If the Truth Be Told

Bill Wilson in Daily Grind had an article called, “To Slay a Hydra in Bridgeport”

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http://blog.getliberty.org/default.asp?Display=1120
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This is an article about the case for the civil rights of children in the public school system. We have watched for years as Big Government has merged with Big Unions to form the most of imperfect unions for the education of our children.

Many have been trying with varying degrees of success to change that union; but as the article alludes to the combination of Big Unions their money and by endearing themselves to the pocketbooks of local politicians, the headway gained has been small and slow.

Progress has been made on a state by state level. Competition in the educational field has slowly been making headway. That competition comes in the form of vouchers, home schooling or academies according to what state one lives.

In Education the lack of individual freedom sticks out like a sore thumb. The difficulty parents have in asserting their rights as parents over what their children are taught are legendary.

Another great article linked below is about how the conservative message without the label is respected in the Black experience.

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http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=31431
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The authors Lee H. Walker and Joseph Bast show that Blacks have used “the three rungs of education, self-reliance, and entrepreneurship to climb the ladder of success and are now solidly middle-class contributors to society."

Self-reliance and entrepreneurship are the outcome of learning individual freedom. For someone to be self-reliant and succeed in business it helps immensely if they are taught those things in school. The article points out how that has become the exception and not the rule. As the article shows, the case for individual freedom is the case against the liberal agenda. A black middle class that has become self-reliant does not need what the liberals offer. In fact what they offer is damaging to that same middle class. It is becoming apparent to anyone who moves out of the hood, what it takes to stay out. All colors.

It means being reliant upon your own abilities and not what the government gives you.
I have said in the past that I have seen the gleam of the American Dream in the eye of minorities more often than in the eye of those who espouse it. What we need to do is get our rhetoric down to the grass roots, at the same time living our lives like we believe what we say. That is a major correction. It takes time to do that.

The key however is simple. Do what you say. In education for example it is easy to talk of making schools accountable for their level of competence in teaching. As the above article points out “Yet conservative thinkers and think tanks practically overflow with ideas to improve education, reward self-reliance, and boost entrepreneurship, while the liberal cupboards are bare.”

Conservatives do have the solutions; we just have trouble relating them to those who would benefit from them. In my state of Michigan we have an excellent resource or think tank. The Mackinac Center for Public Policy is its name. The link below will show you studies they have made at great expense and with full scholarship upon a myriad of subjects. They publish their work as well as give lectures and seminars across the state to groups involved in what the subject is.

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http://www.mackinac.org/
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I am a blogger and not an educator but I went to a forum they had in Lansing about education, and found it quite good. The power point was easy to follow and understand. The results seemed inescapable. The discussion was about basing a teachers’ pay upon the direct results that teacher had on an individual student, then following that student through their various teachers and the method to grade the teachers. The researchers who wrote the book with those findings did a credible job of showing not only how that could be accomplished but the obvious benefits to the students and the teachers for that matter.

That was a think tank connecting to teachers. The trick is to express that same thing to the parent(S) of the children. Express the idea that for their children to get this superior education it is their civil right, as much as voting or where you ride on the bus. It will be obvious, once perceived, how very important this is for their children’s future. Also what becomes readily obvious upon any reflection is which theory provides it better; Liberal or Conservative?

Thomas Sowell of whom I’m a fan talked of a "sober presentation of the facts" as being enough to gain some headway. I would add we need to strip away the bs of the conservative rhetoric and strip it down to its bones and start preaching Individual Freedom and how everyone has a right to it, as a prerequisite to helping themselves in their pursuit of happiness. With education it means telling people they have the right to have their children taught what, when, where and by whom. They and their children have that right. It also means we have to start doing the work of creating those positive solutions to offer those so inclined.

That work is easy enough; it’s just a lot of repetition. Practice, just talking about our ideas with others. Refine the way we present things. The fewer and shorter the words the better. I know that is an anathema to a blogger; but what I'm talking about is talking not writing.

If I was talking I would need to crystallize this into a couple or three sentences. Sentences that would connect with the person I’m talking to. That is a skill, a learned skill. If the truth be told; it is a skill we must learn if we are to actually hope we can get our solutions accepted and in place to help stop this downward slide we are in.

Regards, Live Dangerously Be A Conservative