And the result is that intelligent people begin to hope that this army of idiots should have no impact on anything that matters. If the overheated ignorants are going to inflict the AOCs and the Boeberts on us, let all the important decisions be taken out of the hands of the legislature. Let everything be decided in the space of flows where the voting power of the excitable idiots won’t reach.
That’s how the consensus to get rid of the nation-state solidifies.
Pretty sure this is why the franchise was originally limited to male landowners. Skin in the game.
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” sure this is why the franchise was originally limited ”
I look at it from the other end… this is why public education was destroyed… to create an easily manipulated mob….
I remember students doing things like presidential election or Vietnam debates in late elementary and jr high in my undistinguished public school district.
yeah we were just kids and oftn mostly just parroting our parents opinions (or rebelling and voicing the opposite of what we thought they were) but we talked about things in relatively reasoned ways and disagreement wasn’t the end of the world or friendships or employment….
i’m not on the ground in the US but everything I hear makes me think that schools as a place where people can talk about issues from different sides no longer exists.
And I don’t see homeschooling doing that much either tbh… I remember a very religious (Southern Baptist) colleague who didn’t approve of her brother’s plans to homeschool just for that reason – she wanted her future kids to be able to engage with people with very different world views and not only ever socialize with people just like her.
“sane people have no recourse but home-schooling”
The Donner had no recourse but to either eat their dead or starve to death… both choices still sucked.
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Homeschooling is frankly exhausting, and if I had any better options I’d jump on them. But I don’t.
As far as the franchise: there’s no reason it can’t be both.
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” if I had any better options I’d jump on them. But I don’t”
I understand and would probably do the same. But it sucks that the public education system (not superb but very functional outside of a few dysfunctional urban areas) was destroyed….. such a destructive policy for no gains (for rational people).
FWIW it was already pretty bad thirty-plus years ago when I was in school (and we are talking about a town too small, and too far away from big cities, to have real gang activity). My parents sacrificed a huge chunk of their income and worked all sorts of weird deals (we were school janitors for four years– ask me why boys shouldn’t be allowed in the girls’ restroom…) to send my brother and myself to private schools, after my next-older sister was bullied to the point of lifelong trauma, while admin turned a blind eye. Even now there may be “good” schools out there, but you have to be loaded to live anywhere near the right school district. And frankly… I have young relatives whose parents are that loaded and do live in the good school district… and my nephew’s prom photo featured him in a lovely purple dress, meticulous makeup, and a carefully curled-and-sprayed updo… so the price of high academic standards and fancy educational opportunities is a toxic social/propaganda environment. But hey, he got to study robotics and he’s not getting jumped on the way home, or having lit cigarette butts thrown over the stalls into his lap in the bathrooms (like my sister), so there’s that…
If we moved back to my hometown I might try to get mine into the marine charter school administered by one of my cousins, which features swimming and sailing, in the curricula. It’s the only public school I’d consider, and I’d still want to have a long talk with the cousin about it first.
I hear you. Our local public school is very safe and has excellent academic standards. But it’s Illinois so you can imagine the degree of the brainwashing unleashed by the Pritzker legislature. Or you probably can’t imagine and neither did I until I read the state guidelines for primary school education and almost had a heart attack.
My friends homeschooled their 3 kids until high school and sent them to this public school. Now they have 3 bright, successful, polite woke fanatics who turn absolutely any conversation into a BLM propaganda session. I never saw this degree of political fanaticism even in the USSR, and I’m not exaggerating. So yes, this is the tradeoff.
Hello, Mr Bigot!
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Hello, Mr. Bigot!
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A conservative literary critic and college professor
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