Despite Americans seeing a two percent jump in their Social Security taxes and less money in their bank accounts after the fiscal cliff deal was signed via auto pen on behalf of President Obama last week, the White House is pretending rates stayed the same. In an email to supporters yesterday, White House Senior Adviser David Plouffe wrote:
Hello --

 I'll tell you what keeps driving me every day: the knowledge that people like you have our backs.

 When President Obama asked you to make your voices heard to keep taxes from going up on the middle class, people from all over the country, folks in every state spoke out. More than 130,000 of you sent in stories to the White House website. There were times these past few weeks when our Twitter feeds were positively overwhelmed by people joining the debate using the #My2k hashtag.

 So we put your stories on the front page of the White House website. We asked you to stand behind the President when he laid out his position on this debate at the White House. The President went and met with one family who had shared their story. The Vice President sat down with another for lunch.

 And people took notice. Reporters wrote stories about the way that you were adding your voices to this debate, and it became impossible to ignore your perspective.
The White House also released the following video which like Plouffe's email,  says middle class taxes haven't gone up and points out that the fiscal cliff requires "the wealthy to pay their fair share."

The stories Plouffe won't be putting on the front page of WhiteHouse.gov are those of angry voters wondering why their paychecks are less, after all, the President promised he'd take care of them by only soaking the rich. More from Twitchy:

Photobucket

On another note, notice Plouffe's use of the media to push the White House agenda, "Reporters wrote stories about the way that you were adding your voices to this debate." Still wondering how Obama got re-elected? This is one reason why. Notice how the same reporters aren't talking or writing about the latest tax increase and broken White House promise of helping the middle class.

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2013/01/10/white-house-pretends-taxes-havent-gone-up-on-middle-class-after-fiscal-cliff-deal-n1486213

Unexpected: Jobless Claims Rise to 371k

The Labor Department reported this morning that initial jobless claims last week rose by 4,000 to 371,000. Economists had been expecting a decrease in the number of Americans making their first filing for unemployment benefits. The less-volatile 4-week moving average jumped to 365,750.

Over 5 million Americans are now collecting unemployment benefits. The sluggishness of the job market acts as a brake on economic growth. Consumer spending, which accounts for around two-thirds of economic activity, is strongly correlated with job and wage growth. 

For the past two years, the economy as added just around 150,000 new jobs each month. That is barely enough to keep up with population growth. The economy needs to double that monthly average to accelerate economic growth. 

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/01/10/unexpected-jobless-claims-rise-to-371k

More Taxpayer Funds Wasted
on Solar Company
Dept. of Labor grants additional $400K to laid off Evergreen Solar employees

A bankrupt Massachusetts solar company that received more than $30 million in state funds continues to cost taxpayers money in the form of special unemployment assistance from the Department of Labor, according to a Wednesday press release.

Labor announced a $408,403 National Emergency Grant increment for continued assistance to roughly 320 workers affected by the 2011 closure of Evergreen Solar Inc.

This latest block of aid brings the total funds awarded for the project to $738,179.

“The former workers of Evergreen Solar continue to face significant obstacles in finding good jobs in their region,” Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis said in a statement. “This funding will make it possible for these workers to receive training and reemployment services to help them find good jobs.”

Evergreen Solar received an estimated $31 million in state funding from the administration of Democratic Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick.

Massachusetts taxpayers were left on the hook for nearly $10 million of that aid when the company went bankrupt and laid off roughly 800 employees.

The affected Evergreen workers are also receiving Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) benefits, according to the Labor Department press release.

The TAA program is administered by the Department of Labor and aids workers who lose their jobs or have hours or wages reduced due to foreign competition.

Aggressive competition from China has been blamed for the downfall of a number of domestic solar companies in recent years, including several that received hundreds of millions of dollars in federal grants as part of President Barack Obama’s green energy initiative such as Solyndra.

The Labor Department approved Evergreen for TAA benefits in March 2011.

Meanwhile, the Boston Herald reported last year that former Evergreen CEO Richard Feldt was selling his five-bedroom, two-plus acre manse for $9.9 million.

