by Al Benson Jr.
Although I am writing this, frankly, I don't expect very many people will want to pay much attention to it. You see, it will go against the grain of the propaganda they have been fed and ingested for well over the past century or so, and to do something about the problem would involve personal responsibility, and most folks today flee personal responsibility as they would the plague.
The small North Louisiana town I live in thinks the local public schools there are the greatest thing since sliced bread. The possibility that the local public schools there may be brainwashing their children is the last thing they want to hear, and so if you dare to approach the subject they just tune you out. "Don't confuse me with the facts, please." It's so much better to remain ignorant, then I don't have to DO anything. This is the typical attitude in town and cities across the South, and the rest of the country, too.
The public school is sacrosanct. It is the sacred cow. The only time anyone ever dares question it is if their kid wears a Confederate flag tee shirt to school and gets sent home for that. The black kid next to him may have a Malcolm X tee shirt on, but that's okay. It gets an automatic pass, just like the tee shirt with the "gay pride" stuff all over it. These are okay, by public school standards today, but your kid's Confederate flag tee shirt has to come off, immediately if not sooner. If the parents decide to protest this, the result is usually far from satisfactory.
I've talked with folks whose kids or grandkids come home from public school spouting anti-Confederate propaganda about how the Confederate flag is "racist." I despise the term "racist" because it is of Trotskyite origin and every time we use it we are playing on our opponents' turf. Same thing when we argue with the local public school bureaucrat about our kid's Confederate flag tee shirt--we are playing on their turf and it's a battle we will seldom win. They already know that. We haven't figured it out yet.
Rather than going through an exercise in exasperation, what we should start doing is just taking the kids out of public school. What we need to do when a problem arises is to just go and state our position politely and then inform the local education commisar "my child will not be returning to your school again." Don't fuss, fume, or get ticked off--the educrat likes that and it gives him or her a reason to put their thumb down on you as a "recalcitrant parent." So don't fuss, just take the kid out. End of conversation! That will derpive the local school district of, depending on where you live, anywhere from $2,000 to $5,000 per year in federal money. And if there were a big enough flap over Confederate symbols in one particular area and ten people had the guts to remove their kids from the public system, you can see where that would cost the local public brain laundry some serious money.
Most Southern folks seem to have the opinion that the local public school is second cousin to God, motherhood and apple pie--and it just ain't so. It never was. People love to prattle about the "good old days" when they went to public school and how much better it would be if we could just go back to that. Sorry to disillusion you, but those "good old days" never really existed. The public school's foundations were bad from day one. Public schools, as we now have them, were originally started up in New England, Massachusetts to be specific. The major mover and shaker in starting them was a man named Horace Mann. You may even have seen schools named after him, I have. But do you really know doodly sqat about him?
Horace Mann was a Unitarian. Know what that is? Know what Unitarians believe? They are people, calling themselves Christians, who do not recognize the Deity of Jesus Christ, who think Jesus may have been a great moral example and teacher, but definitely not the Son of God. What really bothered Mann was the influence of church schools in his area. In fact, that bothered him so much that he sought to come up with a way to counteract it.
He didn't think kids should be influenced by Christian education, that they would be better off in "secular" (humanist) schools, run by the state and regulated by the state, where Christian ideas and influence could be muted, and eventually done away with.
To be continued.
Reprinted from The Confederate Sentry, Vol. 19, Number 3, 2013
6 comments:
Looking forward to part two.
Karl,
Hopefully in a couple days. I am due to speak at the local SCV camp on Tuesday 5/20 and my subject will be how "reconstruction" in the South after the War of Northern Aggression was responsible for bringing public schools into the Southern states. Please pray I can do a good job and get a decent crowd.
I despise the term "racist" because it is of Trotskyite origin and every time we use it we are playing on our opponents' turf.
Al, I have recently come to this conclusion myself, and have decided not to use this term in any of my own blog posts. It is a bogus term, overused to the point of absurdity, and is in fact a Marxist-style abstraction that cannot possibly describe any individual's outlook on race. It is a trigger word, a propaganda tool, and too many so-called conservatives use it at the drop of a hat.
Stogie,
Due to the nature of some of the stuff I write, I have to use the word from time to time. What I do is always put it in quotes so folks will realize it's not my word. I do the same thing with the word "reconstruction" referring to that horrendous period after the War Between the States, which was actually deconstruction. The word was originally Marx's, when he referred to the "reconstruction of a social world" (the South) after the War was over.
Al, I have adopted the same convention -- at times when I have to use the word, I envelope it in quotes. Great minds think alike. I blog at confederategray.blogspot.com. I have linked you there and appreciate your long service to the South.
I agree with and admire your position on the federal "education system". The reason your idea will probably not catch hold is the same reason this system has continued to deteriorate decade after decade. It is easier to accept the existing situation than it is to use any alternative (all of which are of course repressed by the State). This illogic of course applies to many cultural issues in this country today.
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