Republic or Empire?

Republics and Empires cannot coexist; it is one or the other.  The Romans have a lot to teach us about this either/or scenario.

America's greatness rests in her devotion to liberty.  All economic and social blessings derive from this first principle.  The political manifestation of a society so dedicated to liberty is a constitutionally-limited Republic, or representative democratic based on the rule of law, not monarchy or aristocracy or timocracy devoted to military conquest.

The founders envisioned and initiated a Republic and constructed a Constitution explicitly for that Republic.

Currently with well over 700 military bases in over 130 countries around the globe, it is pressing for Americans to revisit the premises of the reflexive notion that we are the world's policeman, and that stretching our military around the globe makes us safer at home. 

From the Future of Freedom Foundation, some thoughts from John Quincy Adams on the subject:

AND NOW, FRIENDS AND COUNTRYMEN, if the wise and learned philosophers of the elder world, the first observers of nutation and aberration, the discoverers of maddening ether and invisible planets, the inventors of Congreve rockets and Shrapnel shells, should find their hearts disposed to enquire what has America done for the benefit of mankind?
Let our answer be this: America, with the same voice which spoke herself into existence as a nation, proclaimed to mankind the inextinguishable rights of human nature, and the only lawful foundations of government. America, in the assembly of nations, since her admission among them, has invariably, though often fruitlessly, held forth to them the hand of honest friendship, of equal freedom, of generous reciprocity.
She has uniformly spoken among them, though often to heedless and often to disdainful ears, the language of equal liberty, of equal justice, and of equal rights.
She has, in the lapse of nearly half a century, without a single exception, respected the independence of other nations while asserting and maintaining her own.
She has abstained from interference in the concerns of others, even when conflict has been for principles to which she clings, as to the last vital drop that visits the heart.
She has seen that probably for centuries to come, all the contests of that Aceldama the European world, will be contests of inveterate power, and emerging right.
Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be.
But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy.
She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all.
She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.
She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example.
She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom.
The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force....
She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit....
[America’s] glory is not dominion, but liberty. Her march is the march of the mind. She has a spear and a shield: but the motto upon her shield is, Freedom, Independence, Peace. This has been her Declaration: this has been, as far as her necessary intercourse with the rest of mankind would permit, her practice."~~John Q. Adams July 4, 1821

Semi Random Thoughts, CPAC Saturday Morning

Too Much Bipartisanship 

Ron Paul said we've had "too much bipartisanship" over the decades.  Both parties have agreed to get along and legislate us into the entitlement society approaching internal fiscal implosion that we find ourselves to be.  Since the New Deal, we have one party ever ready to expand the centralized welfare state and another party that seems to want no so much of that not as quickly.

Half of the one party (I hope it is at least half) wants no part of expanding the welfare state.  So instead of a two party system it looks like we have a one and a half party system.

I get the impression the half is growing, and the Republican Party is flirting with returning closer to its core principles. 

The Siren Song of Electability

I've heard the "Buckley Rule" tossed around a lot at CPAC.  Support the most conservative candidate that is electable. 

That dogma gave us who, again, as the last three Republican candidates for president?  McCain, Bush II, and Bob Dole.  And what did the one of these three that became president give us?  A vast expansion of the size and scope of government, two unconstitutional and unnecessary wars that are looking more and more like eternal occupations, and a setting of the table for everything that has happened since Inauguration Day, 2009.

Conservative activists interested in returning the party to its core principles are scorned, dismissed, and patronizingly labeled "purists" by the crowd I would call the let's-just-get-any-warm-body-or-empty-suit-Republican-elected.  The paramount goal for this crowd is getting not-Democrats elected and worry about the disastrous policy consequences later.  (Let's cross that bridge over the Rubicon when we get to it, shall we?)

Who are the "purists" again?  They are electoral purists.  Activists interested in a revival of liberty and limited government are principle purists. 

Rather than worry about who is electable, why not work to persuade enough Americans to prefer freedom?  Would votes then follow after principled candidates? Liberty sells; empty suit politicians who offer little alternative to that statism Americans instinctively know is wrong do not sell.

The country knows there is a lot at stake, that government has really left us in a bad place.  Isn't now the time for one big teaching moment?

