The WSJ article by law professor Philip Hamburger asserting that public schools are unconstitutional relies on dubious assertions about the history of public schools. As a historian of education who has written about these issues, I disagree with his analysis.
Hamburger’s central critique of the public schools is that they were created by nativists out of fear of Catholicism and their central purpose was to homogenize all children and mold them into Protestants. He repeatedly asserts that the very idea of the public school was shaped by hostility to Catholics.
The earliest public schools, called “common schools,” were organized in the early 19th-century in small towns and villages by families who wanted their children to gain literacy and numeracy. The parents and communities who established common schools were not thinking about stamping out Catholicism. Families wanted their children to be able to read the Bible, and many wanted their sons to have the skills needed to work as clerks or in other non-agricultural work.
He paints an idyllic portrait of 18th century schools, which is a fantasy of his own creation. He writes:
“The shared civic culture of 18th-century America was highly civilized, and it developed entirely in private schools. The schools, like the parents who supported them, were diverse in curriculum and their religious outlook, including every shade of Protestantism, plus Judaism, Catholicism, deism and religious indifference.”
The truth is that very few children of any faith attended school in the 18th-century. Schooling was available to the wealthy, who hired private tutors, and to those who could afford to send their children to a “dame school,” where a woman instructed young children in her home. There were a few religious schools, for those who could pay for them. The children of the poor had no schooling until the turn of the 19th-century, when philanthropic societies began to organize rudimentary “charity schools” for the poor.
As I showed in my history of the New York City public schools (The Great School Wars), the city’s Catholic Bishop John Hughes (later Archbishop) adamantly objected to the schools of the Public School Society, a private group founded by Quakers. Like all schools at the time, the schools of the PSS used the Protestant Bible in their classrooms and had daily prayers. Bishop Hughes insisted that Catholic children should be taught only in Catholic schools, where they would read the Catholic Bible, learn Catholic prayers, and sing Catholic hymns. The founders of the PSS tried to reach a compromise, but Bishop Hughes insisted on creating a separate system of Catholic schools. He asked the Legislature to fund the Catholic “public schools,” as it was funding the Protestant “public schools,” but the legislature refused.
Were there anti-Catholics who supported public schools? Yes. Were there nativists who hated Catholics and who feared that the Pope wanted to seize control of their city or state? Yes.
Was the primary purpose of the public school movement to stamp out the influence of Catholics? No. The overwhelming majority of Americans supported the growth of public schools because they believed that a democratic society needed educated citizens who were prepared for self-government.
The Catholic school system grew and thrived. Catholic leaders thought their schools were unfairly denied public funding, but the idea of prohibiting the public funding of religious schools was broadly popular and appears in almost every state constitution. The public endorsed the proposition that society as a whole, through taxation, is responsible for maintaining a public school system that offers a free education for all who enroll.
Alongside the generalized belief that a democratic society must educate its citizens so that they will vote wisely and be prepared to serve on a jury, there was a concurrent belief that education had a social purpose. In the 19th-century, educators would speak glowingly about the value of children from different economic backgrounds learning together, the banker’s son next to the baker’s son. In the 20th century, the definition of which children learned side-by-side expanded in fits and starts, often with conflict. Education, it was believed, would overcome economic, social, religious, and racial divides, as children learned together.
Few, if any, would contend that the public schools have overcome differences of race, religion, class, and ethnicity. Yet, without them, who can doubt that those differences would be sharpened? For some, the public schools have been a ladder that enabled social mobility, as well as interracial and interreligious friendships. Would we really want to be a society where each sect, each racial and ethnic group has its separate schools? I don’t think so.
While Hamburger pounds his thesis that public schools are and have always been a nativist strategy to crush Catholics, he fails to consider the fact that in mid-20th century America, a significant number of public school teachers and administrators in urban districts were Catholic.
In my view, he misinterprets the seminal Pierce decision of 1925. The state of Oregon passed a law in 1922 that would have required all children to attend public schools, thus banning all private and religious schools. The Society of Sisters sued to prevent the closing of their religious school. The U.S. Supreme Court declared that the law was unconstitutional. The state could not compel children to attend only public school. Children do not belong to the state but to their parents. The decision was not grounded in free speech rights, as the author here contends. The Court declared the right of parents to choose a private school, but did not suggest that public money should be used to pay for their private schooling. The decision confirmed the right of parents to choose either a free public school or a private school at their own expense.
If Professor Hamburger fears that children will be indoctrinated by their teachers, he should stand strongly against the remedies he proposes. The likeliest place where children might be indoctrinated is in a school that reinforces their parents’ views, a school where teachers all agree, a school where dissenting voices are never heard. The best schools, whether public or private, teach young people to make their own decisions, teach them to think for themselves, teach them about the courage of those who dared to stand alone.
