Camilo vs. Instead of War

http://www.insteadofwar.org/site/comments

Legally the name of those who died in Iraq is public record. Morally, you should not have used any names unless you had permission from the families. You know that there are families who do not want their loved ones name used in any association with an anti-war protesting group. Do you want to cause these families more pain? You are. How do I know this? I have spoken to three of the families and they said it hurts them knowing their sons' names are being used. It is your moral responsibility to use only the ones who want their loved ones name used.

Posted by: Shay on Oct 27, 05 12:40 pm

Shay, Which do you think will bring more pain to more families - the publication of the names of the fallen, or the loss of another 2,000 young men and women? Please don't confuse the actual tragedy with the telling of it. If you care about the pain of the families, then please take responsibility to see that no more families have to feel that pain.Human beings are not lemmings. The argument that more soldiers must die so that the first 2,000 will not have died in vain is nonsensical at best, cruel at worst. The question is whether the war is worth the huge cost in lives and national self-respect and dollars. At this point, a strong majority of Americans have decided that it is not. Now it's up to the politicians to hear our voices.You may think that it's scare-mongering to talk about the loss of 2,000 more soldiers. That's what Vietnam war supporters said after the first 1,000, first 2,000, first 10,000, first 20,000, first 29,000 American soldiers who died there, yet in each case the number did double (not even counting the millions of Vietnamese). The U.S. gets further from "victory" in Iraq each day, and the only question is how many more will die before our chickenhawk commander in chief and his chickenhawk VP and his chickenhawk defense secretary call an end to this abominable war, leaving Iraq in ruins and how many more thousands of American families desolate?P.S. Don't try to tell me that Rumseld is no chickenhawk. He coasted out the Korean War in Princeton ROTC and joined the Navy after the war was all over. In contrast, you may recall that thousands (millions?) of men left college to serve in WW2. But I'll admit that compared to Bush and Cheney, even chickenhawk Rumsfeld looks like a full-fledged war hero.

Posted by: Jonathan March on Oct 27, 05 5:35 pm

Shay is right. It's one thing to have the names of the soldiers that died in the war on terror being part of public record, but it is another to use their names to protest what they literally fought and died for. Sick and cruel in fact.Besides, it is a joke to think that the real reason you so-called anti-war protesters oppose this war is the costs. You don't believe in the mission. And where were you anti-war protestors when Clinton attacked Iraq? What about Bosnia, wasn't that war worth protesting? And if you want to look at war records better avoid the Swift Boat Vets for Truth.Iraq was not an imminent threat with WMD and was not part of the 9-11 attacks, but that wasn't why we went to war in Iraq. Our soldiers are fighting in Iraq because after the attacks of 9-11 we cannot allow tyrants defy weapons sanctions in the Middle East. That was the official administration foriegn policy in Iraq. The real for war was to create a battlefield of our choosing to take on the terrorists on their ground. Jihadists have been pouring into Iraq from neighboring countries to martyr themselves, let's give them what they want. Forget sealing the borders let those terrorists take their best shot. In the words of a great man, Bring it on!

Posted by: Camilo on Oct 27, 05 11:13 pm

Actually many of us did protest, repeatedly, when Clinton attacked Iraq, and Serbia as well. Not because we liked Saddam or Milosevic (many of us were protesting Saddam when Rumsfeld was cutting oil deals with him in the 80's, and when the U.S. was providing intelligence to him for his bloody war against Iran) but because these wars inflict great damage without solving the underlying conflicts.Cost: Would I support this war if it were free? Of course not; what good is free mayhem? But does the incredible financial burden of this war, with U.S. health and educational levels approaching second world levels, national infrastructure crumbling with neglect, and all of us paying for grotesque tax cuts for the wealthiest 1%, add to the war's obscene violence? You bet it does.Since even you don't seem to take seriously the official reason for the war I won't waste words on it. As for your stated reason: Do you seriously imagine that there is a fixed pool of jihadists and that this war is drawing them all in to die? Hypothetically: how would you feel if you came to believe that this war is creating jihadists at an ever-increasing rate? Would you then need to find anothe reason to support it, or would you then, finally, agree that it was wrong? Are there actually any circumstances which could lead you to reconsider your support for this war?

