Utah's Republic

In 2005, the 9th Circuit affirmed “Parents…have no constitutional right…to prevent a public school from providing its students with whatever information it wishes to provide…when and as the school determines that it is appropriate to do so.”  This is a glimpse at Utah’s future unless we protect parental rights. Please watch this 30 minute docudrama and then visit ParentalRights.org and look at their short parental rights amendment. I encourage you to sign their petition and get on their mailing list.

For several years I have heard people speak about Eldridge Cleaver’s awesome speech at a BYU Freedom Festival from years ago. I’ve searched for the text or audio of his speech or anything about it that could allow me to see it but always came up short. Recently, I was copied on an email from Fred Willoughby who mentioned having the speech on DVD. Fred is the president of the Proper Role of Government seminars. I contacted Fred and was excited to learn that he did indeed have Eldridge’s speech on DVD, but not only that, he was able to obtain permission from the distributor of the DVD to allow me to post it online and share with you.

Fred was with the LAPD in the 60′s and nobody was more surprised than Fred that Eldridge made the incredible change that he did. After converting to Christianity, Eldridge joined the LDS church and Fred used to shuttle him around California acting as his bodyguard while Eldridge spoke at firesides. Here is a short introduction by Fred.

Eldridge Cleaver’s Speech

In 1981, Eldridge Cleaver spoke at the BYU Freedom Festival about his conversion from being the Marxist, atheist, spokesman for the Black Panther’s party, to being a Christian, freedom loving, Founding Father appreciating, patriotic American. It’s an amazing journey Eldridge took and an important one for us to learn from. Eldridge was involved in criminal activity and through an odd opportunity to escape justice on one particular occasion, he traveled the world from one Communist country to another, being celebrated in those countries as one of America’s communist heroes. What he saw changed him. This video should be seen by everyone to understand what we’ve really got here in America.

One warning, the intro by Elwood Peterson lasts to about the 7:30 mark. It’s fairly interesting, but just don’t give up hope that you’re not going to hear from Eldridge. Total running time is 1 hour 24 minutes.

Glenn Beck’s online TV station keeps adding new shows. They’ve got Glenn’s 2 hour show every night, they’ve got Liberty Treehouse for kids, Mercury Theater for old classic movies, and the latest entry is the B.S. of A, hosted by Brian Sack (B.S.). One of the skits they’ve done is a spoof of Sesame Street called Pumpernickel Boulevard. Here’s a couple they’ve done so far that are pretty funny. You can find more content from the show on the show’s Facebook page seen at the end of the videos.

I recently posted a question on a Facebook group page asking people to consider why Karl Marx included free public education in his 10 planks of the Communist Manifesto. Someone soon came along and posted this:

“Please attempt to have a discussion about education that does not use comparisons to communism and/or Karl Marx. Attempting to demonize opposing views just shows a complete lack of desire to have civil dialog.”

I replied:

“Who is demonizing…? Are you saying people who discuss education must stick their head in the sand and avoid some of the elephants in the room? Why can’t a person bring up an obvious point and have it considered rationally without being accused of demonizing?”

I thought the purpose of critical thinking skills that educators always talk about is being able to dissect and understand a topic by honest questioning. So why did Karl Marx include free public education as one of his 10 planks?

To understand this, one has to understand the foundation of the Manifesto’s goal. Marx wrote the Communist Manifesto to lay out a plan for the destruction of private property. Only with the destruction of private property can you have a communist way of life. From H. Verlan Anderson’s book, “Many are Called, but Few are Chosen,” we read this explanation:

“Not only does the Manifesto declare its main purpose to be the destruction of private property, but it contains a detailed plan by which this is to be accomplished in a nation such as the United States whose laws and constitutions were designed to protect this right.

The method proposed is not violent and bloody revolution (at least at the outset) but the peaceful and legal process of inducing the citizens of the United States and other nations to destroy the right themselves with their own legislatures, courts, and executives. We are to adopt a series of laws which will inevitably have this result. Listen to the Manifesto as it unfolds its plan:

‘We have seen above that the first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class, to establish democracy. The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest by degrees all capital from the bourgeoisie (property owners), to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the state.’

This naked appeal to the selfishness of the voter to use the government as an instrument of plunder is nothing but a proposal for legalized theft.”

The reason the communists promote Democracy is because once you establish class warfare to the point that the majority vote themselves property from the minority, the destruction of private property is ensured. The people will continue to vote socialist minded people into office to pass laws guaranteeing for themselves anything they desire. This is where we find the quote often attributed to Alexander Tytler so applicable.

“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.”

Can anyone argue we don’t have loose fiscal policy and we’re not headed for a dictatorship? If you don’t believe it, you’re not watching the mandates and sidestepping of the legislative process the President is engaged in.

So now why did Karl Marx declare free public education in government schools as one of his 10 main objectives to destroy private property? Here are three reasons I can think of.

