Wednesday, October 14, 2009
A Reason They Do Not Wish To Tell Dept: The Scouts And The Safety Nazis
"When men fall for some piece of vicious insanity, with no way to make it work and no reason to explain their choice -- it's because they have a reason they do not wish to tell." -- Ayn Rand.
Few things enrage your Curmudgeon quite as much as the relentlessness of the crowd P. J. O'Rourke called "Safety Nazis" in his early collection Republican Party Reptile. It's one thing for Smith to think, and to assert, that he knows better what would be good for Jones than Jones does; it's quite another for Smith to demand the authority to enforce his opinion on Jones willy-nilly, on pain of punishment. In a just world, such persons, if sufficiently healthy, would be required to serve as experimental subjects for untested drugs; the rejects might be employed at the nearest firing range...as targets.
As luck would have it, two stories of overweening for-you-own-good Safety Nazism have appeared within scant hours of one another:
- It's a Fork, It's a Spoon, It's a...Weapon?
- New York Eagle Scout Suspended From School for 20 Days for Keeping Pocket Knife in Car
...and of course, the "public" school system is at the festering center of both.
Mind you, there are sound arguments for a policy delineating what sorts of objects students should be permitted to bring through the school doors. Your Curmudgeon can't imagine a sane school administrator smiling tolerantly at the importation of alcoholic beverages or narcotic drugs. But alcohol and drugs can't be detected by a $20,000 magnetometer...and "sane" and "public school administrator" are terms that no longer belong in the same sentence.
Check that. Perhaps it's not a matter of sanity. Perhaps it's a covert agenda.
John Dewey, the spiritual guru of government-run education, was almost overt about his desire that all children should be subjected to enforced "public" schooling. One of his less discussed reasons was that whereas private academies would likely confine themselves to academic subjects, "public" schools could and would incorporate other disciplines Dewey considered vital to the health of the Republic. One of those disciplines was automatic submission to authority.
Authority is one of the most nebulous of abstract qualities. In a practical sense, it only exists where it can be successfully enforced; we don't think much of an "authority" whose rulings can be ignored without penalty. This has special force when the "subjects" of said authority are human children, arguably the least tractable creatures known to Science.
The authority of a school administrator derives in part from in loco parentis and in part from the compulsory education laws. Though a surrogate parent, he can't spank his charges. However, as the satrap of the institution, he has the power to punish by detention, suspension, and expulsion. Whatever rules the school sets for him to enforce must be enforceable by those means, or they will be ignored -- and as we know from experience, an unenforceable law weakens the respect for law as such.
So a "public" school administrator must never be seen trying to enforce a school rule and failing. Rules against alcohol and drugs? Probably every school in America has such rules, but they cannot be enforced, and for the sake of their authority, wise administrators will not try. Rules against weapons? Well, the magnetometer at the front door will detect metal ones, but coshes, plastic shivs, and such...better to turn a blind eye. Perhaps if we come down hard enough on the guns and knives, the kids will understand that we mean business, that you can't flout "authority" and not pay a price.
So six-year-old Zachary Christie, a complete innocent, and 17-year-old Matthew Whalen, by all accounts a splendid specimen of late adolescence, must be pilloried for their "crimes." Zero tolerance for weapons! No exceptions! Never mind that a gangbanger with the intelligence of a zucchini could give you a dozen ways to smuggle a gun or a knife into any school building. Never mind that the plague of violence that infects our zero-tolerance "public" schools should suggest to anyone with ordinary critical faculties that weapons are not the root of the problem.
Because the agenda isn't student -- or teacher -- safety. It's conditioning the kids to submission. Making them obedient little subjects of the Nanny State. Teaching them to salute their betters, shout "Sieg Health!" in chorus, and never, ever question "authority's" commands or the rationales behind them.
Dewey would approve. So would Hitler. Your Curmudgeon does not.
If you have children in the "public" schools, get them out. Now.
