Utahs Republic

Our tax dollars at work! I received an email this morning with this link pointing out how UVU’s Revolutionary Students Union group hosted anti-market communist activists at a recent get together.
https://www.cityweekly.net/utah/article-13952-revolutionary-qa.html

Posted // May 19,2011 –

In Utah County this week, you can join the good comrades of Utah Valley University’s Revolutionary Students Union as they host Chicano activist Teresa Gutierrez and Fred Goldstein, former leader in the Workers World Party. Or you can attend a meeting of Salt Lake City’s defenders of diversity, the Human Rights Commission. Later, you won’t want to miss the opportunity to get a one-on-one meeting with Mayor Ralph Becker.

Activist Forum With Teresa Gutierrez and Fred Goldstein
Thursday, May 19
Anti-market forces are converging at Utah Valley University, where you can hear two revolutionary thinkers discuss workers rights, immigration and imperialist globalization, for free. Utah Valley University’s Revolutionary Students Union will be hosting Chicano liberation leader Teresa Gutierrez and Fred Goldstein, formerly in the leadership of the the Workers World Party and author of Low-Wage Capitalism, a Marxist take on globalization and the working class. Utah Valley University Library, 800 W. University Parkway, Room LI502, Orem, 801-863-8352, May 19, 7:30-8:30 p.m., UVURSU.com

Someone sent me a link to this video the other day and it’s definitely challenged my thinking. I’ve always been a “get a college degree” type of person. However, there are certainly a number of wealthy people that never got their college degree (Bill Gates jumping to mind). Are there some non-college grads here that have been successful with a career in a chosen field who can share their story?

With summer rapidly approaching, I would love some thoughts on good books for children to learn about the Constitution and principles of freedom. I just finished reading Peter Schiff’s book, “How an Economy Grows and Why it Crashes.” It’s a story of a fictitious country that deals in fish as currency. It’s a story that has “takeaway” interruptions that clearly explain the history of the principle being taught, or shows exactly how what he’s describing in the story has happened here in America. I think it’s an excellent book to teach people why Keynesian economics is utterly false and the Austrian economics model is superior. I’ve also started reading the Uncle Eric book series which is excellent and covers a variety of topics on economics and justice in a series of letters from an Uncle to his nephew. Both of these are good for teens, but I’d like to know from you what are some books that are good for younger children? And I guess other good books for teens…

I have to warn you this first video contains some foul language. But don’t worry, it’s just quotes from an elementary school textbook in use in Tucson, AZ. The best part of this parent’s presentation to the school board is when one school board member responds at the end. Don’t miss it. :)

***Update: the YouTube video was removed by the authors. I found their full video elsewhere if you want to listen to the clip, hit play and pause on this first video and watch the second. Then after it’s loaded, scroll out to the 18:40 mark and you can watch the clip. At the 21:25 mark, the video is edited and you miss hearing the male board member with the white hair say, “please watch your language there may be young people present.” Right after that edit you can hear the parents in the room say this was all in a textbook being used for 3rd graders. The Three Sonorans that filmed this were at the board meeting for a very different reason and happened to record this on their video.

This next one is part of Glenn Beck’s show one night last week with more stories from around the country.

A friend emailed me and a few others a link to the new Nebo School District educational framework document entitled “Partnership for 21st Century Skills.” A while later, another friend who also received the link sent me this brief review of the document. She agreed to let me post it here.

So glad they have highlighted the 21st Century Skills!!!  Such elaboration in this document leaves little concern for the future leaders of the United States and their intellectual development which undoubtedly will prepare them for their government employment. It all falls so neatly somewhere ‘under that rainbow’.

I was greatly relieved to know that they have determined the preeminent importance of literacy!  Especially global, civic, health, and environmental literacy which may or may not fall under the MSE [BYU McKay School of Education] category of “Balanced” Literacy.  Maybe we should check on that……

They must have been reading my mind when they discerned that our American youth MUST have highly skilled knowledge of the ‘…role of the economy in society’s rights of citizenship at global levels…’ and the equally important ‘global implications of civic decisions’. What a relief to know this is covered and they will fulfill their rights as global citizens!

They will probably demand to “monitor family health goals” under “health literacy”, don’t you think?  I am curious as to how they will grade the individual student on the family goals?  Could this be problematic?

This new 21st century skill set will help revive the pining for the 60’s radicals that seems rampant today, as they will encourage the young to “create new ideas” of “radical content”.  I wonder if they were referring to the curriculum used in Tuscon schools curriculum or if they have more original radical ideas they would like to have elevated….

And for the Christian youth, they will no doubt find success as they teach them correct skills to “effectively evaluate claims and beliefs”. Of course, if the Fairness Doctrine isn’t instituted before these are taught, they will have a generation of deep thinkers who will root for ‘fairness’ in the media as they will have been diligently taught to “synthesize between information and argument.”