That is almost $1.4 million more than the selling price of the company’s factory.

http://freebeacon.com/more-taxpayer-funds-wasted-on-solar-company/

President Obama and the Prisoner's Dilemma

The word about negotiations is that Speaker Boehner has vowed not to negotiate one-on-one with President Obama anymore.  Not after being stiffed twice by the president -- first in the 2011 debt ceiling negotiations, and second in the fiscal cliff deal.


In this the speaker is merely admitting to a little piece of settled science: the iterated Prisoner's Dilemma.

The Prisoner's Dilemma is an arcane piece of game theory that takes forever to explain.  But reduced to essentials, it tries to answer the question: should I trust the other guy?


If your answer is "more research is needed," go straight to the head of the class.


But in the real world we want answers, and fortunately, answers have emerged from a famous experiment in the iterated Prisoner's Dilemma conducted by Robert Axelrod.  He invited people to submit strategies for an iterated game of Prisoner's Dilemma.  The winner submitted a simple strategy, TIT-FOR-TAT, which copied the opponent's every move. 


It's obvious, really.  If you are in a short-term relationship with another person, then you profit by cheating him.  If you are in a long-term relationship, then you should always copy the other person's actions.  In other words, you should trust people who demonstrate trustworthiness, and you should not trust people who stiff you.


We can see that Speaker Boehner has been a little slow on the uptake.  But now he's learned his lesson, and he won't be fooled by the president again.  Fool me once...


It's obvious where the president's cheater tactics come from.  They issue from his lefty culture and its formalization in Alinsky's Rules for Radicals.  We could say that Rules is a primer on how to act with people you are determined to mistrust.  Heck, let's expand the problem and say that the whole point of left-wing politics is to sow distrust.  Don't trust the banker; he's greedy.   Don't trust the grocer; he's a company store.  Don't trust your employer; he's making a profit off your labor.  Don't trust Wall Street; it's a casino.  Don't trust the family; it's a patriarchy.  Don't trust the church; the priests are hitting on little boys.  Don't trust the community organizer...no, wait!  The community organizer is the good guy!


The end result of all the mistrust is to cut your followers off from all relationships except their relationship to you, the community organizer.  Then, of course, your followers are stuck.  They have burned all their bridges, and so they must follow you, even if you lead them to national ruin like Hugo Chávez in Venezuela or the Peronists in Argentina.


Ominously, the president's tactics follow precisely the tactics of an enraged female cobra in Kipling's Jungle Books.  You'll remember Nagaina telling the Brit colonial exploiters: "If you move I strike.  And if you do not move I strike."  Hell hath no fury like a widowed snake.  She was so angry, you would think that she was upset about cuts to U.S. social programs.


Conservatives just want to get on with the sensible middle-class job of cleaning up the national balance sheet, just as Rikki-Tikki-Tavi wanted to clear the garden of cobras.  But instead, it is probably best just to make life miserable for the president and the Democrats, because they still don't get it.


Here's an example.  It is Joan Walsh at Salon, burbling on about "Obama's Great Society" and indulging in a little rational factual socialist argument while rearranging the administrative deck chairs on the unsinkable entitlement programs.  You see, we need "universal programs for more than just the elderly - universal preschool and higher education, to cite two pressing priorities."  Too late, Joanie.  We already spent all the money on the elderly.


Anyway, President Obama has made his choice.  He believes in mistrust and division.  Without trust, there can be no deal on anything, let alone a grand bargain to reform the Democrats' beloved entitlements.  But that is all right.  We are never going to do anything about entitlements anyway until the inevitable sovereign debt crisis arrives.  Maybe, when it does, we'll do what the Liberal Canadian Finance Minister Paul Martin did in the mid 1990s: cut programs.


When we racists, bigots, and homophobes actually do get our teeth in the neck of the administrative welfare snake, it had better be with the grudging consent of the Democrats.  Otherwise, they'll be sending their thugs out into the street to start a national conversation.