Posted by: Jonathan March on Oct 28, 05 12:09 am

Jonathan, did the anti-war movement really protest President Clinton’s use of military force? Well let’s say that they did; is there any use of military force that is acceptable? What is the anti-war movements answer to the War on Terror? Should we protest in the streets when we’re attacked? Or hold candle light vigils to convince the Islamo-Fascists like Osama Bin-Laden to put down their ideology of death and their tools of terror? What are and how would you solve the 'underlying conflicts' as you put them?Cost: What would it cost if terrorists attacked the U.S. again? How much are our American brothers and sisters lives of worth? What if you died in a terrorist attack? The last attack on the U.S. killed over 3,000 and the devastation to the city was an incredible financial burden. But after an attack like that can we afford a tyrant in the Middle East to defy weapons sanctions, with U.S. employment at 94.6%, and increased tax revenues thanks to tax cuts, to go kill terrorists in the Middle East? You bet we can.Is this war inciting more to join the enemy? The war in Iraq didn’t create the enemy; Al-Qaeda attacked the U.S. before the war began. We don’t know the number of the enemy, the only way to gauge their strength is by evaluating their attacks. Since the war in Iraq began the U.S. hasn’t suffered an attack, the enemy focus their attacks in Iraq against civilians, they cannot accomplish attacks like they previously could, rely on suicide bombing and IEDs, and is opposed by the majority of the population as seen in the Iraqi election.Hypothetically: If you found out that this war is destroying jihadists at an ever-increasing rate? Would you then need to find another reason to oppose it, or would you then, finally, agree that it is right? Are there actually any circumstances which could lead you to reconsider your opposition to this war? How do you like intellectual condescension?

Posted by: Camilo on Oct 31, 05 1:11 am

Camilo, the anti-war movement is not monolithic. Of the people who now oppose the Iraq war, many of us strongly opposed the military attacks on Serbia; some supported it; some didn't really think about it because it didn't seem to have much of an impact on their lives. Some are ethical or religious pacifists, some abhor all war but think that in some cases war is the lesser evil, some just oppose pointless incompetent wars.You seem to be concerned about our national security. Your assumption is that the war on Iraq is somehow helping to make the U.S. safer from terrorism, and your argument is that it is worth the cost in lives and dollars. But I don't accept your assumption. Bush/Cheney and their war in Iraq are putting us all in greater and greater risk every day that this war proceeds. As dozens of retired high-ranking military officers have stated publicly, Bush/Cheney dropped the ball on Al Qaeda in Afghanistan/Pakistan, instead attacking Iraq, a country which while ruled by a tyrant (partly of U.S. making), had at the time virtually no connection to Al Qaeda (certainly much less connection to Al Qaeda than did Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Pakistan, Germany, or the U.S. itself). Do you really think it's fine that the war in Iraq is drawing in jihadists, suicide bombers?!? Please remember that who is actually dying in this war, far more than the jihadists or the U.S. troops, are Iraqi civilians, by the tens of thousands, and Sunni Iraqi nationalist fighters, in numbers unknown. I find it morally unacceptable to send another country into bloody chaos because you have a theory that some small fraction of the people being killed might, some day in the future, have threatened our safety here at home. Yes, of course the jihadists are opposed by a majority of Iraqis. People want peace. The U.S. occupation is also opposed by a majority of Iraqis. As for the Sunni nationalists - they certainly don't pose a threat to the borders of the U.S. as you fear; they see themselves fighting for their own borders. They may well pose a threat to their Kurdish and Shiite neighbors, but the U.S. military occupation seems to be deepening that conflict. Back to your main concern, U.S. national security:Bush/Cheney quickly transformed a world which was overwhelmingly sympathetic to the U.S. after 9-11 to a world which by unprecedented majorities viewed the U.S. government as a dangerous bully.Bush/Cheney gutted our national public safety infrastructure, sending the National Guard, made up of cops, firefighters, paramedics, teachers, helicopters, jeeps, to Iraq to fight and die in this insane war, instead of being home to rescue victims of Hurricane Katrina. (Yes, there were also other factors in that debacle, including the sheer incompetence of Bush's crony head of FEMA and the Homeland Security bureaucracy.)Bush/Cheney opposed vehicle fuel standards, mocked energy conservation, and blocked serious research on alternative energy sources - not surprising given that they are both oil industry stalwarts, but certainly increasing the U.S. dependence on foreign oil.Bush/Cheney took the step, unprecedented during wartime, of slashing taxes for the wealthiest Americans (their real base), then borrowing the money to make up the shortfall. And who will be called on to pay off the extra trillions of dollars of debt for generations to come? - middle-class Americans in their taxes, and poor Americans in slashed public services. Bush/Cheney, instead of addressing the health care coverage crisis which constitutes the biggest security worry of most Americans, came up with a prescription drug "benefit" package for seniors whose main function is to transfer taxpayer money to the pharmaceutical industry.Instead of discarding our capital and young lives and national reputation in this desperate war in Iraq, let's invest them in these real national security issues.