The Elephant In Denial In The Room

As conservatives, what is upsetting about Barrack Obama?  Take three minutes and talk amongst yourselves...Okay.  Did everything you just jotted down come out of thin air starting in January 2009?

When is the honest public self examination going to take place?

There is an unfortunate reluctance for POTUS aspirants to focus solely on what the Left has been doing since 2009.  What part in the mess has the Republican Party played?  Listening to these speeches and tepid applause responses to same old cliched "They suck, now, don't they?" makes me feel like I'm sitting at the Thanksgiving table of a wildly dysfunctional family that refuses to outwardly acknowledge their dysfunction, looking down at their plates and avoiding eye contact, and counting the seconds until the game comes on and everyone can more easily avoid the gigantic elephant in the room.

Then Dr. Paul bursts in and tells everyone they've got to wake up and he get's cranberry sauce flung at him.

Doesn't matter.  He's not electable anyway.



 

"That's What I Think of When You Say 'Captialism' "

Like road signs, words are symbols.  They have general meanings that our minds share, direct us to act or react in a certain way, and allow us to know what everyone else is talking about.

So what is the common meaning of "capitalism"?  What has that symbol come to represent among every day people?

Last night after the Campaign for Liberty panel with Ron and Rand Paul I heard an unfavorable meaning of the word.  It is a variation I hear all too often.

Leaving the hotel, I stepped past a group of smokers just outside the doors.  "Watch this," a fellow said to the guy next to him, then made a bee line to one of the CPAC attendants standing a few feet away.  (CPAC attendants are readily recognizable in this huge hotel; our registration ID cards hang conspicuously around our necks on a blue ribbon with "CPAC.org" written all over them. )

I surmised the fellow making his way to the CPAC attendant was not an attendant and interested in a confrontation, so I decided to stick around.  I made a quick stop at the curb and acted like I was looking for a cab.

It was a one-sided conversation.  Here's a paraphrase of what the offended party said:

"Some jerk just came up to me with a dollar bill and wanted to tell me about capitalism.  You know what I think of when I hear 'capitalism'?  I think of my 401K.  You're a bunch of selfish jerks."

With that he stormed in the hotel.

From these pithy remarks, I am going to assume this fellow believes that the financial collapse of 2008 that precipitated a drastic fall in his 401 K was the fault of capitalism.  What he believe capitalism to be is central to this belief; the word has come to symbolize, in his mind, something it actually is not.

So many people believe that drastic downturns and booms and bubbles and busts occur in the market naturally and that government and federal bureaucracies have nothing to do with these market anomalies.  Somehow, amazingly, government boondoggles like Fannie and Freddie Mac and their whorish vote-catching politicians in Congress had nothing to do with the financial meltdown of 2008.  What's worse, the Federal Reserve, ostensibly there to avoid bubbles and bust and irregularities in the market, gets a free pass, too.

Basically, the market had become anything but capitalistic.  That is, it was so over manipulated, regulated, goaded and prodded for outside the market--government interference--that a meltdown became inevitable.

Sadly, blaming it all on free market capitalism was inevitable, too.

Educating more people on the fundamentals of capitalism, what it is and what it is not, would go far in coercing our politicians (who are ever-fearful of not being reelected) from continuing to put us on  the same old Keynesian boom and bust cycles then cower behind and manipulate the public's mis-education of basic economics.  That's getting very old.

It would have been wonderful to broach this discussion with the angry fellow, but he was intent on carrying on with his misapplies anger.  He should be angry--just for the right reasons and at the actual culprits, not at the capitalistic system that is responsible for his own high standard of living.

If he only knew better, if only more people knew better--but that's our job.

(Back to CPAC.)

First Principles, Please: CPAC, GoProud, and Gay Marriage

(I wanted to edit this post but decided to leave it as it is, an off-the-cuff rambling of sorts.)

 “Only in the frame of a free society is it meaningful to distinguish between what is good and ought to be done and what is bad and ought to be avoided.”~~ Ludwig von Mises

“What is conservatism all about?” asks your friend who is new to politics.

Quick!  Your friend’s attention span is 140 characters (thanks to Twitter). What do you say?   

Chances are the phrases, Individual liberty and, Limited government, or some analogous expressions of the same, crop up. 