Until then, conservatives and Republicans should remember the rules of the iterated Prisoner's Dilemma.  When your opponent shows by his actions that he can't be trusted, it means you shouldn't trust him.  Ever.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/01/president_obama_and_the_prisoners_dilemma.html

NRA Slams Biden Meeting

The NRA met with Vice President Biden and the gun violence task force today as part of a series of meetings with key stakeholders in the gun debate. The NRA’s statement about the meeting confirms that that White House was never interested in having an honest, inclusive debate about how to prevent tragedies like Newtown from happening again, but rather, is focused on its “agenda to attack the Second Amendment.”
Fairfax, Va.– The National Rifle Association of America is made up of over 4 million moms and dads, daughters and sons, who are involved in the national conversation about how to prevent a tragedy like Newtown from ever happening again.  We attended today's White House meeting to discuss how to keep our children safe and were prepared to have a meaningful conversation about school safety, mental health issues, the marketing of violence to our kids and the collapse of federal prosecutions of violent criminals. 
We were disappointed with how little this meeting had to do with keeping our children safe and how much it had to do with an agenda to attack the Second Amendment.  While claiming that no policy proposals would be “prejudged,” this Task Force spent most of its time on proposed restrictions on lawful firearms owners - honest, taxpaying, hardworking Americans.  It is unfortunate that this Administration continues to insist on pushing failed solutions to our nation's most pressing problems.  We will not allow law-abiding gun owners to be blamed for the acts of criminals and madmen.  Instead, we will now take our commitment and meaningful contributions to members of congress of both parties who are interested in having an honest conversation about what works - and what does not. 
The vice president is to submit the task force’s recommendations to President Obama by Tuesday.  Biden revealed on Thursday that “an emerging set of recommendations” includes restricting high-capacity magazines and having universal background checks, which would not only close the "gun show loophole" but would also require background checks for all transactions, including private sales.  

After yesterday’s meeting with victims of gun violence, Biden said that “the president is going to act,” even if that means using executive orders.

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/leahbarkoukis/2013/01/10/nra-slams-biden-meeting-n1486705

Flexibility Comes Home to Roost

Political analysts, pundits, journalists, and even some lay people across the globe are questioning Obama's choice of Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense. Hagel's impending nomination has been the subject of radio talk shows, cable news panels, and conservative and liberal columnists for a number of weeks now, reaching a crescendo on Monday when the official nomination was announced. The general consensus seems to be, "What in the world was Obama thinking nominating someone so controversial, who will entail the expense of major political capital when too many more important fights lie ahead, and whose confirmation is so questionable."

Every single person who views the Hagel nomination from that perspective is completely missing the big picture, naïve at best, or ignorantly hopeful that an Obama second term will bring kumbaya camaraderie, bipartisanship, "co-existence," and the fulfillment of other left-wing utopian dreams. Alas, if the Hagel nomination does not wake the remaining Kool-Aid drinkers from their slumber, nothing will.

For the answer to anyone who questions why in the world a lame duck President Barack Hussein Obama would nominate an anti-Semitic, gay-hating, dovish, seemingly mullah-supporting, Hezbollah-sustaining, isolationist to head up the Pentagon is beyond obvious. It is because he agrees with Hagel's views! Obama has absolutely no reason to appoint anyone to his cabinet or elsewhere in his administration who is not ideologically aligned with his own worldview. Accordingly, the guy who "won" and who "brings a gun to the fight," who has consistently pitted American against American with the strategy of divide and conquer, and who continually undermines the Constitution in order to expand his own power, no longer feels constrained by the American electorate.

While Americans ignorantly ignored Obama's off-mike comment to Russian President Dmitri Medvedev that, "This is my last election. After my election I have more flexibility," I venture a guess that many in the international community took notice. As Medvedev responded, "I understand. I will transmit this information to Vladimir," perhaps Kool-Aid drinking Americans enjoyed a James Bond flashback of some Hollywood produced fantasy they enjoyed on the big screen rather than coming to terms with the true meaning of the friendly exchange. But Vladimir, Ayatollah and Mahmoud, Assad, the Muslim Brotherhood, Kim Jong Eun, and other bad players on the world stage surely took notice. Is it really any wonder that Iran's Press-TV and the George Soros-funded Center for American Progress endorsed Hagel to head up Defense? 

Americans are overlooking the spots on the Obama leopard they elected to office not once, but twice. The man they chose to lead America's decline in the 21st century does not like America, abhors Israel, her people and leader, detests his country's military strength and historic accomplishments, loathes economic freedom and individual liberty, and resents those who achieve success in a democratic, capitalist society (aside from himself). Obama never really hid those views from the public although the public never removed its rose-colored glasses through which it viewed their favorite idol. The mainstream media certainly played its role in pulling the wool over the public's eyes, but a failed record after four years in office (and the little information divulged from his pre-White House days) reveals a man with tremendous disdain for everything that this country represents. 