Posted by: Jonathan March on Oct 31, 05 9:19 am

See The Next Attack : The Failure of the War on Terror and a Strategy for Getting it Right , by Daniel Benjamin, Steven Simon From Publishers Weekly Review: The chilling first words, "We are losing," capture the tone of this scathing evaluation of the Bush administration's responses to the September 11 attacks. Benjamin, a Center for Strategic and International Studies senior fellow, and Simon, an instructor at Georgetown University, authors of the award-winning Age of Sacred Terror: Radical Islam's War Against America, do not mince words; America's foreign policy vis-a-vis the Muslim world is bankrupt and has "cleared the way for the next attack-and those that will come after." By invading Iraq, the authors argue, the U.S. demonstrated a profound misunderstanding of the scope of the threat posed by al Qaeda and other jihadist groups, and has turned Iraq into a "country-sized training ground" for terrorists. The authors also explore terror's philosophical roots, analyzing how salafism, a strain of Islamic fundamentalism, dominates jihadist beliefs, as well as how the Internet helps facilitate global dissemination of its tenets, strategies and tactics. The authors' remedies for this baleful state of affairs include fostering an understanding that independent cell-based terrorist units, not state sponsors, are the backbone of the movement; dispensing with reflexive use of military solutions; improving links with foreign intelligence and law enforcement agencies; and recognizing the limitations of democracy in solving developing nations' problems. Not a book that'll appeal to readers whose politics are right of center, it's nevertheless a sobering analysis of compromised American security.Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.http://tinyurl.com/d9lu8

Posted by: Jonathan March on Oct 31, 05 2:18 pm


Jonathan, All that and you didn’t answer my questions. Is there any use of military force that is acceptable? What is the anti-war movements answer to the War on Terror? What are and how would you solve the 'underlying conflicts' as you put them? Please don’t refer me to another book, in your own words.

It’s reckless and irresponsible to advocate immediate pull out in Iraq, especially because the reasoning is we’re losing and need to get out before we suffer more casualties. We’re winning the war in Iraq; Saddam Hussein is out of power, the Iraqi people voted for a new Constitution, and the Iraqi people elected a new government. The majority of Iraqis don’t want the U.S. to pull out. On December 15 the Iraqis will vote again, signs point to more Arab Sunni participation and an end to violence.
The only way we can lose is if we pull out our troops as you advocate, before Iraq’s security forces are ready. Then we would have a real scene of tragedy in Iraq with carnage and mayhem like you’ve never seen. And that would be the real disgrace to all the soldiers who worked and sacrificed for this mission and to the Iraqi people who will have let down once again.

Fighting the War on Terrorism has made us safer. The enemy has declared war on us and we must respond. In Iraq we couldn’t allow a tyrant to defy weapons sanctions with this new terrorist threat. What if Saddam’s WMD got in the hands of al-Qaeda and were used on the United States? Saddam Hussein is an enemy of the U.S., you may not recognize this fact, but Saddam does and we’re safer to have him behind bars. And the war in Iraq has created a central front where we can fight the Islamo-fascists on their ground.

Oh yes, “dozens of retired high-ranking military officers have stated publicly, Bush/Cheney dropped the ball on Al Qaeda in Afghanistan/Pakistan,” instead attacking Iraq. please name just 12 then if dozens have come forward publicly. We all know how wise they must be since they are no longer in the service doing their job. Of course they are criticizing the war because they think they could have done it better, but I doubt they advocate immediate pull out of the troops. Many retired officers would probably advocate higher troop levels and different tactics, but I doubt they would advocate an anti-war position like IOW. What is that position again? …instead of war, what?