Then I HAD to open the document and see if it really talked about monitoring family health goals. Amazingly true. WHAT ARE Y’ALL DRINKING DOWN THERE IN NEBO? Ohhhh, that’s right, you’re part of the BYU Public School Partnership where John Goodlad’s Agenda for Education in a Democracy scholars run the show… That explains everything.

https://www.p21.org/documents/P21_Framework_Definitions.pdf

What a load of garbage. This is exactly why school board races must be made partisan. Nobody knows what agenda they are putting into office because the public at large is full of ignorant people who vote based on who had the most signs up or whose name appeared first on the ballot. Nobody looks into school board candidates and they are mostly left-wingers that put agenda ahead of arithmetic.

Looking through the document I see other fun stuff like participating in global environmental action and how population growth impacts resource consumption rates. Wow that’s fantastic! Now Nebo children can learn how evil humans are and why we need to let some nut job such as Obama’s science czar put sterilants in our water supply so we don’t overpopulate the earth. If you aren’t familiar with John Holdren, here’s a couple quotes from him (https://bit.ly/13vEnq).

“Individual rights must be balanced against the power of the government to control human reproduction.”

“The law regulates other highly personal matters. For example, no one may lawfully have more than one spouse at a time. Why should the law not be able to prevent a person from having more than two children?”

“The Planetary Regime might be given responsibility for determining the optimum population for the world and for each region and for arbitrating various countries’ shares within their regional limits. Control of population size might remain the responsibility of each government, but the Regime should have some power to enforce the agreed limits.”

Among some of Holdren’s other ideas…

• Adding a sterilant to drinking water or staple foods
• Sterilizing women after their second or third child
• Long-term sterilizing capsule … implanted at puberty and might be removable, with official permission

Did John Holdren help Nebo S.D. write their document? If you live in Nebo, you may want to look into it…

A diverse group of individuals has written up a manifesto and petition of sorts on why the Common Core State Standards are a bad idea. I encourage everyone to read this and then add your name to the supporter list.

https://www.k12innovation.com/Manifesto/_V2_Home.html

Here is their press release:

Broad Coalition Opposes National Curriculum Initiative by U.S. Dept. of Education

Over 100 leaders sign manifesto against nationalization of schooling

Stanford, Calif. & Fayetteville, Ark. – A broad coalition of over 100 educational and other leaders representing diverse viewpoints released a manifesto today opposing ongoing federal government efforts to create a national curriculum and testing system.

The manifesto, entitled “Closing the Door on Innovation,” is available at www.k12innovation.com. It argues that current U.S. Department of Education efforts to nationalize curriculum will stifle innovation and freeze into place an unacceptable status quo; end local and state control of schooling; lack a legitimate legal basis; and impose a one-size-fits-all model on America’s students.

Congress is now preparing to debate renewal of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the main law authorizing federal aid to K-12 education. Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Education has been quietly funding efforts by two assessment groups to develop a national K-12 curriculum, along with a national testing system that tests every public-school student multiple times each year. This federal initiative will create a national system of academic-content standards, tests, and curriculum. It is in line with the goals of a manifesto released on March 7, 2011, by the Albert Shanker Institute that calls for a single nationalized curriculum in every K-12 subject.

“A one-size-fits-all national curriculum based on mediocre high-school standards will stifle the educational innovation essential to closing the racial gap in academic achievement,” said Abigail and Stephan Thernstrom in a joint statement on why they signed the new manifesto. Abigail Thernstrom is vice-chair of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and a former member of the Massachusetts Board of Education; Stephan Thernstrom is a professor of history at Harvard University.

“Closing the Door promotes what is for high schools the most important innovation in a century,” said signatory Blouke Carus, leading children’s magazine publisher, math and reading textbook developer, and chairman of the Carus Corporation. “Our schools need to offer each student a choice among six or more challenging and rigorous high school curricula, as do other, higher-performing countries.”

“The federal government’s effort to impose a national curriculum on all schools spells trouble for the educational system,” said Richard Epstein, law professor at New York University, also a signatory. “No one in Washington can craft a curriculum that works well throughout this diverse nation. Once errors are built in at the national level, corrections will be ever more difficult to make at the local level. Only decentralized control over education can prove nimble enough to root out errors and spur innovation. Washington bureaucrats should not trumpet their own omniscience, but should become more cognizant of their own fallibility.”

“To some, a national curriculum sounds like a redemptive cure-all for the shame of our public schools’ failures,” said signatory Shelby Steele of Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. “And a national curriculum gives the education establishment elite a powerful warrant for ‘doing good.’ But we must not discard the proven constitutional discipline of our federalist system. Decentralization has been the engine of educational innovation. We shouldn’t trade our federalist birthright for a national-curriculum mess of pottage.”

