Education

There is nothing so stupid as the educated man if you get him off the thing he was educated in.
Will Rogers

He alone, who owns the youth, gains the future.
Adolf Hitler

It is the State which educates its citizens in civic virtue, gives them a consciousness of their mission and welds them into unity.
Benito Mussolini

Last year Chavez' Minister of Education, Aristobulo Isturiz, laid the groundwork for the new "Bolivarian" education program to be imposed in Venezuela when he announced: "Teachers should be the first soldiers of the revolution ... No Director of a public school shall have his, her job validated unless an evaluation is made, so that we are certain that they know what is the type of republic we want."
- http://blogcritics.org/politics/article/hugo-chavez-brings-autocracy-to-the/

A few thoughts on education:

1. The Constitution of The United States does not give the federal government any authority over public education, unless the rights protected by the constitution itself are somehow violated by a public education system. If you can find any constitutional authority for the feds over education, let me know.

2. Education is very powerful. What better way to shape the values and world-view of the next generation than lock them in a room for several hours a day from an early age, give the teacher an air of authority, and tell them what, not teach them how, to think. It is perfect for social engineers and would-be partners with God, seeking the ever elusive utopia, to monkey with the very values that drive our society. These are people who view the average American as a complete idiot, unable to make the right decisions for himself let alone raise his own children, or vote for the right people (hence ACORN and such). But they can’t just do what they want in a democratic republic with a constitutionally limited government. They must get permission from the very people they detest to do what they want. Controlling the education system is more than just a cornerstone in their social engineering plans, it’s a means of securing power in the future. This is the purpose of the NEA. This is why they can’t stand private schools (except the ones they put their own children in to escape the defective and often physically dangerous schools they themselves created), or home schooling. This is why they cannot tolerate vouchers or any system that will give parents a choice of where their kids will be educated. They can’t risk the possibility that kids will be taught real history, real economics, the ideas of people like John Locke, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, let alone Jesus Christ.
Public Education holds way too much power and influence to centralized, to be entrusted to a whatever political party happens to be in vogue at the moment. The education of our children is the responsibility of the parents. The family, not the government, is the foundation of civilization, and should remain so.