Boo hoo poor Sunni Nationalist Iraqi fighters; those are the terrorists killing Iraqi civilians you fool. This minority was the favored class under Saddam’s regime that oppressed the Kurds and Shiites and stole their oil revenues. Of course the occupation bothers them and the Sunnis have conflicts with their neighbors. The Sunni nationalists a.k.a. Baathists, Saddam Hussein’s party, coincidently live in the areas of high terrorist activity like Fellujah. They can either start voting or be left behind for all I care.

As for your advised reading, your authors’ ‘remedies’ are complaints not solution. We’re supposed to ignore state sponsors of terrorism, focus only on cell-based terrorism, avoid military solutions, improve relations with foreign intelligence and law enforcement agencies and recognize the limitations of democracy. So in Iraq and Afghanistan we should not have invaded, instead we should have improved our relations with Saddam’s and the Taliban’s intelligence and law enforcement agencies to apprehend the terrorist cells and all the time recognizing the limitations of democracy, our own style of government. That is precisely the post-Cold War slumber kind of foreign policy our enemy thought we would use, they saw us as a vulnerable ‘paper tiger’ that would not fight back. They were wrong.

P.S. Lamp, how can you say Iraq was sovereign, because of benevolent President Hussein’s 99% electoral approval rating (1% margin of error)? And, what is that about the Chinese being after our/Iraqi oil? Are you dumb, or just stupid? Those soldiers are heroes that risk their lives and sacrifice a great deal for scum like you to be able to slander them. Well, at least you’re more honest then your companions like Jonathan and IOW that pretend to mourn our soldiers lives purely for political motives.

How the West depends on the U.S. for Defense

After World War II superpower status was assigned to the United States and the Soviet Union. After defeating the Soviet Union in the Cold War, preventing armed conflict and a nuclear holocaust saving western civilization from Communism, the U.S. has become the lone superpower. The Europeans haven’t built up military power since WWII, and during the Cold War depended upon the N.A.T.O. alliance with the U.S. to prevent Communist expansion into Western Europe. The British Royal Navy no longer protects international trade routes, the U.S. Navy does. Even in the east, but still part of western civilization, the countries Japan, S. Korea, and Taiwan rely on the United States for defense. The U.S., as the sole superpower, must fight the War on Terror in the Middle East to defend western civilization from Islamo-fascist terrorists and tyrants and adopt a more muscular foreign policy to face new threats.

On September 11, 2001 the United States was attacked by terrorists from the Middle East using hijacked American airplanes to crash into various targets of American power marking the beginning of the War on Terror. “We must take the battle to the enemy…in the world we have entered, the only path to safety is the path of action,” President Bush said in a speech to West Point graduates in June 2002. That world we have entered is one of global terrorism with cells in 60 countries or more that seek various weapons including chemical, biological, and nuclear (weapons of mass destruction, WMD) to carry out more attacks on the U.S. and her allies. The path of action began with the War in Afghanistan against the Taliban regime that hosted Al Qaeda’s terrorist training centers. Next President Bush would implement a new policy of preemption with the War in Iraq on March 19, 2003 with the goal of regime change of the most powerful evil dictator in the Middle East, Saddam Hussein. By starting a war in the Middle East the United States has opened up a central front in the War on Terror taking the battle to the enemy.

Some oppose this use of military force preemptively not for immediate self defense. “This new approach repudiates the core idea of the United Nations Charter (reinforced by decisions of the World Court in The Hague), which prohibits any use of international force that is not undertaken in self-defense…pursuant to a decision by the UN Security Council,”(Falk 2002). It’s true that the council did not vote to authorize force against Iraq and U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan declared the War in Iraq illegal. The U.N. also declared in resolution 1441 that noncompliance with U.N. weapons inspectors in Iraq would result in the use of force. The U.N. Security Council chose not to enforce resolution 1441 when the time came, so instead the United States lead a coalition of willing nations in Operation Iraqi Freedom to liberate Iraq. What use is deterrence if force is never used? Immediately after the invasion of Iraq, Libya negotiated and gave up their secret WMD programs.