Yes! Only thing missing in this history, which we need to articulate, is that Hamburger’s attack isn’t just on education and isn’t due to confusion but is rather part of the assault on principles of a democratically controlled system of public education. His piece is actually a an attack on democracy in liberal capitalism, part of a movement which took a violent, physical form in the attempt to take over the government in the “insurrection” funded by billionaires and defended by the politicians whose elections they buy. It is no accident the WSJ has printed this.
Wow! The decision, by knockout, goes to Diane Ravitch! She made hamburger of Mr. Hamburger’s argument!
This essay is outstanding. Brilliantly argued, deeply informed, and BEAUTIFULLY, movingly written. One of the best pieces I have read IN YEARS. Thank you, Dr. Ravitch! What a lovely way to begin my morning!
Thank you, Bob Shepherd. Praise from you is treasured. As it happens, I wrote my response this morning at 2 am.
At 2 AM!!!!!!
Wow.
OK. From now on, someone wake her up in the middle of the night and hand her a keyboard!
I do some of my best writing (at least I’d like to think so!) when I’m ticked off and tired.
Exactly right
Greg, I do my best thinking late at night, never in the morning.
While I do my best writing or any other activity in the morning, I cannot compete with this crowd. Diane’s dismemberment of the Hamburger thesis was complete
Many states have “Blaine Amendment” clauses in state constitutions and state law, barring state funding of parochial schools. SCOTUS is moving towards overturning these prohibitions, a frontal assault on public education…
Exactly
This editorial can be viewed as laying the intellectual groundwork which will obscure the Supreme Court’s radical rewriting of the First Amendment to mandate public funding of private religious schools.
Public schools pose a threat to the system created to unfairly enrich those of inherited wealth like Charles Koch and Paul Tudor Jones. Jones is 4th generation wealth. (Btw, Jones’ brother inherited the helm of the Memphis Daily News.) Currently, powerful people among the religious work as the plutocrats’ hired guns and they use religious dogma as the plutocrats’ arsenal.
Interviews with Paul Tudor Jones describe the notebook of Bible verses that he keeps with him. He attended an all boys, religious school (Presbyterian). It seems likely that his private school had little diversity in terms of race. It’s predictable that the charter school Jones founded segregates by sex- it is exclusive to boys. The major U.S religions remain notorious patriarchies.
Paul Tudor Jones founded the dubious Robin Hood Foundation. Colonialism has friends in high places. Hedge funder Jones said, “Everything good in my life…starts and ends with the religious training I got.”
Women who undermine public education are, IMO, traitors to the cause of women’s rights. They include Bill Gates’ ex- wife who attended a religious school (30% of the secondary schools of her religion are same sex), Mrs. John Arnold, Laurene, widow of Steve Jobs and, Alice Walton.
Here’s what I think is happening: When I was a little boy, racism IN THE PUBLIC SPHERE was endemic. Politicians and other public figures routinely, casually told racist jokes, used the N word. Literature textbooks were lily white and overwhelmingly stuffed with pieces by male authors–full of Longfellow and Kipling but no Langston Hughes or Jane Austen. Then, as a result of the turmoil of the 1960s, there was a sea change. Overt racism in public succumbed to negative social sanction everywhere in our culture, in our politics and media AND in public schools. Systemic racism persisted, but at least–and this was a start–a politician who told a racist joke or used the N word on a hot mike would be outed and driven from the public stage. Kids in school would be disciplined for overtly racist action or speech.
Then Trump slithered onto the national stage and made it OK to be a racist, sexist, fascist cretin again. He brought the other racist, sexist, fascist cretins out of the woodwork. They would show up at state capitols in their overt manifestation as fascist brownshirts, armed to the teeth with military-style weapons, and the president would cheer them on. They would show up at school board meetings and scream about CRT (a symbolic stand-in for any instruction that would tend toward encouraging tolerance and diversity), and the press would report about “parents’ concerns.”
Meanwhile, on the education carnival midway, the Ed Deformers, having utterly failed to bring about the complete privatization of education via top-down micromanagement based on standardized tests and puerile national “standards” and the argument, based on these, that public schools had “failed,” saw in the upticks in idiot nationalism and racism another tack: they could argue that privatization was all about honoring parent “speech.” They were hotbeds of “Socialism.” So, here we are at the beginning of another assault, from a new flank, on public schools. What these people hate, of course, is precisely that public schools tend to socialize young people in the direction of tolerance and inclusion and democratic values.
cx: The public schools were hotbeds of “Socialism” (the generalized right-wing epithet for anything “bad.”
“What these people hate, of course, is precisely that public schools tend to socialize young people in the direction of tolerance and inclusion and democratic values.”
All true but you left out the economic concerns of the oligarchs who fund these movements.
Is there ever going to be a time where reformers will be called to defend their work, though?