I say “chances are” for a reason. Instinctively most conservatives would respond with these phrases because they are the foundation of what is broadly called the conservative movement.  Other important principles such as Constitutionalism and federalism, free market enterprise, property and gun rights, low taxation, spending restraint, and school choice are derivatives of these philosophical lodestars. 

Chances should also be great that you did not think, More federal legislation and bigger government.  That wouldn’t be “conservative.”

As Grover Norquist at the American Conservative Union would say, the center-Right coalition shares an attitude that sums up these conservative principles: “Leave us alone.”  It is the common thread among the respective political action groups that constitute conservative activism.

Enter CPAC, GoProud, and some social conservative groups at the center of so much hubbub of late.

The acronym, CPAC, stands for the Conservative Political Action Conference.  It is the largest annual consortium of political activists and special interest groups, representing the broad base of a political coalition.

That said, in what kind of political action are social conservatives who are boycotting CPAC interested?  

Their chief political interest is enacting social legislation DOMA, the defense of marriage act, to “protect traditional marriage.“

Such political action in the interest of legislating social values cuts directly against core conservative values.  (Hold on, comment on social conservatism is reserved for the end.)  What happens to the principle of “limited government” if we go to government, hat-in-hand, and ask for the privilege of legislating at the federal level traditional marriage on society? This would be an expansion of government reach at a drastic level, conferring to the federal government a power we’ve erroneously allowed state governments for generations. 

And what about federalism, that long-neglected check on federal government overreach?  DOMA is a further erosion of that principle at a time when many activists are seeking to revive the 10^th Amendment and nullification in response to Obamacare.

Further, what would be the practical implications of DOMA?  Once we’ve further expanded the unconstitutional powers and bureaucratic apparatus of the federal government, is there any guarantee that one day gay marriage advocates will not be in a position to utilize that same power of government?  As history attests, with every increase in the size of government we further place ourselves and our liberties at the whimsical mercy of whatever group of politicians and bureaucrats hold power.  That’s just a very bad idea for political action, and certainly not a conservative one.   As Reagan said with eloquent simplicity, when government grown, liberty shrinks. 

It is worth noting the only reason there is a desire to “protect” traditional marriage is that we’ve allowed state governments the ridiculously inappropriate power to validate marriages.  What business does that state have interfering in a contract between private individuals?  (Remember that whole Leave Us Alone thing?) 

What is really in need of being protected, then, is not the institution of marriage itself but individuals from being forced by the government to legally recognize homosexual marriage.  (Traditional marriages would not cease to transpire or exist, after all.) This is a concern but the threat here is not the vows two men I’ll never meet say to each other and their lifestyle I don’t condone, but the government itself that is so big and so intrusive that it can actually be manipulated to force a legal recognition homosexual marriage, just as DOMA would establish a national standard of traditional marriage.

This being the problem, why would people in the coalition of “leave us alone” want to simply turn the power of government onto others in society in the form of federal legislation? The “us” in “leave us alone” denotes everyone, not just a privileged class who is first in line to use the power of government for their own social preferences.  That’s just not “conservative.”

The problem is too much government in too many places using coercive force on too many individuals.  The solution is less government, not more in the interest of traditional marriage, gay marriage, no marriage, or what have you.

In his postscript to The Constitution of Liberty, F.A. Hayek lucidly described the Old World conservatives who opposed classical liberals who favored limiting the power of government and stressed the primacy of the individual.  It is a lengthy passage but well worth considering in this context.  Hayek says,

 “Let me return…to the main point, which is the characteristic complacency of the conservative toward the action of established authority and his prime concern that this authority be not weakened rather than that its power be kept within bounds.  This is difficult to reconcile with the preservation of liberty.  In general, it can probably be said that the conservative does not object to coercion or arbitrary power so long as it is used for what he regards as the right purposes. He believes that if government is in the hands of decent men, it ought not be too much restricted by rigid rules.  Since he is essentially opportunist and lacks principles, his main hope must be that the wise and the good will rule—not merely by example, as we all must wish, but by authority given to them and enforced by them.  Like the socialist, he is less concerned with the problem of how the powers of government should be limited than with that of who wields them; and, like the socialist, he regards himself as entitled to force the values he holds on other people.” [Emphasis added.]