The U.S. cannot relinquish sovereignty to the U.N, international agreements, or intergalactic federation forces should they exist. The international community has no stake in U.S. interests, nations with seats on the U.N. Security Council did not suffer attacks on September 11th, many U.N. member nations are dictatorships, and the U.N. Oil for Food scandal revealed vast corruption in the organization that went so far as to implicate the son of the U.N. Secretary General. The United Nations was created after WWII with the utopian intent of ending war between nations by creating a forum for world powers to settle disputes through negotiation and diplomacy instead of on the battlefield. The U.N. in this regard is a complete failure. U.N. Peacekeepers were powerless to prevent the slaughter of thousands of innocent people in Rwanda, Bosnia, and Somalia. Saddam Hussein was saved by the U.N. in the 1991 Gulf War that limited coalition forces to expelling Hussein’s army from Kuwait instead of regime change in Baghdad. That caused the slaughter of thousands of Iraqis that rose up to depose Hussein and were not supported by coalition forces.

Because of the lack of U.N. support some accused the U.S. of acting “unilaterally” in Iraq. Unilateralism is the tendency of nations to conduct their foreign affairs individualistically, characterized by minimal consultation and involvement with other nations, even their allies. Multilateralism and unilateralism are neither good nor bad. The Nazi invasion force of Russia was one of the largest multilateral coalitions ever assembled while the Russians unilaterally defended themselves, this doesn’t mean that the Nazi’s were morally justified to invade Russia because they had a larger coalition and the Russians wrong to defend themselves unilaterally. Regardless, the U.S. didn’t unilaterally go to war in Iraq; the coalition forces included the British, S. Korean, Australian, and many other nations supported the U.S. like the Japanese and former soviet bloc eastern European nations.

Richard Falk rightly understands that President Bush’s preemption policy addresses the fact that “axis of evil” (states like Iraq, N. Korea, Iran, and their terrorist allies) acquisition of weapons of mass destruction acts as a deterrent capability against the United States. That’s why we could invade Iraq and not N. Korea, members of the “axis”; N. Korea has the bomb and holds S. Korea hostage with it, while Saddam’s regime was still developing WMD and could not yet hold his neighbor’s hostage and preserve his tyranny indefinitely. He wrongly describes preemption policy as a hidden sinister motive in Washington “…global dominance, a project to transform the world order… in the direction of…global empire administered from Washington.” Iraq is not under U.S. dominance; Iraq has a population of about 30 million people while the U.S. had at most about 300,000 troops in Iraq at the height of the invasion, if a popular movement resisted the U.S. in Iraq we would lose quickly and badly. Coalition forces rely on popular support in Iraq to achieve victory, in the form of a peaceful democratically elected Iraqi government that will fight Islamo-fascist terror and tyranny.

Is the goal of the U.S. preemptive war in Iraq really about extending American empire to a region rich in oil? No. If the U.S. wanted oil drilling in Alaska or off shore would be easier to accomplish, or in a real imperialistic move the U.S. could declare Kuwait the 51st state of the union, rich in oil, that’s why Saddam annexed Kuwait himself, and it would be much easier than trying to get our clutches on Saddam’s stolen Iraqi oil reserves since Kuwait is already dominated by a U.S. military presence.

It must be difficult to label deposing a Stalinist tyrant, Hussein, and holding democratic elections for a new government as imperialism. So instead to describe America’s defense of the western civilization as imperialism the term ‘hegemony’ is used, e.g. “…confront the fact of America’s military strength and its worldwide political, cultural, and economic hegemony,”* (WA 725). Hegemony, the predominant influence, as of a state, region, or group, over another or others, is an accurate description of the U.S. but is not the same as imperialism, the policy of extending a nation's authority by territorial acquisition or by the establishment of economic and political hegemony over other nations.

The accusations of hegemony, unilateralism, and illegality are used to undermine the United State’s moral authority to defend western civilization. It seems like an unchallengeable idea for the U.S. to have moral authority to defend the west, how can defense be wrong? “... [T]he war on terror…will require firm moral purpose… Targeting innocent civilians for murder is always and everywhere wrong…Brutality against women is always and everywhere wrong…We are in a conflict of good and evil, and America will call evil by its name,” (Bush 2002). Some claim this is moral absolutism that gives the U.S. “… the moral high ground, which exempts America from self-criticism…there can be no reasonable restraint,” and that, “We may lament fundamentalism in the Islamic world…, but what about our own,” (Falk 2002). Ah yes, post-modern relativism, we are no better than our terrorist enemies. Not so. We have tons of restraint, we could abandon S. Korea, and invade N. Korea to stop WMD proliferation or invade Iran at a cost of blood and treasure that would be enormous, but we don’t.

