I’ve been glowering over this “defund the police” B as in B, S as in S. It’s patent leftist agitprop aimed to tear apart the fabric of society. The chaos that will ensue will be the pretext for the next wave of howls that some other thing has to be dismantled, as the dangerous dope Rep. from Minnesota called for lately.
This is loooong in coming. Antonio Gramsci recognized after WW2 that the left could temporarily give up power in X or Y, but if they could control the schools eventually they would get everything else. That is what has been happening for a decades.
Schools – academia – are supposed to teach children and young people how to learn and how to think. Learning “stuff” is secondary to those two goals.
Instead, schools have been doing exactly the opposite. They are making young people stupid. They don’t teach student how to think or learn. Instead, they teach them how to emote and uncritically accept. Those in charge of schools have dumbed down curricula, injected social re-engineering and leftist propaganda into class rooms. The result is that schools – public and CATHOLIC – have churned out wave after wave of drifting, minimally informed dupes, ready to get suckered into backing whatever loudmouthed leftist organizer comes along. This is what we see in the streets today.
Couple that with the influence of the demonic that certain sins invite and we have the recipe for what we see in the streets today. It is getting worse.
Generalizations? Okay. But bear with me. You know that I’m right.
I have a thought.
DEFUND ACADEMIA. DEFUND PUBLIC SCHOOLS.
The problems we face aren’t coming from the police. They are coming from our classrooms.
Grade school and high school present empty shells to colleges and universities, which in turn fill them up with dangerous BS.
It’s time to cut this off. There are calls to “dismantle”? Okay!
A couple concrete ideas.
If you have any money designated in your WILL for your dear old alma mater, college or university… change your will.
Those schools, your old university that you fondly remember no longer exists.
Leave your money to your cat before you leave it to one of these academic cesspits.
If you can, get your kids out of public schools. And be wary of Catholic schools, too.
Have your children learn a trade rather than go to some lunatic campus to get that coveted BA, the new eqivalent of a high school diploma.
Do NOT fund the entities that are causing damage to our society. Don’t give them TUITION. Don’t leave them BEQUESTS. Cut them off.
With amped-up COVID melodrama fear, and distance learning, inevitable shortfalls of tuition, etc., this is the time.
DEFUND ACADEMIA.
It could be that there are some few good Catholic alternatives left for your bequests. But the main-stream schools are a really bad choice.
UPDATE:
And there’s this from PJ Media:
Defund the Police? How About We Defund the Universities
Our universities have nurtured and foisted on America and Canada an extreme radicalism that vilifies American and Canadian history, society, and culture. This radicalism stems in the first instance from identity grievance studies programs, such as feminist and gender studies, gay and queer studies, black studies, Hispanic and Chicano studies, indigenous studies, and ethnic studies, which have adopted marxist theories popular in sociology and political science.
This far left ideology has diffused throughout the soft subjects of the social sciences, humanities, education, social work, and law. Far left radicalism has been adopted with enthusiasm by administrators and imposed on any laggard or dissenting students and professors by the many “diversity and inclusion” commissars whose salaries could have funded many scholarships and professorships in STEM fields.
Of what does this extreme radicalism consist? Substantively, it claims that America and Canada are evil, beginning life in sin as slave owners and colonial settlers who engaged in genocide, and continuing on those paths until today. But even in this theory all Americans and Canadians are not evil: only whites, males, heterosexuals, and Christians and Jews are evil oppressors. Females, people of color, LGBT+, indigenous natives, and Muslims, in contrast, are virtuous victims, and deserve to take the reins of control.
[…]
What can we do? Certainly stop donating to universities. Better, encourage others to stop donating. More important, do not send your children to university, and avoid the extremist indoctrination that is all that universities offer. But perhaps as individuals, even en masse, our economic power is limited. We need to lobby our legislators, who fund all of the public universities. They are in a good position to defund, and even to target funding. They can do more: at the national level they can remove the tax-free status of the vastly rich endowment funds of private universities.
If you like riots in the streets, looting, assaults, and murder, and are happy with the destruction of public property such as police stations and statues of Columbus, Washington, and Lincoln, and do not mind police being blocked by politicians as shootings and murders in inner cities negate the idea that black lives matter, then keep funding and supporting universities. If you prefer a civil society based on peace and order, equality before the law, freedom to express your views, freedom to pursue your goals, and proven economics and science to draw on, then fight to defund universities that are actively opposing these principles.
Loading ...
This is possible!
Our family went as far as we could from private, to Catholic, to Lutheran and then finally to home school. Over the past thirty years, schooling options have increased. Praise God, all of my grown children are educating their families with a variety of resources; coops, small study groups and many shared learning situations.
You nailed it when you said we must teach “how to learn and how to think”!
May I add the essential ingredient, “how to work”, to this discussion?