Before his first election Obama announced to the world, "We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America." And while Obama began that venture in his first term, he recognized the need to have a second untethered term in order to truly accomplish his goals. So no one should be surprised that his foreign policy team will now include the triumvirate of John Kerry (the male-equivalent of Jane Fonda) at State, Chuck Hagel at Defense, and John Brennan heading up the CIA -- and good luck to anyone stupid enough to follow in the selfless and patriotic footsteps of Ambassador Stevens. 

(John Brennan is a disaster to the lead the CIA; however, it may be that Obama nominated him simultaneously with Hagel so as to minimize that fight. Brennan is known for, among other things, referring to Jerusalem as "al Quds" [The Arabic name for the city), being called to resign by John McCain who exclaimed that Brennan had "lost touch with reality" when Brennan commented that having a percentage of terrorists return to terrorism after release from Gitmo "isn't that bad," proposing U.S. engagement with Hezbollah, facilitated by the unindicted co-conspirators in the Islamic Holy Land trial, the Islamic Society of North America, meeting with Muslim law students to discuss national security issues, viewing himself as a "citizen of the world" who does not support "profiling" in order to protect Americans, and reportedly having been involved in planning and encouraging the Mavi Marmara convoy to Gaza in 2010.)

Why would Obama risk a controversial choice and invite a political battle at a time when all of Washington seems mired in ugly partisanship? Because he is confident that the few Democrats who do not support the selection will fall in line like good little foot soldiers as they have to date, thus ensuring that his devious plan so too falls into place. Once again his complicit media buddies will label evil Republicans as obstructionist. In the face of honest questions about Hagel's views, Obama's surrogates both in the media and in politics will blame the Hagel-labeled "Jewish Lobby" for being "Israel-firsters" who care little to nothing about America's best interests. And he will finally be set free from having to pretend to feel anything other than disgust at Israel's Prime Minister who he has been stuck having to "deal with every day."

Most significantly, Obama never had any intention of stopping Iran from going nuclear. If Obama had any intention of preventing a nuclear Iran, he would have been an enthusiastic supporter of sanctions from the get go rather than fighting their implementation and passage tooth and nail. Instead he had to be dragged kicking and screaming to the signing table only to grant waivers and exceptions that watered down their effectiveness. If he really wanted to prevent Iran from nuclear hegemony, he would have enthusiastically worked with Israel to draw a red line and put the fear of God in the mullahs that pursuing this endeavor would result in the demise of not just their nuclear facilities, but the entire Islamic regime. 

Obama does not care less about his foreign policy legacy, as Benghazi, Egypt, and Syria painfully illustrate. Obama's only legacy that he cares about pertains to the transformation of America beginning with Obamacare and ending with European-style socialism. In between, his legacy involves knocking America down a few notches on the international stage, leading from behind, and blaming others for his failures. When Iran goes nuclear, it will not be Obama's fault - it will be that of the global community of which he only wants to play a small role - until he becomes secretary general of the UN. 

Elevating Hagel to head up the Pentagon not only sends the palpable message to the Iranians and the rest of the world that they have nothing to fear from America with their deadly pursuits. It also ensures that Israel must now face the hard truth that any expectation of American military support in the face of such an incursion will be the stuff that dreams are made of. 

American Jews who supported Obama despite his anti-Israel record will continue to make excuses, stick their heads in the sand, and defend their guy. As the Hagel nomination became official, the National Jewish Democratic Council issued a statement supporting the selection stating that they "trust that when confirmed, former Senator Chuck Hagel will follow the President's lead of providing unrivaled support for Israel." ( The irony in that statement -- given the fact that Obama's "support" for Israel is rivaled by every single one of his predecessors since Jimmy Carter -- has apparently been missed on the organization that exploited Israeli Jews in order to fabricate a pro-Obama video prior to the past election.) Jewish Senators such as Dianne Feinstein and Carl Levin have absolutely no problem with Hagel's nomination and Chuck Schumer looks forward to "exploring [Hagel's] views." 