1) Getting people without children to pay for the education of people with children, via compulsory taxation, takes the personal property of those who may not want to or be able to give, in order to pay for a good or service for someone else. This is a tremendous injustice to those without children. Parents, never having to write a check or make a payment for the service, cease to concern themselves with what their child is being taught or if waste is occurring in the system. There is no competition, just apathy. Some will say that paying for the education of other children is for the benefit of society, however, one could say that about almost anything. It never used to be this way till Marx and Horace Mann came along and got us into this model.

2) In a state school funded with public tax dollars, the lowest common denominator prevails meaning those who believe least (atheism) trump those who believe most (in God). Free government education is a way to destroy public morality and a belief in God, which was one of Marx’s goals to establish atheism. Our Christian founders wanted to have strong morals taught in schools from the Bible. Not sectarian beliefs, but morals grounded in God’s commandments which ultimately lead to the happiness of the people.

3) It removes from parents the authority and responsibility of being the primary educator of their children. The state takes an interest and with government money paying for the education, the government can create mandates on everything in the system including curriculum, testing, standards, teachers, administrators, etc… Parents lose the ability to control their child’s education.

Until parents directly pay for at least a portion of their child’s education, they will never take an interest in how funds are being spent and what their children are being taught.

From the Latter-Day Conservative website I got this excellent quote.

“God finds His glory, as Joseph Smith said, in providing laws by which other beings can come to enjoy the same perfections and glory He possesses. Our view and motivations should be the same. Rather than seeing law as an instrument of domination, it is our mission to use it as an enabling power to help men and women achieve greater independence and ultimate potential. We do so by acting to have our earthly governmental and legal systems mirror as closely as possible the divine order. – ”
(“Law and Becoming”, Elder D. Todd Christoffersons. Fireside presented to the J. Reuben Clark Law Society, February 4, 2011. Published in the Clark Memorandum, Spring 2011.)

What is the divine order? It is founded upon the principle of agency, or choice. One must choose to become educated. One must choose to be charitable. One should be able to choose the educational environment for their children. Government run public schools funded by tax dollars, forcing children to learn what the state tells them and in the manner in which they tell them, is a factory conveyor belt model for things that are to be acted upon like a raw material, not a place for sentient beings that need to learn to act and use choice or agency to put themselves into motion to accomplish great things. When responsibility is removed from people, even in education, apathy sets in and we become nothing more than drones. Parents and children should be active participants in the education process. When they are not, they relinquish their right to agency and personal growth.

What the “Occupy Wall Street” Democracy-lovers would do to us today is destroy private property in the name of immoral corporations. However, the problem isn’t with capitalism, it’s with morality. Our Founders said only a moral and religious people could maintain a free republic. With each action of government in removing God and religion in our daily lives, individuals have lost their moral anchor and believe they can take advantage of their neighbors to get ahead without any consequences. The problems in Wall Street, Washington, and everywhere else won’t be solved by more laws that force people into good behavior. New laws are the result of lost morals because everyone wants to clamp down on bad behavior. The solution to society’s ills can only be found in a return to God-centered morals. Only then will people treat each other with honesty and charity and cease taking advantage of each other through dishonest business practices, or plunder made legal through our process of lawmaking.

Perhaps the best statement I’ve read explaining this is from Howard W. Hunter, a past president of the LDS church, who said:

“What is the real cause of this trend toward the welfare state, toward more socialism? In the last analysis, in my judgment, it is personal unrighteousness. When people do not use their freedoms responsibly and righteously, they will gradually lose these freedoms . . ..
If man will not recognize the inequalities around him and voluntarily, through the gospel plan, come to the aid of his brother, he will find that through “a democratic process” he will be forced to come to the aid of his brother. The government will take from the “haves” and give to the “have nots.” Both have lost their freedom. Those who “have,” lost their freedom to give voluntarily of their own free will and in the way they desire. Those who “have not,” lost their freedom because they did not earn what they received. They got “something for nothing,” and they will neither appreciate the gift nor the giver of the gift.
Under this climate, people gradually become blind to what has happened and to the vital freedoms, which they have lost. (Speeches of the Year 1965-1966, pp. 1-11, “The Law of the Harvest.” Devotional Address, Brigham Young University, 8 March 1966.)”

Every violation of the constitution that provides a socialistic program to the public (yes, including public education), encourages the slide into the destruction of private property. The rallying cry of socialists is “Democracy” because it is through majority votes of the “have nots” that they take from the “haves” and the ongoing, systematic destruction of our economy creates more “have nots.” We must understand, respect, and defend the Constitution of the United States and honor the laws that protect our life, liberty, and property, or Democracy will be the downfall of this nation.

Hopefully this gives new perspective to why there is such a danger in our schools adopting slogans like “Enculturating the Young into a Social and Political Democracy.” This is simply a restatement of the communist goal to establish a democratic welfare state which serves to destroy morality and private property through the votes of a growing immoral majority.