I do concur. The AFT is 100% behind the BLM DeFund the Police B as in B S as in S. That American Federation of Teachers is against anything that challenges the Public School System. They are 100% in agreement with the Leftist Agenda. They despise those who support alternatives to the Public School System. They, the Leftist as a whole, have turned education into their own life support system. If one can use Taxpayer Dollars to paint the iconic political slogans Black Lives Matter and DeFund the Police in a trademark yellow, one should also be able to paint Right to Life and DeFund Public (political?) Education in sky blue.
Better yet – FUND the homeschoolers! How great would it be if one’s diocese had a homeschool support department with legal support, counseling and advice, discounts or deals or provisions for various curriculum? Coordination and organization of co-ops? And serious support for decent Catholic universities and colleges while withdrawing all support and sanctioning of apostate “c”atholic universities and colleges? Wouldn’t that be great?!
Even a Diocesan department committed to teaching Trades and setting up apprenticeships with respectable parishioners across the Diocese . . . just thing how much opportunity there is if the bishops perhaps focused on the parishioners they have rather than pining for more illegal immigrants and refugees to show up (along with those nice Federal Aid dollars)?
[After the Council of Trent, Confraternities sprang up which had members of every level of society. They were dedicated to works of mercy. They also built trade schools to teach orphans, etc. a trade and give them a future. They didn’t wait for someone else to do it. THEY did it. And they gained spiritual merit as well.]
Recently, at two separate weddings and during the course of the general conversation around raising children I was asked by two sets of young parents what would I have done differently. My advice?
1. Focus on getting them an education for a practical skill that is in demand: welder, nurse, physician, mechanic, carpenter, heavy machine operator, electrician, accountant, etc.
2. Forget the soft skills degrees – philosophy, “gender-studies”, teaching, etc., as it will be to fraught with political interference
3. Forget about encouraging their children to pursue that mawkish of all concepts, “their dreams”. They must learn to pay their dues and be able to “put food on the table” – “dreams” are OK as a hobby or side interest that might lead to career but not as an end in itself.
4. Control and limit their access to the latest hi-tech. distractions
5. Diligently practice a religious Faith to guide themselves and fall back on when the brown stuff hits the fan. Roman Catholicism is the obvious choice so look into it or ask me about it.
I got thoughtful nods to items #1 to #4 and a startled look to item #5.
I think “defunding the police” as a slogan is a poor one but many of the ideas driving it have merit. As opposed to defunding police, i would suggest “Demilitarizing police” [Listen to what they say, don’t make excuses for them. Either way, it is dangerous rhetoric already resulting in crime.]
As I said before in another post, the militarization of the police is a significant problem. What needs to happen is policing needs to be demilitarized.
Secondly, from my experience working on the street and knowing more than a few front line police officers, well over a half at least of police calls involve mentally ill people. Furthermore a significant chunk of their time is spent in ER rooms waiting for the person they apprehended to be seen. To their credit most police understand that apprehensions do not need to go to prison but the psychiatrist ward – although is, not a fan of those either.
There needs to be mental health services working hand in glove with police – not to criminalize mental illness but to find safe places for people who are experiencing a psychiatric crisis to go.
So funding and partnerships need to be created.
And yes, systemic human rights review with clear recommendations are useful. This systemic review by the Ontario Human Rights Commisison on policing in Toronto is a good one. I am sure the picture is not that much different in Major US cities either.
http://www.ohrc.on.ca/en/public-interest-inquiry-racial-profiling-and-discrimination-toronto-police-service/collective-impact-interim-report-inquiry-racial-profiling-and-racial-discrimination-black
Rgr, Fr. Z. I’m all for “doing it ourselves” – I was just trying to point out that the bishops tend to spend a LOT of OUR money, both from tithes and donations and from tax money taken from us and given to them by the Federales, and they tend to spend a good chunk of it NOT supporting the people in their own community.
If I waited for a bishop to help me educate my own children in the faith, I’d be a pretty big sucker. I’m more than happy to take on MY responsibilities – but I’m just tired of doing that usually in the face of opposition from leadership instead of their support. They use diocesan facilities to do English as a Second Languages classes – why not set it up for Homeschool Co-Ops to use their gyms, their labs, and all that stuff? Doesn’t seem like I’m asking for all that much . . .
Yes, yes, YES! I know this from working in public schools and having supported two sons through a big deal Catholic university that I will never send one penny to again. Our daughter is learning a trade (nursing) in a public institution and there too we see what’s wrong with public education. Our third son is currently a student at Thomas Aquinas College, an institution worthy of our prayers and financial support.