 Hayek was not describing American conservatives.  I sadly observe, however, that these lines seem tailor-made to describe some social conservative groups vying for DOMA and boycotting CPAC over GoProud’s presence.

On the other side of gay marriage we see activists leveraging the court system urging judicial activism for the sake of imposing a legal recognition of gay marriage on the rest of society.  Would state referendums be better?  Hardly.   Either would force society through the coercion of government to recognize and validate homosexuality.  If people do not wish to recognize gay marriage why should they be forced to?  

Principled, conservative activism would be to oppose this wily judicial activism because it is judicial activism and referendum efforts not because it is being leveraged by gay activists, then work to undo the ridiculous state government requirements to get state approval to get married. 

Getting government out of the middle alleviates the rest of society from legally recognizing gay marriage. If gays wish to get married, why should they not be free to do so?  If they are free to do so I am free to—here’s a concept—leave them alone to do so.   If they wish to do so and not care about legally binding me to condone it, why would I care? (Hold on, talk of social impact of mores coming soon.)

So what of GoProud?  Where do they stand in all this? I called their office to inquire of their view of gay marriage and judicial activism. They would only say they oppose DOMA and a constitutional amendment on traditional marriage on the grounds of federalism and equal rights, and that marriage is a matter for the states.  There was no comment on judicial activism and gay marriage at the state level.

At this point I see both an opportunity and a concern for them.  If they stand by their principles and want to see policy derivative of the principles they profess, they should come out (absolutely no pun intended there) unambiguously against imposing gay marriage on society just as rigorously as they oppose DOMA.  GoProud stands for limited government and liberty, so taking such a stand would be a principled, conservative stance to make and, combined with their stated legislative priorities and core principles, make them a valued activist member of the center-right coalition.  Not doing so, unfortunately, makes them appear complacent in such an important matter.

Here would be a good place to inject that I am a social conservative.  Among other things, I recognize the social benefits of traditional family values.  I do not condone homosexuality.  In fact, socially I see in it a philosophical and moral error.  But not condoning homosexuality should not equate to supporting DOMA if one holds to basic political principles, and opposing legal recognition of gay marriage should not be one labeled a homophobe.  I am simply trying to be intellectually consistent as both a partisan of liberty and the Constitution and a social conservative (one opposed to big government no matter who is in charge).

I also recognize that using government as a vehicle to apply social values—whoever’s social values—destroys the freedom that is a prerequisite to live the moral life that is good for society.  If you are compelled toward holding to a value, how legitimate is that belief?  If you come to that belief through the free exchange of ideas and after someone appealed to your reason and intellect, congratulations, you actually believe it. As Ludwig von Mise reminds us, “Only in the frame of a free society is it meaningful to distinguish between what is good and ought to be done and what is bad and ought to be avoided.” 

If I truly desire freedom for myself and society—to be left alone—that freedom comes at a cost: people will use that freedom in manners that I do not approve of that, as Jefferson would say, neither break my leg nor pick my pocket. Put government in the middle of everything and how other people live their lives will indeed affect me; doing so puts more people in society at odds with other people and gives us incentives to neglect our principles and want the government to do more on our behalf at the cost of other’s freedom.

That’s just not conservative.

I don’t share GoProud’s social values but I certainly share their political convictions, especially if they publically oppose imposing gay marriage through the court system.  I share most of the social values of social conservatives but don’t share the political goal of DOMA.  (Whatever problem social conservatives have with “big government” too often seems to be that the wrong people are in charge, not with big government itself.)

Returning to Hayek:  

“The typical conservative is indeed usually a man of very strong moral convictions.  What I mean is that he has no political principles which enable him to work with people whose moral values differ from his own for a political order in which both can obey their convictions.”

I’m going to go out on a limb here and assert that conservatism is primarily a political movement about freedom and free society.  Conservatism is also a social movement wherein we may persuade and influence others about social mores and what is good for society, but in order for any social impact to be meaningful such persuasion has to transpire freely, in society among ourselves, not at the coercive end of laws and regulations.  Only in a free society can conservative political and social values coincide. 

It will be interesting at CPAC this year.  I hope to come away energized, but above all else I hope to first feel and then feed off a vibrant love of liberty.  I need it.  We all need it.

Since CPAC Is Coming Up, What Are We Conserving?