“National curriculum becomes, in effect, a nationalization of what teachers teach,” said former Attorney General Edwin Meese III, another signatory. “We must always evaluate policy proposals in light of principles like rule of law and the logic of our constitutional system. The Education Department’s sponsoring and funding of national curriculum runs counter to both laws of Congress and the wisdom of the Founders.”

The coalition of leaders releasing its counter-manifesto today opposes both the Shanker Institute Manifesto and the U.S. Department of Education initiative on a variety of grounds:

•These efforts are against federal law and undermine the constitutional balance between national and state authority.

•The evidence doesn’t show a need for national curriculum or a national test for all students.

•U.S. Department of Education is basing its initiative on inadequate content standards.

•There is no research-based consensus on what is the best curricular approach to each subject.

•There is not even consensus on whether a single “best curricular approach” for all students exists.

With federal education law coming to the top of Congress’s agenda, the U.S. Department of Education’s push to create national curriculum and assessment is becoming a hot topic.

The manifesto opposing a national curriculum was organized by Bill Evers, research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution; Greg Forster, senior fellow at the Foundation for Education Choice; Jay Greene and Sandra Stotsky, professors at the University of Arkansas; and Ze’ev Wurman, executive at a Silicon Valley start-up.

Which is greater, you or government? Who created whom? Where did government get its rights? Are they unalienable or temporal? To the LDS, D&C 134, a statement on government, says that God instituted government for the benefit of man and that we should respect and uphold the government while we are protected in our inherent and inalienable rights.

So who has rights? We do as children of God. In fact, as Mary Mostert pointed out in her books on the founding of this country, we have unalienable rights. When Jefferson presented his draft of the Declaration of Independence, he used the word inalienable, but the committee changed it to unalienable. What’s the difference? Mary points out that both mean we have rights that cannot be taken from us, ever. The difference though is that “un” alienable means the rights cannot even be transferred by us, while “in” alienable means we could transfer those rights to someone else. Rights from God to us cannot be cast aside.

Does government have rights? No, it has powers. Can those powers exceed our natural, unalienable rights? Never, because government’s powers are derived from our delegated rights.

Are you smarter than all your neighbors? Well, besides that one family down the street… ;) How about smarter than all your neighbors combined? Do you know anyone that thinks they are? Of course we all do, and far too many of those people become politicians. Who is best qualified to know the needs of a child? The parents of course. Empowering parents in their God-given role as the head of the family is the only morally right thing to do. Allowing them the maximum freedom to determine what is best for their children’s education, health, and all other activities, is the only God-approved course we can follow.

Government exists to provide for the safety, security, and happiness of the people. It exists to protect our unalienable rights. I cannot create a mob of people and send them out to murder and steal and provide myself and my neighbors with the goods the mob captures. Government cannot legally do this either simply because we call it government instead of a mob. Frederick Bastiat pointed out this is what government’s devolve into and we legalize plunder causing a moral imbalance in people who recognize the injustice on the one hand, but recognizing the need to respect government on the other. This imbalance leads to frustration and disgust with the process of government. The only solution is freedom. Freedom to fail. Freedom to watch your neighbor fail to educate their children (according to your own perspective). Freedom to choose a course of life that doesn’t infringe on anyone else’s life and thus maximize your own freedom by staying within the bounds of natural rights. None of this means government or schools completely go away, it just means they operate within their bounds. That question then leads to, “where’s the line America?”

“The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government – lest it come to dominate our lives and interests.” – Patrick Henry

From Glenn Beck’s show last week comes this little clip on a few things happening elsewhere in our country.

In January of this year, I presented at the Utah Eagle Forum conference along with some other participants. I’ve already posted one of the presentations that I wanted to get out as quick as I could and that was Pamela Smith’s presentation on the SHARP surveys used in our schools. If you haven’t seen that, you definitely want to be aware of what our children are being asked to consider in “harmless” surveys.

Also, when you finish watching my presentation, if you missed watching the video on the U.N.’s global communist agenda, please watch it as well and you’ll see further evidence for the deliberate dumbing down of America.

Last, and as always, another plug for Charlotte Iserbyt’s excellent documentary entitled “The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America,” which is a free pdf on her website you can download and look through. She refers to John Goodlad as America’s “premier change agent.”

If you would like to download the slides from this presentation, here’s a link to the Planned Illiteracy Powerpoint slides.

 

This is classic. Liberal students don’t mind finding ways to put your money to better use, but when it comes to their GPA’s, “hey I worked for that.”

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOyaJ2UI7Ss[/youtube]