Then there is Obama advocate Alan Dershowitz, who published a column critical of Hagel's selection but stated, "Senator Hagel will have an opportunity to clarify, and hopefully to change, his previous statements with regard to these issues." Dershowitz concluded that he has "hope" that his "concerns can be allayed by the President and his nominee..." And pro-Obama Democrat, Ed Koch, chimed in on Monday with his assessment that, "Frankly, I thought that there would come a time when [Obama] would renege on what he conveyed on his support of Israel," and added, "it comes a little earlier than I thought it would." This is from a man who, despite believing that Obama would renege on his promises to the American people, voted for him anyway. 

As I read of John Boehner's recent confrontation with Harry Reid, I cannot help but imagine Obama staring out at the television monitors and the faceless American people watching on the other end and thinking the same thing that Boehner so eloquently stated: "Go f--- yourself." Because that is exactly what Obama is saying to the American people when he nominated Kerry, Hagel, and Brennan. And if these recent appointments do not drive that message home to the electorate, nothing will.

With Obama steering the ship into the perfect storm of a disastrous, yet predictable foreign policy team, his favorite pastor and family friend's claims that, "America's chickens are coming home to roost" never seemed more apropos. Nor more scary.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/01/flexibility_comes_home_to_roost.html
 
PK'S NOTE: This piece is long but really worth it.

Tearing Down Public Education

On the subject of public schools, some conservatives and libertarians are inclined to speak as though they cannot wait another moment to spring into action -- and then act as though they need the hand of God to point the way ahead before they do what we all know in our hearts must be done.  This is not meant as harsh criticism.  These good people embody an innate human flaw defined for all time in one of our greatest archetypes: they are Hamlet.

At a moment as historically important as this one, two all-too-human dangers lie in wait for those who understand the seriousness of the situation.  The first is that they should undermine their own cause with reckless outbursts and the resulting disarray.  The second is that they should cocoon themselves against the clear imperative to act by lamenting the lack of a perfect plan. 

It is this second danger that I wish to address here.  The people I am talking about are men and women who know that generations of compulsory public schooling have laid waste to reason, morality, and responsible citizenship.  They desire radical change -- and yet something about the enormity of the situation has paralyzed them.  They are practical Hamlets: they rail (correctly) against the usurpation of their family's and society's legitimate authority by an unjust, immoral, and destructive public education system -- but then they rail against the heavens, or against their fellow conservatives and libertarians, for supposedly not proposing a feasible solution.

The truth is that education is one of the few areas of authoritarian encroachment where you can, for the moment at least, advance liberty and morality through your own action.  There is no need to wait for legislators to act on your behalf.  (That is putting the cart before the horse.)  And there is no need to demand that people with public voices, billions of dollars, or political connections take the first step. 
The first step is available to anyone who wishes to take it.  Thousands have already taken it; one need only join them.  What are you waiting for? 

Hamlet, the eternal essence of the ratiocinative man trapped in a moment of practical urgency, always has a reason for inaction.  All his reasons seem reasonable to him -- indeed, they are reasonable -- and yet they conspire against his soul's moral imperative, functioning in his virtuous mind as excuses function in the minds of vicious men.  Hamlet, an honest man, does not "rationalize" or "procrastinate": rather, he clogs up his moral arteries with nuanced qualifications; he racks himself with second thoughts. 

This, I believe, is where too many people stand today with respect to the warning presented to them, not by their father's ghost, but by the ghost-like witness of their own children, or those of others -- children whose souls and potential are daily being siphoned off by an education system designed to produce subjugated spirits, mere slogan-vessels, whose (carefully nurtured) dominant passions are born of greed, sloth, lust, and envy, which can easily be subdued and manipulated by the power elite's petty material promises, entertainments, and demagoguery.  Our Hamlets see this monster, and want to kill it, but they have become obsessed with the seeming intractability of the corrupt system, rather than focusing on practical actions they could take today that would squeeze off its blood supply.  Their obsession with the political enormity of the corruption, combined with their impatience to unravel it, threatens to make them caustic skeptics precisely where positive engagement is most needed.

Some of us are dedicated to working out the most persuasive theoretical ammunition for the long battle to save future generations from state indoctrination.  In reply to these efforts the "impatient" Hamlets declare, "This historical and theoretical mumbo-jumbo is all well and good, but when is someone going to come up with a practical plan?"