It’s no longer an experiment. They got their whole wish list. They have the whole roster of “choice” in state after state. There are now cities that are 50% privatized. Ohio does nothing BUT work on privatization schemes. They no sooner finished the last huge voucher expansion than they draft another. But their rhetoric hasn’t changed at all- they still present themselves as somehow battling the status quo when they ARE the status quo.
Ed reformers are professional public school critics. When are ed reformers subject to the same critical analysis they use against public schools? In another 20 years, when public schools are gone, then we’ll look at “results”?
We have had nothing BUT lock step, ed reform echo chamber policy at the national level since Bush. When do they take responsibility for outcomes?
What a great question, Chiara! When will the accountability ghouls be called to account?
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
I so agree with your general statement. But this seems like a scare headline: “There are now cities that are 50% privatized.” Well, NOLA is 100% charter & DC 50%. Detroit is 47%. There’s at least one small city (Flint MI) that’s just over 50%. But from there down, the %ages, including for large majority-poor cities are considerably less. Can the ed-reform lobby pump this up much higher? Maybe, maybe not– after all, they’ve been trying for 30 yrs now!
And there have been no miraculous improvements in New Orleans, Detroit, or DC.
Excellent response. As an explanation for the origins of public school, Hamburger’s overview didn’t ring true at all. Why would anti-Catholic bias be a defining factor in an institution serving a country with a large Catholic population that wasn’t oppressed? (Yes, I know people discriminated against Catholic immigrants, but they weren’t over-keen on Jewish immigrants either, or indeed, immigrants generally.)
And how interesting too. It sounds as though there’s a strain, in American Catholicism, that has long resented public school – on the grounds, I suppose, that it devalues their tradition. I don’t think Hamburger’s doing much for the cause by objecting to a tradition of free, independent thought as being anti-Catholic.
Thank you for the reasoning in your comment, Madeleine.
The timing of Hamburger’s article was completely predictable. It reflects the content and advancement of the conservatives’ playbook.
Hamburger is a graduate of Yale and Princeton. He landed at Columbia. The three schools are for the elite, a substantial number of the students’ families “eat the bread for which others toil”.
eat the bread and control the thought
Yes, ciede
It has very little to do with proving anti-Catholic bias and everything to do with providing support for views that Alito and Thomas have already expressed, which will lead the way to a Supreme Court decision requiring the funding of private religious schools on a co-equal basis with secular schools, as a remedy for “religious discrimination. You can be sure that this editorial, no matter how wrongly argued, will be cited in a future decision of the Court. The goal is to undermine funding to free secular public education, in a manner that will lead to its collapse. The replacement would be en entirely private system that would ultimately not be answerable to the public, no matter how inequitable the outcomes.
Ray, I agree with you. The goal of this opinion piece is to provide talking points for the conservative majority on the Supreme Court, which is edging closer and closer to requiring public funding of all religious schools.
SCOTUS decisions have to find justification so as to not provoke groundswell opposition from the public. Wealthy libertarians expect faculty at private schools, especially Ivy League schools, to make their media arguments for them.
The right wing playbook frames the conservative religious as victims of discrimination for their beliefs. The strategy creates tribalism among the U.S.’s 40% conservative churches which drives GOP voting. Charlie Kirk claimed on his program that Coach Gruden’s resignation was the result of religious discrimination.
The religious right’s goal is to force taxpayers to fund religion. The libertarians’ goal is elimination of tax funding for all common goods.
A second strategy we see that is less obvious is corporate tactics that the rank and file conservatives in the south and midwest identify as over-the-top liberals “ramming their views down our throats” (ads and T.V. casting) . The result is poor and middle class conservatives who otherwise might vote for their own economic interests, instead, elect free market GOP politicians who work for corporate interests. It’s quite a scam.
So true. The culture war issues persuade low-and middle-income voters to vote against their economic self-interest.
Ray-
The current plan to end separation of church and state began with Scalia’s appointment. At the Pat Buchanan site there is a Christopher Rufo interview posted that describes it.
Btw- Rufo has been cited as a primary backer of opposition to CRT.
Diane-
The scam works because conservative religious buy into the victimhood propaganda and then, because they aren’t really Christ’s flock, they elect bullies like Abbott, Trump, Gaetz and Greene as their champions.
Conservative thought, however, depends on every argument being a house of cards. Discredit one part of the machine and the rest will not run. This is how one mode of thought attacks ideas like evolution and climate change. Find a flaw or an uncomfortable part of the thing you wish to discredit, generalize that aspect of an idea, and then associate it with unrelated things you want to pile into the discredit wagon. This is associated with the fallacy of generalization. Since others find this fallacy impossible to spot, you get away with this logical outrage.
That this line of logic would be employed by the members of the Supreme Court is beyond the pale.