What exactly are conservatives trying to conserve?  Since CPAC (the Conservative Political Action Conference) is around the corner, I thought I'd repeat this post:

~~~~~~~~

Liberal and conservative, Left and Right, Republican and Democrat, Libertarians, Progressives, Klingons, Druids, Hobbits....

What do all the labels signify?

Presently the term "liberalism" is a generic description of a preference of government-run solutions to problems, real and contrived. Government-run health care, for example, is the solution to health care costs and inefficiencies. Government is the primary answer to most any question of policy and social issues. Liberal policies, therefore, are those that place primary importance of government power, government growth, and government involvement in more and more of the lives of Americans.

This wasn't always what a good liberal preferred.

“Classical Liberalism” was a movement of the 18th and early 19th centuries that stressed the primacy of the individual over the state and individual rights secured through limiting the power of  government.  Competitive free market capitalism and free international trade was the economical fruition of this thought, acknowledging that social welfare and advances in living standards come from freedom in the marketplace, not the dictates of central governments. Furthermore, international peace, it was argued, was more probable through free trade among peoples of respective nations, therefore punitive tariffs damaged whatever degree of both domestic and international tranquility that could otherwise be attained in an imperfect world.

The Founding Fathers are widely viewed as classic liberals.  The Constitution, with its limitations on government powers and protections of individual rights, fits the description quite well.  Also, the Declaration of Independence, our founding document, states in assertively plain terms a clearly classically liberal view of man, government, and justice. Jefferson’s Declaration—with its insistence that governments derive their legitimate powers from the consent of the people—reads like a footnote to John Locke’s Second Treatise, is another lodestar of classic liberalism.

The term, liberal in today’s sense means the opposite of what it originally meant. Modern defenders and apologists for classical liberalism such as Milton Friedman refused to relinquish the title liberal.  From Capitalism and Freedom:

"In the name of welfare and equality, the twentieth-century liberal has come to favor a revival of the very policies of state intervention and paternalism against which classical liberalism fought.  In the very act of turning the clock back to seventeenth-century mercantilism, he is fond of castigating true liberals as reactionary!" [Emphasis added.]

Ludwig Von Mises, in the introduction to the English version of his book, Liberalism: The Classical Tradition,  explains that liberalism today means the opposite of the liberalism he is setting forth to defend:

"In England the term 'liberal' is mostly used to signify a program that only in details differs from the totalitarianism of the socialists.  In the United States 'liberal' means today a set of ideas and political postulates that in every regard are the opposite of all that liberalism meant to the preceding generations."  

On the other side of the ideological and philosophical aisle, classical liberalism and contemporary conservatism (generally) value the primacy of the individual, individual freedom and rights, and free markets.  They are also both suspicious of government activities beyond national defense and the judicial system, and stress the importance of constitutional limits on government power.

Conservatives are therefore doing their best to conserve classical liberalism.

So I'm looking forward to rubbing elbows with a lot of good liberals at CPAC, all confusion about labels notwithstanding.

A New New Deal Is A Bad Bad Idea

"Underlying a lack of faith in free markets is an underlying lack of faith in freedom itself."~~~Milton Friedman

Enthusiasts of excessive control of the market enthusiastically liken President Obama to FDR.  This enthusiastic comparison rests on a flawed premise, that FDR's hyper intervention via the New Deal saved the country from a crushing depression.

The comparison of our current president with FDR is not a flattering one, however, when we take the long view of the Great Depression.  As Jim Powell amply illustrates in his book FDR's Folly, government control and manipulation of nearly all aspects of the economy--and therefore society--turned a depression not uncommon to American history into a deep and abiding depression, lasting over a decade.

If President Obama is the new FDR we have worse economic times ahead.

Put another way, why was this one depression bad enough to be remembered our only great depression?   It was, after all, the only one "great" enough in American history to be remembered by that name. 

A market economy runs primarily on freedom: cooperation among individuals, contractual agreements, entrepreneurship, pursuit of respective self interest, and marginal business growth all require a free society.  In order to create wealth, employment, and a rising standard of living for a diverse population of millions, capital and limited resources with alternative uses must be efficiently allocated and utilized.

Controlled and over- regulated markets have never been up to the task of efficiently meeting the demands of advanced societies; socialism, in whatever degree and form, creates uncertainty in market condition-- lack of freedom, that is--that stagnates growth.  Government obstruction of the freedom required by the market and regulation beyond its proper role (and there is a good role for government) inevitably brings about economic stagnation and high unemployment.

