pronunciation of words, to the meaning of "liberal", to how to write C programs. We must all strive to think for ourselves, and to constantly question how we arrived at our opinions.

The older I get the more I realize how much of history must have been fabricated by scribes under tyrants' employ. The only people I trust are those who "go about (their) business and sleep well at night", like the lamplighter in Antoine de Saint-Exupery's _The Little Prince_ (Katharine Woods translation and no other!).

Time to home school!!!

Wow. That's it, in a nutshell. Note that King calls mom and dad the "MAIN educational agency" (not the sole). Doesn't the lack of this "main educational agency" explain many of the problems in our current society, and even with our current Narcissist President? If the following link doesn't work: http://samvak.tripod.com/obama.html, google obama narcissist vaknin.

Yeah, SOMEONE, just not Secretary of the Treasury, Tim Geithner, or Wall Street CEOs with their dough stashed in offshore tax havens.

When a society deviates too much from Spartan discipline, especially during prolonged periods of peace and prosperity, enervation and decay are bound to set in. I love John Adams, but feel a need to extrapolate from his quotation, I must study politics and war, that my sons may have the liberty to study mathematics and philosophy, natural history and naval architecture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, tapestry, and porcelain.. America has gone soft, and even our art and music are low on technique and high in vulgarity.

[off-topic] @Anonymous, Many thanks for the link to Reason.TV's interview with Walter Williams. I am embarrassed to say that this is the first time I'd heard of Williams. Like so many GENUINE black intellectuals ( Thomas Sowell, Alan Keyes, etc. ), Williams gets almost no press these days ( when compared with camera-courting poseurs like Jesse Jackson ). Williams espouses the cultivation of the superior weapons of personal discipline and hard work. Without superior (intellectual) weapons and superior discipline no culture will thrive.

Robin and jim k, Thank you for getting the word out about jury nullification--one post at a time! Isn't it interesting how frequently laws that empower the citizenry are swept under the rug?

Ain't *that* the truth. I wonder how America's Founding Fathers would feel about Obama's nanny state...

I also like this other Emerson quotation: "Dont say things. What you are stands over you the while, and thunders so that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary." From: http://quotationsbook.com/quote/44938/#ixzz1HfYQYa9T on Quotations Book

Right on!

jim k, J Carlton, and Mike, THANK YOU (jim k) for setting the record straight, one post at a time, (J Carlton) for speaking the truth about America's failed two-party system, and (Mike) for pointing out the key phrase, "if they are strong enough", and that key catalyst, Barry Obama--that Narcissistic walking disaster who is awakening even the most complacent Americans.

J Carlton, well said!!! God Bless America!!!

I ridiculed Reagan when he was in office, back when I was a knowitall knee-jerk liberal, in college, supported by my parents, and smoking pot every day. Now that I'm working and better-informed, I realized Reagan knew what was up with our country. Thank God most voters back then were more responsible and patriotic than I was, and elected Reagan over Carter!!!

Kevin, You took the words right out of my mouth. Especially frightening is the mainstream media's complicity in the Obamafuscation of America. I'll add that "our" current Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sibelius, is at the forefront of silencing insurance companies that try to complain about increased costs due to Obamacare.