[MD] Value and the Individual

[pholden at davtv.com]

Quoting Arlo Bensinger <ajb102 at psu.edu>:

> The real tragedy is the Raygun propaganda that proclaims the 
> "guvermint" to the enemy. No wonder America is so schizophrenic, if 
> the government is "we the people" and the government is "the big evil 
> that wants to enslave liberty lovin' individuals", then we have a 
> huge crisis of identity.

"We the people" put the reigns on government, using it to protect individual
liberty and, as Pirsig points out, to protect the intellectual level from the
forces of collectivism. The only crises of identity is your own.  

> And, if the citizenry was happy with the stratified and unequal 
> educational opportunities preceding "public education", they never 
> would have demanded it. And this underscores a more important point. 
> The success or failure of any school, public or private, rests on the 
> VALUE those involved place on education. And from that value they 
> know why there are there, they know why they are involved, and they 
> CARE. When this happens on the community level, as it has in Finland 
> and Japan, public education is fully successful.

Right, like it was in Communist Russia, Socialist Italy and Nazi Germany.
 
> But hey, that's a mute point for those who equate the public funding 
> of education with the mass murders of Stalin and the terrorist 
> bombings of the Twin Towers.

"The most terrifying words in the English language are: 'I'm from the government
and I'm here to help.'"  -- Ronald Reagan



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