Remember to ask, what and who is "the free market," or what is more commonly tossed around, "the private sector"?  It is nothing less than you, me, and other individuals freely and responsibly pursuing our respective self interests.

As the above quote from Milton Friedman pointedly reminds us, not trusting "the market" is not trusting in freedom itself--it is a distrust of ourselves.  A demand for more regulation of "the private sector" is not a demand to control some faceless entity out there in the murky distance; it is a distrust of and demand to control yourself and your own lives! 

Of course, it's never ourselves and our own liberty we don't trust; it is always some other guy.  In a free society based on a free exchange economy, that someone else is you.  During the New Deal when the federal government ordered millions of pigs slaughtered and acres of wheat plowed under, people everywhere went hungry longer than they needed to because some people were not free to produce the food millions of others demanded.

The more freedom was increasingly needed the more it was repressed, and the depression dragged on and on and on.

So let's make sure we're not in for a New New Deal.
 

Educational Reforms Promote Statism, Not Liberty

I am happy to post this guest contribution to Chalk Talk.  It was written by a friend of Freedom Lessons; I hope we hear more from this guest.  

This contribution will find its permanent home in the "Subs" section.  Enjoy!

Educational reform has been sweeping the country. The rationale for this drumbeat for reform is that students in China, Japan, and Singapore regularly do better than U.S. students on international tests of math and science. Therefore, a more comprehensive approach (standards) needs to be taken if we are to remain competitive in the world economy. However, this writer has been an educator for about 50 years, and frankly I have never met one student or adult who has taken one of those so-called international tests.

These reforms are often supported by conservatives as well as liberals. “Accountability” is the watchword of these reforms. Conservatives like accountability because it introduces corporate efficiency into the system. The semi-autonomous teacher operating in a semi-autonomous classroom will be relegated to the past as it insulates teachers from accountability, and in turn produces failing students. Everything the teachers say and the results of their students’ tests will be closely monitored. More uniform instruction will be guaranteed with teacher scripts, and uniform tests for all units, midterms, and finals across the curriculum. Authority is shifted away from the individual to the system of accountability itself.

Liberals like the reforms because they are looking towards a model of free, compulsory education for ages 2 to 22, a longer school day, and a six or seven day school week. Also, in order for the system to work, there will be “national standards” (40 states have already signed on). The right thus gets uniformity, and the accountability that makes for “successful” mass production, and the left gets 20+ years of control and indoctrination. The corporate model becomes an instrument of statist control.

The key to their vision, if one can call this Brave New World and 1984 nightmare a “vision,” is to bring in a whole new class of school administrators. The thrust for the past 8+ years in New York City has been to recruit people with little or no experience in education. This supposedly is to refresh the profession that has been too insulated from accountability and new ideas for too long. These are people in their twenties or early thirties who are to come in and uproot the supposed garbage of the past. About four years ago this writer attended a meeting to recruit teachers into the New York City Department of Education Leadership Academy for prospective principals, and the sophisticated and attractive hostess of the program was asked, “When reviewing applications to the program, do you take into account whether the applicant has written and published any articles of books?” Without hesitation, the woman answered firmly that they do not. Connection with the world of books is not part of leadership in education.

What then do we find? From top to bottom the NYC Dept. of Education is replete with administrators with no teaching experience. Often selected because they are inexperienced and willing to be as insensitive as a cactus plant in order to please their superiors, they come to impose themselves as “leaders” on those who are already making great sacrifices as teachers. This writer has met these people, and the likelihood that they even read one book a year is remote. Are non-readers and non-teachers suited to be educational leaders?

Many, whether for money, security, ideals, or some combination of the above seek administrative positions that they are not ready for. Why aren’t they ready? They are not ready because they have not been mentored and inculcated with core educational values that include, but are not limited to, focus on service and on educational values such as curricular innovation, creativity, knowledge, teacher morale, school tone, the family of man, student character building, and caring/love of all for all (said list can be summed up as “the pursuit of happiness”).

My question to the reader: do you want American public education to become even more of an ideological monolith than it is at present?

The Teacher