I don’t believe that the only goal is to fund religious schools. The elites can always afford to educate their own children however they prefer. The goal is to make it infeasible to fund a general public education system given the scarcity of tax revenue to do so. This would allow for the elimination of the influence of teachers’ unions, as well as the creation of a sub-par system where kids at the bottom of the socio-economic hierarchy have to settle for whatever is offered them, and their parents are grateful to get anything at all for their kids. It is a continuation and expansion of the strategy of funding charter schools with public funds, as outlined in Gordon Lafer’s “The One Percent Solution.”
Sorry, I can’t agree on this one point, Ray. The oligarchical Repugnicans want a lot more religious schools, even at the cost of those being paid for with tax dollars, to turn the tide, which is so heavily against them, among young people. This is a matter of survival for the right wing because on every issue, the young in the U.S. today are dramatically against them. Trend analysis: the Repugnican Party goes the way of the Know-nothings, despite the large number of Trumpeteers today (these are older and white). Christian fundamentalist madrasas would serve the oligarchs’ purposes very well. And, they’ll get the average schmuck to pay for these via taxes. The oligarchs won’t. Three birds with one stone–privatize schools, kill teachers’ unions, and turn many of the nation’s young people (now so decisively against them) into racist Libertarian/Fascist Christian fundamentalist nationalists.
no matter how inequitable the outcomes
That’s powerful, Ray. Great writing.
Ray
Paul Weyrich’s training manual is posted at Theocracy Watch. The strategy to eliminate public schools is described in the manual. Paul Weyrich’s efforts were funded by Koch. Weyrich co-founded the religious right, ALEC and the Heritage Foundation. He was not evangelical protestant. He was devout to the other major U.S. conservative church which receives no media attention from influencers.
Bob– Even if libertarians/ rw extremists had their way and eliminated public schooling, would the majority of the resulting patchwork of charter-voucher-privates be religious schools?
Do the 48% who voted for Trump in 2020 represent a bloc who would mostly jump ship for religious schools, in the event SCOTUS stripped states of Blaine amendments & otherwise deleted separation of church & state? Let’s examine Linda’s “U.S.’s 40% conservative churches which drives GOP voting” for a closer look.
It’s inaccurate, for starters. White Evangelist Christians are 13% of the population, and 8 out of 10 voted for Trump in 2020. 22% are Catholic, but they split 50-50 between Trump and Biden. So, Trump’s 48% of the pop vote: 21.4% from conservative churches. The remaining 26.6% are to be found among some mix of the large groups remaining: 23% unaffiliated, 16% white mainline Protestants, 15% black/ Hisp/ other POC Protestants.
The unaffiliated is our largest voting group, religion-wise. Note that among “young adults,” that number is 33%. 2/3 young adults voted for Hillary; in 2020 young adults turned out in much larger numbers: whites echoed overall vote [52% Biden], while young adults of color voted 73% (Latinx), 83% (Hispanic), and 87% (Black) for Biden.
Do right-wingers imagine a majority of families would rush to put their kids in religious schools– which would then convert younger voters to their [racist Libertarian/Fascist Christian fundamentalist nationalist] cause via religious schools? That ship has sailed. That they imagine religious indoctrination via K12 schools “works” is part & parcel of their absurd belief that public schools produce Democratic voters via “indoctrination.”
Such a thoughtful response, Ginny. When I was writing the end of ”Slaying Goliath,” I began counting how few students there are who have left public schools for charters, even fewer for vouchers, even where they were easy to obtain. New Orleans is not 100% charter because of choice, but because of a rightwing Governor (Jindal) and Legislature. Parents had no “choice.”
Re: Conservative churches don’t drive GOP voting (or, at most, their impact is small)
Just curious-
(1) Why have there been so many public policy wins for conservative religion, given the fact that polls show the majority of Americans oppose the agenda?
(2) Why does the Koch network champion conservative religion? Why would state religious conferences and the AFP co-host school choice rallies?
(3) Why would a religious sect spend money to locate offices in state capitols for the explicit and singular purpose of influencing policy?
(4) Why is Pope Francis concerned about the political influence of the right wing in the American Catholic Church?
Interesting reading at Manchin’s political site. “Deep faith long part of Manchin’s life.” Manchin’s pro-birth.
BeThree-
Without consideration of your conclusions about the amount of interest in religious schools, would readers be able to validate the assumptions you made which rested in part on info from one election?
If readers examined state elections for GOP politicians, in an attempt to hold significant variables constant, would they find corroborating evidence for the diminishing impact of the religious cohort’s voting?
There is data that suggests between 4-10% of conservative religious white voters abandoned Trump in 2020. Was it a unique situation and a one-off defeat for the GOP?
As a secondary point, young voters are somewhat problematic. Many young adults in the late 1960’s voted blue dog Democratic only to become the states’ Republican-voting bloc in their later years.