And the U.S. hasn’t had any self-criticism? Self-criticism of the government is part of our society; the U.S. media criticizes our government constantly, Falk’s article in Nation magazine is a from of self-criticism of U.S. policy in the U.S. media, the opposition party has criticized and spoken out against U.S. policy frequently in both houses of the U.S. congress, and President Bush in 2004 was up for re-election and had to defend his policy against a candidate that offered a different policy to our citizens.

Western Civilization isn’t going to save itself, lazy Europeans and other weak nations have outsourced defense to the U.S. diminishing their own forces to near insignificance since the Cold War. The U.S., as the sole superpower, must fight the War on Terror in the Middle East to defend western civilization from Islamo-fascist terrorists and tyrants and adopt a more muscular foreign policy to face new threats, and it is the duty of her people to stay the course. This war will not be over soon, and our resolve will be tested. We are not perfect and their will be failures and mistakes along the way, but as long as we don’t give up we can’t lose. Our strength isn’t our ability to destroy it’s our ability to create. The will of free people is most powerful force in the world.

Works Cited

Bush, George W. President Bush’s 2002 State of the Union Address
Bush, George W. President Bush Delivers Graduation Speech at West Point June 1, 2002
Writing Arguments: A Rhetoric with Readings Sixth edition. Pearson Education, Inc. 2004.
Ramage, John D., Bean, John C., Johnson, June. “The United States as Superpower”
Writing Arguments: A Rhetoric with Readings Sixth edition. Pearson Education, Inc. 2004.
Falk, Richard “The New Bush Doctrine” Nation July 15, 2002

Educational Bankruptcy

U.S. education is well below the level of excellence Americans demand in their other industries. Most of us don’t even see education as an industry. We don’t see students as customers or teachers as employees. Unfortunately, many parents see public schools as free child care and neglect their obligation to their children’s education. Most students do not pay for their education, their parents do. That’s one reason for a less business oriented setting, e.g. when a teacher ends a class early or cancels it completely the students are usually happy because they’re not paying for it. That problem is intrinsic to the education industry. Young people cannot afford an education and that’s when they need it, so their parents pay. There is another middle-man in the education industry, the state.

Some time long ago the government got into the education business too. Now most American children go to government schools paid for by property taxes of the local area regardless if the tax payers have children attending the school. The parents of the area in effect get a subsidy for government education but at a cost, the quality of their children’s education. You get what you pay for, and pay for, and pay for. Spending has never been higher for U.S. education. “Nearly $373 billion of revenues were raised to fund public education for grades pre-kindergarten through 12 in school year 1999–2000. An average of $6,911 was spent on each student—an increase from $6,508 in school year 1998–99 (in unadjusted dollars),” (policyalmanac.org). That increase wasn’t made to fund the system because of a growing student population; the increase was made per student with the idea the more we spend the better the education. “Unfortunately, there is ample evidence that simply spending more money on education will not improve student achievement,” (policyalmanac.org). If the public school system was a private business it would have gone bankrupt long ago, yet the government invests more and more each year.

And the more we pay the less we get. Compared to other industrialized nations and past U.S. education levels, current levels have been low and for a long time. “For example, long-term trend data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) for 9-year-olds show that reading and math achievement has been nearly flat over the past decade. Results from the 2000 NAEP reading assessment confirmed that the reading skills of the Nation's 4th graders have remained unchanged for 8 years, with 37 percent of those tested scoring below Basic,” (policyalmanac.org). Community colleges like our own, are adding remedial courses to the catalog to teach things that should have been covered in high-school and even middle-school. Elementary algebra, for example I took in 8th grade, is offered at STLCC.