Hundreds of fellow citizens write in a thousand different forums about their successful experiences as homeschoolers.  And yet Hamlet says, "But individual action is pointless -- when are we going to get organized?" or "A parent would have to give up his or her job to teach the children full-time," or "Some parents are not competent to teach their own children."

Advocates and administrators of private schools -- secular or religious -- produce evidence and argument for the myriad advantages of rescuing children from the public system quickly, and the eminent feasibility of doing so.  And yet Hamlet says, "It's too expensive when we're already paying taxes for public school," or "There's nothing we can do until politicians abolish the U.S. Department of Education."

A collective plea is issued for reasserting parental control over children's education, in the name of renewing a dying civilization.  But Hamlet says, "It's too late to save civilization now -- it would take generations."
Let us begin with this last point.  "It's too late to save civilization now -- it would take generations."  This view, variations of which appear regularly on conservative websites and blogs, is self-contradictory.  The claim that something would take a long time to achieve is itself an acknowledgment that it is indeed possible. 
Of course it will take generations.  Education is a slow process in an individual soul.  As a societal shift, it is even slower because, at the outset, most people will not be involved in the revolution, and because even those who are will vary in competence and results.  Are those who use this argument against immediate action on education imagining that a rejuvenated society will arise spontaneously from the coming economic and social collapse? 

As things now stand, it is no exaggeration to hypothesize that the majority of people will enter the coming period of tumult ignorant of human nature and history, conscienceless, and lacking both practical skills and the independent character to acquire them.  What kind of society is likely to emerge from such a population in a time of unrest and hardship? 

No -- the belief that collapse is inevitable is all the more reason to take what action you can against the spiritual degradations of public education right now, while there is still hope of starting someone's life off on the path to self-reliance and moral integrity.  There will be no quick fix for civilization.  We are certainly looking at a multigenerational war.  Few of us are likely to be on this earth when and if victory is declared -- all the more reason to start the process without further delay.

We must take our cue here from the early progressives who started the ball rolling on compulsory public education several generations ago.  Motivated by a twisted combination of power lust, crackpot historicism, and moral condescension, they took what steps they could in the midst of the vibrant, prosperous, free society that they hated.  They are long dead now -- and yet today, were they not burning, they would be enjoying the fruit of their cynical labors posthumously. 

Men's most momentous actions, as Hamlet would certainly agree, are often those that overreach the bounds of our mortality.  In redefining education you will need to count on future citizens to complete the most far flung goals of your work.  On the other hand, you have the power, through your actions today, to define the trajectory of motions that will extend beyond your life. 

In the meantime, virtuous action is its own reward.  You can, by helping to save even one child from the wasted years and the moral and intellectual corruption of public education, help to set your community on a trajectory of strong moral character, self-reliance, and resistance to government dependency, combined with an unleashing of the innate curiosity that allows children to develop talents and knowledge at remarkable rates, almost without assistance -- unless the government is allowed to beat or hug them into submission first.  Future generations will need all the virtue, intellectual dexterity, and historical perspective within their potential if they are to withstand the hard times ahead, and emerge as free men and women.  Delayed action at this late date will have tragic consequences.

So act. 

Remove your own children from public school now.  If you are intending to have children in the future, begin planning for their private education immediately.  How will you provide it?  How will you pay for it? 
Whether or not you have school age children yourself, encourage the reasonable parents among your relatives and friends to remove their children from public school.  Make the case, rationally and thoroughly.  Leave them to think about it, and then make the case again.  Give them some good reading material to ponder, such as John Taylor Gatto's Underground History of American Education.  And as a show of good faith, offer to help educate their children.

If you belong to a church or synagogue with a rational clergyman and congregation, urge them to form a school together.  If you know teachers who are working in a public system but are fed up with its failures and corrupt agendas, encourage them, cajole them, beg them, to join a private school venture -- their consciences are already tugging them that way.

If you are planning to home school, seek out others who are doing the same.  Exchange ideas, or teach one another's children according to each parent's strengths.  If you are not engaged in homeschooling a child of your own, consider how you might contribute to the education of others' kids.  Grandparents: shake your adult children, and reclaim your historical role as patriarchs and matriarchs!  The broader the market of available sources of learning, the more likely parents will be to remove their children from the government re-education centers -- and the more affordable doing so will become.  (This is also, by the way, the immediately practicable method of defunding public schools, which receive tax dollars based on student numbers.)