Also problematic is the weight that the electoral college gives to rural states which have an older and more religious demographic. If current centers of population grow and begin to vote overwhelmingly Democratic, it influences popular vote but, it doesn’t win presidencies.
Go Diane. Thank you for your post. It’s excellent, of course.
I am so SICK of those “arm chair” idiots.
Everyone has freedom of religion in this country regardless of what type of school children may attend. Yet, religion is inherently divisive. I cannot understand why we send public money to private schools that seek to destroy public schools. If I want to hire a private security firm, the local police department does not lose funding if I make that choice. If I want to use private fire fighters, I have to pay for them as some in California are already doing. The local fire department does not lose funding because of my choice. So-called choice, as currently practiced, weakens the schools that most children attend. It deliberately strips the public schools of essential services in order to pay for the wishes of a few people, even if these people are wealthy. The lack of funding in public schools harms the education of the most vulnerable students as funding is shifted to private and sometimes religious schools. Since we are not a theocracy, we should not be funding private religious schools with public dollars.
“Everyone has freedom of religion in this country. . . ”
Unfortunately everyone doesn’t have freedom from the absurd, inane, mythological sky-daddy faith belief systems that have thoroughly infiltrated society. Those Abrahamic faith belief systems all form the basis for the many irrational beliefs held by too many Americans.
Absurdities abound!
Perfect post, retired teacher. You trace the pro-public-goods line through public services that illustrate it, revealing the lie of “school choice.” One service you did not mention: the administration of voting, which is currently being undermined in many states, simultaneously with threats to academic freedom in K12 public schools. That both equal access to the vote, and equal access to a decent public education are under attack is no coincidence. Policies which threaten them can easily be hidden under rationales that masquerade as support of equity. Quite different from fire and crime. They threaten life, and stats are easily parsed. Restricting access to the polls, and restricting what can be taught & how in pubschs are ways to ensure power to special interests. Such policies can be easily sold to the hoi polloi, as long as you’re promising [sub rosa] their personal agendas mesh with the legislation.
Hamburger:
“The idea of a common civic culture among
children is appealing when it develops
voluntarily, but not when state-approved
identities and messages are
“stamped upon their minds,”
as the 1904 tract put it.”
J.P. Mac: “You Cannot Be Serious…”
Did you get your lawyer “identity” from
Burger King? Did BK and NOT a
state-approved agency, splash some magic
anointing oil on you, turning you from a
mere mortal into “one who knows”?
Pray tell, would Dick or Jane capitulate
to your “identity” had they not been
“schooled” in state approved hierarchies,
titles, or ranks?
If “leaders of the pack” had NOT
been “stamped upon their minds”,
would your cultural standing exist?
Actually the first publicly supported began in the early New England Colonies and the Dutch Kolonie of New Amsterdam in the 1600s. Yes many of them did charge small fees but the cities, villages, and even the churches would support students who couldn’t pay the fees. There are repeated quotations stating that a literate population was essential for the safety and well being of the colony. The Calvinist Churches that were established in New England and New Netherlands felt that every one, both boys and girls, needed to be literate to be able to read and understand the Bible to ensure their salvation.
“John Fensterwald
Does long-term drop in #NAEP scores reflect Great Recession, #ESSA’s lack of accountability, Common Core standards – all, none or a combo? ”
Thousands of full time, paid ed reformers and not one of them looks to the policy they promote when scores drop.
There’s zero accountability in this “movement”. The ed reform echo chamber doesn’t examine their own work. There won’t be any either, because it’s an echo chamber.
Someone should establish a university department that does nothing but evaluate ed reform initatives. No one checks their work. Instead the ed reform cheeleading squad just marches off to the next privatization initiative, with brief breaks where they give one another awards.
The accountability police are themselves unnaccountable.
Ed reform has a 20 year record. When is it evaluated? If NEAP scores dropping aren’t a measure of the “movement” then what is? How many charters they opened? How many vouchers they launched? How many of them most effectively bashed labor unions?
Is that what the public hired them for? Did we hire and pay an entire cohort of ideologically motivated professional public school critics or did we hire and pay a group of people to improve public schools? How does anything they do serve students in public schools?
Totally agree, Chiara. I have a sense that some of this is coming through to the public now, in dribs and drabs. It is being forced through a mesh of ed media that is still living in neolib era. What is needed is far more assertive media pieces on the $COST of school choice [charters] (with its concomitant lack of results justifying 2 tiers of schooling [let alone 3 as per states charging ahead with vouchers] and $COST of twin policy– the absurd expensive bureaucracy of standards/ aligned high-stakes assessments (long supported by ed-reformers as a way to push pubsch students into charters & vouchers).
Twenty years ago, the choice crowd promised that their schools would “save poor kids from failing schools.” They failed. But they don’t stop pushing their bad ideas.
