bring the noyz

"a small inconvenience to ensure their safe arrival" ?

It starts with the airlines keeping us safe on planes. And we all know why we must be safe on planes.

And if it works on a plane, won't it also work at the mall? You don't want a repeat of Omaha, do you?

It sounds like a great idea for schools. Unless you want another Columbine. And surely you don't want that.

This is a great idea.

It will keep you safe. You wanna be safe don't you?

Maybe someday we can all be fitted with our own EMD Safety Bracelet. Mmmm. . . safety.

Or collars of obedience.


That way we can all be safe.

Imagine the implications when we are all safe. Imagine that world. Imagine what a peaceful place it will be. Imagine the benefit of being able to keep the peace with the push of a button. We need not ever experience the horror of scenes such as this.

Imagine the benefit to maintaining public order. This sort of anarchist disorder and chaos would have never occurred had this technology only been available 40 years ago.

Imagine it. Then take your Ambien and go to bed. Everything will be okay.

"You better stay home
And do as you're told.
Get out of the road if you want to grow old."
- R. Waters

Fuck that. This is evil.
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By now, I trust my dear reader, that at the very least you have seen this small snippet of sound bite from this story overplayed and out of context on your favorite news outlet:

". . . and he often uses The Gospel to affirm his strong political views, as in this 2003 sermon, damning the United States for its treatment of Blacks:

'The Government gives them the drugs. . . ' "

Yeah right, we all know that's just the crazy talk of another angry black man.

Or is it?

Oops.
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A dear friend in the land of surf and sun picked up on my previous post and there has been some discussion on it at his blog. I wish to share some of that correspondence with you here, my dear reader and to more fully explore and explain my thoughts on the matter.

So let's get into it, shall we?

1. Johnny said,
   10 March 2008 at 20h34

   The state has a compelling interest in ensuring the education of its citizens that outweighs the individual’s right to privacy and self-determination. As always, if you don’t agree with this, you have every right to find a place where you can opt out of society. Western Sahara would be a good start. But what you don’t get is the ability to choose, cafeteria style, which parts of the social contract you will abide by and which you won’t. But I don’t think you are ready to make the leap into total anarchy just yet.

   In the meantime, please spare me a world where each generation is not even smart enough to pass on 90 percent of its own knowledge to its successors. In a few short years, we won’t even be as smart as the monkeys. And your precious novels? Gone and forgotten. Utopia, laddie boy?

To which, I had this to say in response:

Johnny, Johnny, Johnny! This is a shiny red candy like button and you just pushed it.

Oh sweet Johnny, you sir, are dreadfully wrong. While I agree that “The state has a compelling interest in ensuring the education of its citizens” I can not disagree more strongly with your assertion that this interest “outweighs the individual’s right to privacy and self-determination”. While I share your fear that we may be headed towards Idiocracy (by Mike Judge, starring Luke Wilson), that fear does not automatically justify the State’s (with a big ‘S”) usurpation of a parent’s right to educate their children as they see fit. While obviously “yes it does” in cases of abuse/neglect, that is the exception not the rule.

And what most irks me about that whole story is “A primary purpose of the educational system is to train school children in good citizenship, patriotism and loyalty to the state and the nation”. Loyalty to the state and nation? Fuck that shit homey! No, no, NO!

If you will please allow me for a moment to speak now as a seasoned veteran public school teacher with 15 years to date in the classroom, never once have I remotely considered the purpose of my job to “train school children”. You train dogs, not kids. Kids you teach to think for themselves to the best of their ability. You teach children, as Whitman said so eloquently:

“This is what you shall do: love the earth and sun, and animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence towards the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown, or to any man or number of men; go freely with the powerful uneducated persons, and with the young, and mothers, of families: read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life: re-examine all you have been told at school or church, or in any books, and dismiss whatever insults your soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem. . . ”

Indoctrination is not an education. Training kids to recite the Pledge of Allegiance everyday means jack shit unless you teach them to truly understand the meaning of “and to the republic for which it stands”.

I’d rant on for a few hours more, but it’s three o’clock in the fucking morning. So good night, and good luck.

Well now it is the next day, and so if you will allow me this indulgence, my dear reader, I shall indeed rant on.

In an era that has seen a most unwelcome government encroachment on our rights and civil liberties (Patriot Act, domestic surveillance, etc.) I fear that we the people are to some extent being conditioned to simply bend over and take it in order to keep us safe from some mythical kalashnikov toting turban wearing creature: a terrorist.