A few years ago when Alpine School District floated it’s last bond, there were a number of election law violations which were filed with the appropriate authorities. These included passing out yard signs during taxpayer funded work days, and staff putting up yard signs during work days while on the public dime. Nothing ever came of it.

During the voucher fight, a Powerpoint presentation was circulating that was against the voucher issue. It had file properties showing it was produced on Cache School District computers and was up to 11 hours of editing time. When that was given to the State Attorney General’s office, I followed up with one of the attorneys to see how they were moving on this and was told, “it’s not popular to go after educators.”

This election, Alpine School District personnel again violated the law as can be seen in this picture of Lone Peak High School’s website clearly showing they told voters how to vote. As of this moment it is up on Lone Peak’s website.

 

Here are the relevant Utah laws someone sent me.

20A-11-1203
(1) Unless specifically required by law, a public entity may not make an expenditure from public funds for political purposes or to influence a ballot proposition.

20A-11-1204
Each public official who violates this part is guilty of a class B misdemeanor.

Are educators above the law? Should educators be held to a higher or lesser standard when they are modeling behavior for impressionable children? Will anyone in the justice system enforce these laws?

Sadly, probably not. Bad behavior continues and is emboldened when the law isn’t enforced. One charge would reverberate through the education community and warn them not to engage in politicking on the public dime.

(This is not intended to implicate all educators. Most are just fine and respect the law. It’s just a few that need to have more than a hand slap)

Stephen Colbert tries to occupy Occupy Wall Street. Pretty humorous. Both clips are just over 7 minutes.

Part 1

Glenn Beck gets in an argument with Pat Gray and calls in David Barton to settle the issue. This is a great clip to understand this issue for when people say we’re not a Christian nation.

Think your garden fresh veggies are safe? The Nevada Health Department may beg to differ. This will make your blood boil.
http://shanonbrooks.com/2011/10/people-live-dirt-roads-monte-laura-bledsoe-quail-hollow-farm-csa/

Thankfully some good Utah legislators are working to try and ensure this won’t happen here.
http://www.utahintrastatecommerce.org/

Thursday night (10/20/11) on GBTV, Glenn Beck spend the block of time on education related material and made the entire episode free and available to anyone who wants to watch it. There’s a lot on homeschooling in this episode as well and how it can help relieve the stress of families and children who are overwhelmed by their current schooling experience. I’m not saying homeschooling is better than anything else that might be right for your family, but I very much respect those who choose that path for their family and think it’s good that people understand their education options.

Do you have a successful school? Lots of good teachers doing a good job educating students? Do you enjoy the federal dollars you receive for funding? The feds are about to turn that peanut butter and chocolate combination into cyanide and chocolate. (chocolate being the good local teachers just to clarify the analogy :))

A few days ago congress was presented with an 860 page education bill from Democratic Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa. The Heritage Foundation has started a review of the bill and notes:

For example, the bill would codify Obama Administration education priorities, such as the “equitable distribution” of effective teachers among schools. It would eliminate “adequate yearly progress”—the onerous federal requirement that mandated every child be proficient in reading and math by 2014—but would replace it with requirements that states prove they have “college- and career-ready” standards, giving Washington more control over the content taught in local schools.

Good news for schools on getting rid of AYP but if you’re successful, it’s time to chop that school up and send some of those teachers to failing schools to make sure they get quality teachers too. Oh, and don’t miss the great news that the Feds aren’t mandating national standards, they’ll just force you to be on “college- and career-ready” standards. Gee, I wonder where we can find national standards that will fit that bill? Oh yeah, the CCSS are available for use. We’ll just force everyone taking federal dollars to get on those standards so the federal assessments being rolled out will apply nationally. The factory model of education can continue but with total control from the top.

Educators and legislators, if you thought NCLB and AYP were bad, wait till this rolls out. You’ve got to get us off the federal welfare dime or what’s coming isn’t going to be good for anyone. Teachers are going to lose jobs in places they like, they’re going to lose freedom to teach what they deem necessary and be forced to teach to a national test, and children are going to lose any hope of having an education customized to their needs because the factory belt model of compulsory education is going to become more vise-like than ever.

What is being done? Heritage is pushing forward with an “A-PLUS” plan to bring accountability to parents and taxpayers while reducing the federal footprint, but I do not think this will happen in time to help our state. State lawmakers and educators need to work together to completely eliminate all federal funding and reject all mandates that come from Washington.

On this current education nightmare bill above, Washington always seems to have a way to get these things through, but thankfully the House is controlled by the Republicans so the Democrats are going to have a hard time getting this bill passed. Senator Rand Paul talk here about introducing 100 amendments to stop this bill in its tracks. I hope he’s successful.

Related post: http://www.utahsrepublic.org/dropping-the-common-core-state-standards/