As I read this post, I couldn’t help but think of a line from one of the brilliant Lewis Black’s comedy specials: “Allow me to introduce you to a little thing I like to call reality!” Thanks, Diane, for orienting this particular discourse with reality.
Apropos of nothing, this bit by Lewis Black always gives me a laugh when I need one.
LOL. Wonderful.
Reblogged this on Crazy Normal – the Classroom Exposé and commented:
We the People should fear and fight libertarianism and its faction in the Catholic Church that wants to get rid of America’s public schools so they are in control of what our children will learn.
Lloyd, thank you for your comment.
A segment of people within the right wing make tarring public schools their mission. They report stories from classes, many of which are false. Who sheds light on the distortions of history taught in religious schools? Last week, I heard the 12- year -old son of liberal parents cite his takeaway from a class about the Civil War. He attends a feeder school for Nick Sandmann’s Catholic alma mater in Kentucky. The student said people in the south were nicer because slaves did the work for them which freed them from the labor that presumably exasperated and made Northeners less genial. This same student was given an assignment to write about a Kentucky-born Confederate General. A traitor’s inclusion in a list of notable Kentuckians appalled his parents.
The son became defensive when his parents questioned the version of history he was learning. The parents are from New York. I’ve found it is not uncommon for people in the northeast to assume that what happens in the rest of the country is similar to the experiences where they live, when it is not.
I think it is very important to keep referring to these punditzes as Corporate Libertarians, that is, advocates for letting corporations do whatever they damn well please.
That is all we really see in the mainscream media these days — all the real libertarians I ever knew or heard about long ago disappeared into the Wilds of Manitoba or the Outback of Australia.
The only thing more outrageous than this article is the fact that the WSJ published it. Makes me ill…
Education consists mostly in speech to and with children. Yes, and the Constitution consists entirely of speech. There are words all up and down that thing. Well, some of it is parchment, but the point is everyone is compelled to harken to and abide by all those words. THE CONSTITUTION IS UNCONSTITUTIONAL!!! That’s it, folks, shows over. The USA is going out of business. See how much fun lawyering can be. We took our whole country and ground it up into Hamburger.
LCT, I’m reading from the top down. This one is over the top!
“THE CONSTITUTION IS UNCONSTITUTIONAL!!! That’s it, folks, shows over. The USA is going out of business. See how much fun lawyering can be. We took our whole country and ground it up into Hamburger.”
Hee hee! I’m having fun with some ground bull.
This reminds me of the Pink Panther vacuum cleaner in the cartoon that sucked up everything in the room, then sucked up itself and disappeared
LCT: The lawyeryist lawyering I’ve yet seen.
Air traffic control consists mostly in speech to and with pilots. Pilots are compelled to listen to the speech of the tower. Therefore, air traffic control is unconstitutional.
That’s a good one: air traffic control is unconstitutional. Unless the speech comes from someone of your own religion, approved by your parents.
Air traffic control is unplanestitutional
An oldie but a goodie: Rupert Murdoch, Charles Koch, and Dick DeVos are flying over the Atlantic ocean in their respective private jets, and they instruct their pilots to ignore air traffic control — because it’s a free country. All three planes collide and no one has a parachute. Who survives?
America.
Another good one.
Great one, LCT!
Miranda rights consist of speech. So do search warrants. “Put your hands over your head” is speech. Suspected criminals, remember that. You don’t have to obey any orders from the police. You’re FREEEE!
Ooh, here’s a good one. Hamburger’s screed in the formerly respected WSJ consists entirely of speech. No one has to listen.
Unless your parents tell you to listen.
“Give me Liberty or give me ketchup!” — Phillip Hamburger (prominent Hamburgertarian)
Not sure why that appeared there.
WordPress comment placement is one of the mysteries of the Universe, right up there with black holes and the Big Bang.
The only hamburger worth listening to is the one sizzling on the grill
LOL.
With charters and vouchers, schools with high enrollments are funded by governments to consist mostly in speech; schools with low enrollments are closed, limiting the choices of people in those communities. So, with charters and vouchers, “parents” are forced to hear the “speech” of others. Quite the conundrum!
How many professors at private universities are in situations where they are part of Koch-funded alliances aimed at changing public policy? (Sourcewatch identifies the New Civil Rights Alliance funding from Koch at $3,000,000.)
UnKochMyCampus.org plans a tweet campaign which will occur in a few days. The info. is at the site. The effort is focused on the Secretary of Education.
Koch has funded “institutes” at more than 300 campuses. Spreading his views.
Correction- New Civil Liberties Alliance
The Catholics have had it very rough over the ages.
Everyone picked on them.
Even Galileo.
And especially Martin Luther.
Those 95 Theses were very hurtful.
And completely unconstitutional.