School choice, the ability of parents to choose schools and schools to choose students, is improving with charter schools and vouchers, but does not go far enough. For most parents to choose their child’s school they have to pick a school district to live in and poor parents that need low rents to get by are forced into the worst school districts. It’s not enough to accept the status quo and the slow pace of educational reform. The No Child Left Behind Act is designed to make schools accountable for federal funds, again a good idea in the right direction that does not go far enough. Government schools get the majority of their funding from local property taxes. To make schools really accountable, all of their funding should be accountable to the quality of education provided, not just the sliver provided by the feds.

My solution is an American educational revolution to privatize education and create incentives to the private sector in the education industry. The state, from a moral perspective should not force taxpayers to pay for education. The person receiving the education, or their parents, should pay the provider. Not one taxpayer’s dollar should be spent on education, including college scholarships. The U.S. Department of Education should be dissolved. All government schools should be shut down and sold to private schools at cheap prices to encourage investment. These schools’ union contracts should also disappear with the government money giving the U.S. educational system a clean slate. Tax cuts should be given to the U.S. education industry to encourage entrepreneurs to invest. How much does this revolution cost? Actually it should save money, so in effect, we will pay less and get more. Property taxes everywhere would fall; parents would pay more, but for society as a whole, privatization will cost less. In fact there is money to be made for those that can get into the freed industry.
Our politicians will say that education is a benefit for all our citizens, a necessity, or that it prevents crime (build more schools not more prisons), so we as a society must provide an education to all. Our society should provide education for all, privately. Education is a necessity in today’s competitive world. Jobs, healthcare, pensions, food, transportation, clothing, and shelter are necessities too; should the government provide them as it does education? It’s true an educated person isn’t as likely to be a criminal, but that doesn’t mean government schools are preventing crime or that it is essential that the government schools do the educating. The government isn’t delivering on its promise to give an education. How does someone that drops out of school, or scores low on tests get an education? When do we say enough is enough and abandon this farce?

Oh no, what about the poor parents that can’t afford those expensive private schools? Right now private schools are more expensive for parents because most parents can’t get vouchers and in effect have to pay twice for their child’s education. Another reason private schools are expensive is that they offer better educations than public schools, so naturally they charge more and parents that can afford it will pay. If our government schools weren’t holding the majority of our nation’s students hostage, cheaper private schools would spring up to serve the lower-income parents.

Are poor parents’ children getting good educations in government schools? Because school funding largely comes from local tax payers in poor areas public schools have very little funding and produce some of the worst schools in the nation. In many inner city government schools, a kind of de facto economic segregation exists. It would be better to shut down these failing schools to free the captive students. Or at least give welfare in a more practical way via school stamps to subsidize poor parents’ education costs. In the grocery industry, the government offers food stamps, not government run markets that waste lots of money and offer low-grade products. What about the good public schools in areas with good funding? Money is getting wasted, education is getting subsidized by local taxpayers, the cost of the education is overpriced (because local taxes are too high), and often the government raises taxes in the name of funding education, only to spend the funding on non-education related government priorities.

A bi-product of privatizing the American education system would be a solution to all those cultural and social issues causing so much disagreement today. School prayer, evolution vs. intelligent design, under god in the pledge of allegiance, school dress codes, and many other issues wouldn’t need to be handled by the school boards. Parents could take their children out of schools they don’t approve of, and schools could expel students. Does that mean that students could get kicked out of school for arbitrary reasons, or not accepted on bases of race? Maybe, but then that school would be swiftly sued for racial discrimination, and you wouldn’t want to send your child to a school like that anyway. But that wouldn’t happen, racism and other forms of discrimination give into greed. Post Civil War southern businesses didn’t segregate themselves; the state had to regulate them to prevent them from serving blacks.

Bankruptcy for a business that can’t make a profit is part of the natural economic cycle. Think of the economy as a rainforest; trees are industries, sunlight and water are investors and sales, and the fruit is the product the education that the student receives. If we cut down the huge government education tree that takes in more and more resources from the rainforest and produces low grade fruit, other trees can grow in its place that are more efficient, produce more better fruit and take in fewer resources. The Government adventure into education hasn’t kept its promise and U.S. education isn’t competitive with the rest of the world and wastes a great deal of money. More government programs, regulations, or laws aren’t the solution to this problem; government is the problem.

Work Cited

Johnson, Frank “Revenues and Expenditures for Public Elementary and Secondary Education: School Year 1999–2000" U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. May 16, 2002 Dec. 11, 2005.