We are a nation of laws, and laws are based on precedent. And this is a precedent that simply must not stand. It must not stand because it is a direct assault on the most basic and sacred institution in our society: your family, my family, our families. It is a sneak blitzkrieg attack on the family, and the basic right of parents to raise their children. It is abhorrent, repellent and quite frankly disgusting.

Judge Croskey's ruling is an inch that takes a mile. It is a precedent that further establishes the principal that the government knows what is best for you and your family. It lays claim to the government's power while stealing yours to dictate the best course of action for you and your family.

This is all fine and good if you love Big Brother and crave for a nanny state. I for one, do not.

And again, I continue to take great umbrage with the whole notion that the primary purpose of education is to "train school children in good citizenship, patriotism and loyalty to the state and the nation". It insults my soul.

The primary purpose of education in regards to all subject areas, civics and humanities included (although sadly neglected by much of our current system of public education with its ridiculous emphasis on standardized test scores, see here for more), should not be, is not to "train children".

I will repeat myself for emphasis. You train dogs. You teach children.

Education is not simply indoctrinating children with blind loyalty and patriotism to the nation. Hitler tried that. So did Stalin. Look at how that turned out.

Education should provide a cultural and historical framework while teaching children the intellectual skills to use use logic and reason so that they may reach their own inevitable conclusions: that of all the systems of government thus far created in the history of humanity, a representative democracy by and for the people, a government that respects and nourishes the rights of the individual while safeguarding the liberties and meeting the needs of those that cannot provide for themselves, is quite simply the best.

That is education.

And your very flesh shall be a great poem.
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Okay now you listen up my dear reader, and you jus' best listen good. This is crap. Pure and fucking simple.

Are you starting to believe?

The Man said what?

California courts have held that ... parents do not have a constitutional right to homeschool their children," Justice H. Walter Croskey said in the 3-0 ruling issued on Feb. 28. "Parents have a legal duty to see to their children's schooling under the provisions of these laws."

Parents can be criminally prosecuted for failing to comply, Croskey said.

"A primary purpose of the educational system is to train school children in good citizenship, patriotism and loyalty to the state and the nation as a means of protecting the public welfare," the judge wrote, quoting from a 1961 case on a similar issue.

Oh, where to begin?

Where to begin? Well for fucking starters, although I need not remind you my dear reader, I shall now do so anyway for purely dramatic effect. As a point of fact I have been a public school teacher for 15 years. I knows my shit and I'm fucking bonified.

And to think I've been doing it wrong all these years. Huh.

My only concern has been creating and implementing ways to teach so my students learn and grow to their fullest potential, via whatever path they find themselves on. Many roads lead to The Buddha.

To imagine otherwise is to do a grave mis-service to those to whom I have pledged both personal and professional devotion.

"A primary purpose of the educational system is to train school children in good citizenship, patriotism and loyalty to the state and the nation as a means of protecting the public welfare."

". . . loyalty to the state and the nation. . . "

Hey! Judge Croskey! Two simple words: fuck you.

Join my now my dear reader, say it with me. Say it loud.

Hey! Judge Croskey! Fuck you!

If you don't or can't or won't join me and say it with me, my dear reader, I fear we may soon hear the resurgence of two other words:


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Sweet merciful crap, the last time I saw two dicks this big gushing all over each other I was surfing around an entirely different type of website.



Can somebody get these guys a couple of kleenex?

(Thanks to the Great Goblin for bringing this to my attention.)
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Imagine receiving an audio alert while driving, accompanied by a shrill audio command to turn left at the Nordstrom Inc. outlet 400 feet down the highway, simply because the price of your favorite Hugo Boss jacket was just reduced by 25 percent.

Spooky.

For lots and lots of reasons.

The least of which being that The Man knows when you drive by your neighborhood Nordstrom. But then again, I'm sure it is a very stylish jacket, not just Hugo Boss but totally so! It seems downright irresponsible to resist the savings. 25% off? Cripes! Gimme two!

(For now just ignore the implications of a shrill audio command.)

Just go ahead you happy pig, consume.

Consume.

(A shrill audio command?)

If your basic thought is to wallow, then by all means do so now. I know you want to. . .

C'mon, all the cool kids are doing it.

And you wanna be cool, don'cha?
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Proceed.
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