The Grizzly Sloth has mostly recovered from our influenza episode. We made it through the last INSANE week - a week which included CCD, guitar/piano lessons, 2 nights of Karate, reading group at the library, game day at the library, the two days of state testing required by Pennsylvania for the 4th grader, a visit from the next door neighbor's grandson 'Tom-Tom', and a 2 nice afternoons of tree climbing and bike riding with the neighborhood kids. Did I hear someone say my kids are 'isolated'? LOL!
Anyhoo - on to
Education and Jihad, Part V.This is some deep stuff for the Grizzly Mama - a product of the American Public School system - who was never formally schooled in Philosophy or Economics. (I did take a Macro-Economics class in college and was fascinated by it.) Cubed contends that there are two subjects that our children are not taught in school that are critical to their ability to reason and their understanding of "how to guide their own futures and the future of the country." These two subjects are Philosophy and Economics.
"Here are some examples of what various philosophies have wrought: Philosophy gave birth to the United States; it made us what we are, and it made Islam what it is. Philosophy gave us the Constitution, the Nazi Party, the Bill of Rights, Communism, the Magna Carta, the Boston Tea Party, the end of slavery for the first time in human history, the process that produces Nobel Prize winners, and, of course, Islam. Different philosophies produce different results. They are not the impractical, harmless hobbies of old scholars.
While the best philosophy (that's ours) will win in the long haul, the one that won't win (that's Islam) can do a lot of damage in the meantime..."The five major branches of philosophy are:
Ethics - what constitutes 'the good'.Epistemology - how human beings acquire knowledge.Esthetics - beauty and the significance of art.Politics - the application of ethics to social behavior.Metaphysics - studies the question of whether all of existence follows natural laws.Cubed highlights what Islam teaches about the Metaphysics part:
"Islam teaches that Allah creates each moment independent of the next, and that anything can happen (sounds a lot like some of our nihilistic philosopher friends here in the West). A kitten in this moment can become an oak tree in the next; there is no relationship between an effect, let's say, 'cold'--and anything causing it; what happens in one moment is at the discretion of Allah's whim, and has no relationship to what happens in the next moment, which also is at the discretion of Allah's whim, and everybody hopes that Allah is in a good mood." An example of the teaching of Islam on this subject is:
...deep in their frightened minds, they aren't at ALL sure that unless Allah wills it, that something will or won't happen - one cannot predict that a flame, for example (this is a real example that they use), will burn cotton. Yikes, eh?! The girls already know the basic idea of the scientific principle behind heat, flame, combustibility of certain substances. Heck - our 1 year olds know they are not supposed to play with matches! Onward and upward.
Although I've never been formally schooled in philosophy - it appears that I do HAVE a philosophy - and so do you. We have acquired our philosophies in a very casual manner. It's not a good way to learn something. We wouldn't want to learn math by just picking up bits here and there, would we? No! As Cubed points out:
Philosophy is the roadmap that guides us through life, so it had better 1) be valid, and 2) be well studied.It appears that there has been a deliberate drive by our government - over the long haul - to dumb down our children. Reason-based philosophy is bad and the children will be kept far from it. Nihilistic philosophy is great and we have seen much evidence of this lately - Churchill, Bennish. Don't give the kiddies too many facts either - facts fuel thinking.
We will win the war faster if we teach our kids a reality based philosophy. Kids can be taught philosophy in an age appropriate manner. The goal
"is to accurately identify reality, to make everything CLEAR." We must arm our children to continue this fight. It will be up to them to save the Republic and continue this war.
ON TO ECONOMICS!
The study of Economics is not limited to monetary issues! The study of Economics is
"the means by which an entire society creates prosperity or poverty for its people, depending on the way they organize their economies." In addition,
"The exchange of knowledge, the exchange of skills, the exchange of favors, or—of course—the exchange of money for goods and services, are ALL based on economic principles." We influence our economy by voting - and we haven't been schooled in economic principles! What, pray tell, can happen by our being ignorant? Bad decisions, I tell ya - BAD DECISIONS!!
Cubed goes on to desribe a non-monetary economic problem involving mass casualties and having limited resources to deal with that. What that would involve would be making decisions on whose life is most likely to be saved and allocating the resources to do that. A difficult process. When going through triage training in the military (I was an O.R. Tech in a Combat Support Hospital) I had a hard time with this at first. It required letting the critically injured casualties who had little chance of survival (even with a massive use of resources) die and attending to the casualties who had a better chance of survival. The slightly injured had to sit and wait. I was not used to thinking in these terms - I was used to thinking in terms of saving the most critically injured first no matter what. In a critical and emergency situation though - things have to be viewed a bit differently. The resources have to be allocated in the most efficient way so that they are not wasted. It's a different story, isn't it, when the lone ambulance pulls into the ER where staff is waiting and plenty of equipment is available. Massive use of resources will be employed even if the chance of survival is slim.
What ARE our children being taught in school? Capitalism is bad. Wealth redistribution is good. It's a bunch of crap of course - but they don't know that. Heck - I've recently had communications with supposed intelligent, thinking adults that can't seem to grasp it. The facts don't matter. The history doesn't matter. They are products of our leftist controlled education system. Furthermore - capitalism isn't just a monetary system, it is a social system.
"As a social system, capitalism is based on the recognition of individual rights. In fact, its very name comes from the Latin “caput,” meaning “head,” meaning “individual,” as in “head count.” In a capitalist society, the rights of the individual are supremely important, and relationships are voluntary, not forced. People deal with each other through persuasion, discussion, and debate, not force. They voluntarily form mutually agreed upon contracts with each other, the terms of which cannot violate individual rights." About individual rights, Cubed has this to say:
"There are only two ways that rights can be violated (this is one of those lessons the kids learn in philosophy class), and they are 1) the initiation of the use of physical force, and 2) the use of the intellectual equivalent of force, which is fraud or deceit."A good social system promotes productivity, prosperity, the room for creativity and innovation, individual freedom, good health care, housing, general well-being. Islamic governments micro-manage their populations and stifle freedom. Islamic governments attempt to control EVERYTHING a person in that country does, from how to take a crap to how to have sex to how to dress - disallowing the questioning of the 'knowledge' that has supposedly been 'revealed' in the Koran. Half of the population (women) subjugated and unable to contribute except by breeding. It's no wonder their societies are a failure producing much misery and hate and unhappiness and abuse.
"Teaching our children proper philosophy and proper economics can help us fend off the Leftist fellow-travelers of Islam who have the shared, classically nihilistic goal of our destruction. We have a lot of catching up to do, since the Postmodern Leftist nihilists have a real head start in their goal of dumbing us down and infusing the schools with their destructive philosophy."Cubed doesn't think that the government school system will produce what we need to fight this war - an intelligent, thinking populace armed with the facts. I agree with her. As they say - go and read the WHOLE THING!!! Mine is but a lame attempt at recapping what Cubed so eloquently presents.
Links:
Deliberate Dumbing Down of America.Basic Economics and
Applied Economics by Thomas Sowell.
Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith.
Economic Policy by Ludwig von Mises.
Aesop's Fables.The Children's Book of Heroes,
The Children's Book of Virtues and
The Children's Book of America, all by Bill Bennett.
God Bless America. God Save the Republic! AND Thank you, Cubed.