Martin Luther was a traitor who should have been nailed to the church door next to his 95 Theses.
Provided there was room left, since 95 Theses must have covered most of the door.
He was clearly on a major rant.
Terrible what Galileo did to the poor Church!
Yes, he and his pal Copernicus knocked them right out of the center of the Universe.
In fact, I bet even God had trouble locating them after Galileo got done.
Anyone seen them? The ones in the goofy hats?
And that was before Google Catholic View
Makes you wonder what they are hiding
You decide
https://d.newsweek.com/en/full/514231/10-29-bishop-birth-01.webp?w=961&f=67194dec070a848c28903be99b48528f
I listened to an interview with Frank Herbert, circa 1970. He said, “My Arab friends say, ‘This is not a science fiction book. It’s a book about philosophy.’ In particular, it’s a book in philosophy of religion.” And then he went on to say, using the Freudian terminology that was having a long afterlife in the late 20th century, that it was, in particular, a book about the “Messiah Complex.” Herbert was extremely worried about the damage to be done by Messiahs. “My book is not about the Christian Messiah,” he said, “though the same principles apply. Look what was done in His name.”
Doubtless, this is one of the appeals to me of the book. Messiahs ARE dangerous. The otherwise beautiful teachings of Yeshua of Nazareth (“Whatever you have done to the least of these my brethren, you have done unto me”) nonetheless contained a seed of world-rejection, of world-hating (Contemptus Mundi) that consolidated the power of the keepers of the keys to the kingdom–to the better place–and the all-too-human misuse of that power left RIVERS of blood throughout history. Ideas matter, don’t they? An addition to this line of thought: in making Paul Atreides so appealing, Herbert is using the same technique that Milton used in Paradise Lost when he made Satan, in the opening chapters, so appealing (See Stanley Fish’s critical study Surprised by Sin). Milton ropes the reader in and gets the reader to identify with the one who will ultimately prove the source of so much calamity, thus causing the reader to fall with Adam. This is the major thing that the Lynch Dune got so terribly wrong. It will be interesting to see if Denis Villaneuve gets it right in Dune Part 2.
In order to beatify himself, hedge funder Paul Tudor Jones quotes the “beautiful teaching” you reference. Jones’ type of “charity” was on display recently when top-dollar entertainment celebrities mingled with other “philanthropists” at a lavish party to promote Jones’ (4th generation wealth) foundation.
Robin Hood would be turning in his grave.
Can’t spell Messiah without M-E-S-S
Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to believe.
Well said, Sir Walter Scott and Sir SomeDAM!
Bob– I always thought of “Contemptus Mundi” as a counterbalance to the strong [genetic] pull of humanity toward the materialistic & profane. An opposite pull, toward keeping everything in balance. Not unique to Christianity; it’s a feature of all our major religions. Secular leaders of the time (Kings et al) naturally pushed back. They wanted 100% buy-in—no balance, no hoi polloi separating themselves mentally from master/ slave paradigms, sealed off from life-death fear by spiritualism.
How bizarre (& frankly evil) that we have religious leaders today who turn this concept on its head. [Thinking Prosperity Gospel, et al “religious” mantras that bless anti-poor, anti-immigrant, anti-whatever-“other” et al uncharitable views.]
Thank you for your interesting reply, Ginny. I shall be mulling this one.
In the meanwhile: https://bobshepherdonline.wordpress.com/poetry/history-lesson-or-on-the-hinterweltlern/
“An opposite pull, toward keeping everything in balance. Not unique to Christianity; it’s a feature of all our major religions.”
The words and theory (eg, in the New Testament) might be good, but the historical evidence shows exactly the opposite: major religions have kept humans out of balance — with fellow humans and with the natural world.
Sorry, but “the world is irredeemable, but there will be pie in the sky when you die if you turn over your wealth to the princes of the Church and fight and die in wars for temporal Church power” is not a healthy teaching in the short or long term. As for the rejection of the world in “all our major religions,” well, that speaks pretty poorly of “all our major religions,” doesn’t it? This stuff originated in the Axial Age, when life was inevitably nasty, brutish, and short, and it was little wonder that people embraced a fantasy of escape from it into something far less gueling.
I did not read the dozens of comments before this so I apologize if this point has already been made.
This “point of view” from Mr. Hamburger has nothing to do with public education. It’s just the latest convenient tool for inflammatory outrage. I find it odd that so many people want to solve problems that don’t really exist. I’m a social studies teacher and I can say that I don’t know a single teacher who spends any time on CRT. The idea that this is widespread is imaginary.
But the Republicans and conservatives understand how to wield propaganda. The endless repetition of pundits and the echoing media ecosystem makes it seem so pervasive.
Schools are in the crossfire of all of these culture wars. It’s disgusting yet politically effective. I find it strange that the most heavily benefited generation in US history (baby boomers) are so outraged by everything.