If you have skills or knowledge that might help to stir a new, energized generation of unfettered children to seek understanding and practical efficacy the way today's shackled young souls seek computer game high scores and perverse music videos, then use them for the sake of your community's future.  Whether full-time or part-time, for profit or on a volunteer basis, offer to tutor young people in those areas where your abilities might fill a gap in a parent's or school's offerings.

Do you have a long-standing interest in European history, astronomy, bird-watching, or carpentry?  Then offer to teach it to private students, individually or in groups.  I recently realized, upon reflection, that of all the primary and secondary schooling I underwent, the only class I remember with unequivocal fondness was not a school offering at all.  A man in my Catholic parish, the father of one of my classmates, had an interest in photography, and decided to start up a little "camera club" for kids from the church.  We used cheap cameras, and only black and white film, because it was easier and less expensive to process.  We learned how to take pictures and develop them.  What a joy it was to stand in Mr. Deduca's little basement darkroom, watching our "creations" arise from the photographic paper.  If only a few of my "real" classes had been half as interesting!

And what about the other common considerations and over-considerations I mentioned, with which people talk themselves out of doing the obvious?

Will some parents and private schools do a worse job than others?  Yes -- but in a world of private education, there will always be available alternatives to a failing model, as opposed to the inescapable damage done to every child in the standardized, "one failure fits all" approach of public education.  Furthermore, granting the minimal requirements of a relatively safe and stable environment, basic amenities, and a few good books, a child left to his or her own devices is likely to achieve far more intellectual growth, while incurring far less moral deformity, than the same child in a government school.

Is private education costly, whether in tuition fees or in the lost income potential of the homeschooling parent?  Of course it is -- but how do you weigh the budgetary priority of a child's dignity, intellectual development, and preparedness for responsible citizenship against, say, the value of a new car, a bigger home, or an expensive vacation?  And, taking the long view, how do you weigh the value of a renewed spirit of individualism, self-reliance, and civic responsibility against the perpetual enslavement of the state-dependent herd and the submissive socialist "labor force" that are guaranteed to ensue -- that are meant to ensue -- from the continued machinations of the progressive public school establishment?

Barack Obama's presidency is the modern West's equivalent of Hamlet's play within the play.  (Act III, Scene ii)  It establishes clearly, and for all to see, the authoritarian usurpers' true motives and methods.  Hamlet, in the aftermath of King Claudius' self-exposure at the play -- "Give me some light: away!" -- declares himself prepared to "do such bitter business as the day would quake to look on."  But then, yet again, he fades into qualifications and second thoughts.  We, facing a similar moment of clarity, must not fade.  There is no need for further proof, nor time for further introspection.  It is time to act, while action is still possible.

Thinking, writing, and speaking are worthy actions, and are essential in the long run, as knowledge and persuasive argument are our primary weapons.  But in addition to these, for those who perceive the centrality of education in determining the future possibilities of a man, a community, and a civilization, immediate practical steps are required.  The first and most vital step is relatively obvious -- it only seems obscure if our inner Hamlet has us paralyzed. 

Work as though your life depended on it -- your liberty certainly does -- to get any child within your sphere of influence out of the public school system, immediately.  Political solutions will come last, not first, as future generations of self-sufficient and strong-charactered individuals make their stand against a withered and debunked authoritarian establishment.  The greater the number of such free-souled individuals, the starker and more humiliating the contrast with the downward-ratcheting "standards" imposed by the growth-stunting racket we used to call public education.

A final point: a humiliated tyrant, such as will result from a significant public school exodus, will become even more brazen in his oppressive urges.  Men of real and steadfast virtue will be needed then.  Start producing such men today.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/01/tearing_down_public_education.html
 
Also Reads:
  

"The Heritage Foundation released their annual Index of Economic Freedom, a country-by-country ranking of economic freedom throughout the world. The United States' position in their rankings fell for the fifth year in a row - this time below Denmark - and ranks as the tenth-freest country in the world, in the "mostly free" category. "