There are also reputedly good Catholic Colleges that one could donate to, such as the school I attend (Thomas More College of Liberal Arts in NH). And of course there is the more famous TAC (Thomas Aquinas College) as well as others. I can understand why some people might advocate for no college at all, but I think the program at TMC is helpful to the restoration of a Christian Culture in our Country, through an education in Catholic Liberal Arts, but also through the living of a fairly christian culture while on Campus, with Mass on Campus every weekday, and shuttles to Nashua every Sunday (diocesan, and FSSP). Plus Banquets, small classes (mine last semester was down to 25), and Lauds and Compline (I think NO). After all the Center attached to the college, is called the Center for The Restoration of Christian Culture: https://restorationchristianculture.org/
Then again as a quite young student at the school, I may be a bit inexperienced and biased.
God Bless.
J.M.J
AD MAJOREM DEI GLORIAM
Yes, let’s continue to support the Catholic U. of America. It’s a good place, opposed to the nonsense we’re seeing. It ought to survive. (Full disclosure: I teach at CUA, and my son attends. We are Eastern Orthodox and see the value of the place.)
The is a move to fund more scholarships. The object should be to get money into the hands of parents so they can make choices that are best for their families.
The demilitarization of the police is what is needed. I would agree that the federal government should not be deciding what police funds should be used for(basically the same argument for schools)
Like schools you have good people in a bad system.
I would advocate targeted giving to Universities for those who want to support higher education. Think endowed professorships in Thomistic philosophy or quantum physics. The University system is one thing the US really excels in and is the envy of the world. Make it better.
[Money is fungible. Cut them off.]
Parents must choose what is truly important for their children. For decades, parents–even orthodox Catholic ones–have put the ability of their children to earn lots of money and to have social standing above what is being poured into their minds. They also choose sports, activities, and social opportunities above the quality of the curriculum. The homeschool co-op I worked in had to close its doors because parents wanted these lesser “goods” for their children, and figured they would just straighten out at home whatever rot they learned in public school. Russian roulette, anyone?
I agree with this, Fr. Z. People need to realize how early this indoctrination begins. Pre-school. It shows up in ways that may not set off people’s radar but should, such as minimizing individual accomplishments and encouraging only “the team”. Oh kids get a nod if they do something singular but the emphasis is now on team this and team that. Girls are constantly empowered and encouraged. Boys are ignored, routinely. One notices that lists of leaders and competitions often have far fewer boys names on it than girls now. This is by design.
Teachers are typically liberal. There are a zillion ways to transmit values to children and they have all year to do it. Not having kids in school during Covid is sending academia in a frenzy, they really fear it. All kinds of concerns are raised such as children won’t be fed at home and parents will sexually abuse the children. I recently read a concern “nobody has their eyes on the children except the parents…” (the horror). I guess they figure people not working just figure they have nothing better to do, may as well molest the kids.
Every parent, grandparent, guardian, and taxpayer had better be informed about what kids are going to be taught this fall. Leftist race politics is waiting for them, and this was all a green light to really pour it on. I have great concerns about what children will be taught and told. People have a right to know who is talking to kids, but no matter what you hear, it’s bound to deviate. Once told lies, that bell can’t be unrung. Assemblies, workshops, discussion groups, be warned. Take a look at National Education Association websites and state educational websites. You’ll see.
Talk to your school board, superintendents, principals, tell them your concerns and that you’ll be watching and monitoring. There is absolutely nothing that gets their attention more. Parents have a lot more sway than they realize, especially vocal parents.
Colleges are hellholes. My young relatives left me appalled telling me how much deviant sex they had to talk about in college, as well as forced to take the position there is no God and defend it.
Can we, somehow, more directly target the ed schools and cut them off from feeding the rest of education? Not that there’s much education to save out there that actually merits the name; but to get more bang for our buck, so to speak.
Also, something’s got to be done about social media. I know people who went to the Steubenville, Christendom type Catholic colleges and have since apostasized and become socialists. They got it from their “friends” on the internet.
As for militarization of the police, did you know that police shootings in New York have decreased by ~95% in the past 50 years?
Pres. Trump has asked the Treasury Dept. to review the tax-free status of Indoctrination Mills.
Evergreen State College is one example:
“The Evergreen campus had, for years, engaged in a voluntary “day of absence,” in which students and faculty of color would leave to highlight the important role they play on campus. However, in 2017 it was decided that, rather than non-whites leaving, it should instead be the white students.” (i.e. from voluntary participation to mandatory)
https://thefederalist.com/2020/07/01/3-years-ago-bret-weinstein-endured-the-precursor-to-todays-riots/
Misuse of taxpayers dollars at Evergreen:
https://www.foxnews.com/us/evergreen-state-apologizes-for-using-taxpayer-funds-to-protest-family-farm
An article by a teacher: 7 Reasons to Say Goodbye to Teachers Unions
https://fee.org/articles/7-reasons-to-say-goodbye-to-teachers-unions/