So much of this is about maintaining advantages and denying others advantages. If we remove public schools (which every other country in the world maintains), our most impoverished citizens will be most heavily affected.
None of this nonsense is actually about CRT or masks. It’s about the empowered maintaining their grip on power.
You need to learn a little about how the mainscream media concocted the myth of the boomer generation (’46 to ’64, seriously, just think about it) to blot out the fact there was a generation once of love and peace who actually succeeded in stopping a war. That truth scares them more than anything. They must prevent any generation from getting ideas like that. There are money-grubbing and power-hungry monsters in every generation, look to those in your own, whatever it is, if you want to know who will mess it up for you.
the “mainscream media”! ROFL!
Well said, Mr. K!
Gotta chime in with Jon Awbrey here, Steve K. There were so many of us in the boomer generation who were against VNWar, & US imperialism in general, & anti-communism in particular, & S African apartheid, & did many actions that helped curb a govt which was still mired in ‘50’s paradigms. We were not all alike: there were many in our own generation who volunteered for VN & took us (& our anti-conforming looks & viewpoints) as enemies; there were “Young Republicans” [usually Evangelical types!] among us on campus.
Among the true liberals who took on the mantle of governance, the biggest mistake [cf the Clintons] was buying into the “Third [neoliberal] Way” [i.e., scared to be called liberal after McGovern’s landslide defeat, so moving to the right]. That was a terrible error, abandoning unions, accepting offshoring of mfg, undercutting welfare even further—what a fiasco. Big part of today’s polarization. Know that there are many among us, including high-earners who benefited by fluke of 1946-1979 plumping of middle class, who are the parents of the social-democracy-inclined young adults who voted for Hillary in 2016 and helped defeat Trump in 2020.
Again, clear thinking about the past half century. But…what the current moment tells me is that this country is more conservative than I thought. I don’t know how Obama was elected.
Well, obviously because Obama is a baby boomer (born 1961). Again I say the ’46 to ’64 definition is a mainscream media myth which has zip to do with genuine sociological cohorts.
My theory: there’s a chunk of voters out there who switch sides if their pocketbook isn’t feeling right in October of election year. Oct ’08 Dow sank 6% & world markets were in free-fall.
Neoliberalism was a “mistake”?
One could make a pretty good argument that it was wildly successful in advancing business as usual under the guise of “Liberalism”
“Neoliberalism”* is the spawn of Liberalism in the European sense, that is, Laissez Faire Capitalism, pretty much the opposite of what U.S. Liberals are about.
Contains no actual liberalism.
So many mistakes there, SDP. Of course not just Clintons; this mish-mosh, fuzzy ‘philosophy’ [“Third Way” – no one acknowledged it as straight neoliberalism] was being promoted in UK & Australia too, and in some countries just coming out from under Soviet communism. Really a ridiculous ‘philosophy,’ imagining that you could marry social justice with laissez-faire capitalism. But why would US Dems push it here, where we’ve never even approached socialism, and at that point were too far along dial toward laissez-faire capitalism? The rest were approaching Third Way from the opposite direction. In US Dem case, it was more like an attempt to inject some social justice into an already anti-social-justice system. An impossibility in any case, and perhaps as you suggest, lipstick on a pig. Regardless of intention it pushed everything further right.
I would guess that the existence of a military draft made more difference in ending the Vietnam war than “love and peace” attitudes among baby boomers.
In other words, it was largely self-serving.
The real test of the sincerity of one’s principles is whether one protests wars fought by other people and other people’s children.
On the other hand, bring back the draft and you will see a resurgence of “love and peace”
What shaped my real cohort’s worldview more than anything else was the murder of JFK. People who were infants in 1963 have no conception what it meant to see your future stolen in a instant … and we know it wasn’t the Russians …
One must explain not only the wide scale protest of the Vietnam war but the relative dearth of protest of US military interventions since.
I don’t believe “love and peace” attitude explains it, not least of all because if the attitude is genuine, it is not active at certain times and inactive at others.
There are undoubtedly some boomers who have had a consistent antiwar stance over the last half century, but my guess is they are a minority.
I think the evidence actually shows that the baby boom generation has been very violent on the whole, not only in it’s foreign intervention stance but in it’s environmental stance as well.
The talk is cheap and largely meaningless.
What calls for explanation is the lack of reinforcements …
So very well said Diane, thank you for the reminder of our legacy.
Pretty sure the Constitution doesn’t mention freedom of hearing.
Head, shoulders, knees, and toes
Knees and toes
Head, shoulders, knees, and toes
Knees and toes
Eyes and ears and mouth and nose
Head, shoulders, knees, and toes
Knees and toes
Hamburger should repeat preschool. That’s where we learn the difference between our mouths and our ears.
Bullseye, LCT!!!