Digital Cowboy

I haven’t done a good anarcho-capitalist, anti-government rant lately and I just ran across something from a while back, while cleaning out my email. I thought I would share it with you unsuspecting victims who no doubt came here looking for more cute kiddie or beefcake pictures.

My mother forwarded the following email to me and a whole bunch of other people, including everyone else that works at her small company and her 85 year old aunt. She caught me at the wrong time and I was infuriated that people were so brainwashed by their government education that they actually believed we had improved on most of the things on the list. So I decided to reply to all when I responded.

I seriously doubt the accuracy and/or validity of a number of these “facts” to start with, but decided not to get into a pedantic snopes-a-thon to prove it. For instance, the “average American worker” didn’t work very hard if they were making 22¢ an hour and only making $200-$400 a year.

My response follows the original email.

               “THE YEAR 1903″

Where we were a century ago. This ought to boggle your mind.

The year is 1903, one hundred years ago… what a difference a century makes. Here are the U. S. statistics for 1903….

The average life expectancy in the US was 47.

Only 14% of the homes in the US had a BATHTUB.

Only 8% of the homes had a TELEPHONE.

A three-minute call from Denver to New York City cost $11.

There were only 8,000 CARS in the US and only 144 miles of paved ROADS.

The maximum speed limit in most cities was 10 mph.

Alabama, Mississippi, Iowa, and Tennessee were each more heavily populated than California. With a mere 1.4 million residents, California was only the 21st most populous state in the Union.

The tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel Tower.

The average wage in the US was $0.22/hour.

The average US worker made between $200-$400/year.

A competent accountant could expect to earn $2000/year, a dentist $2,500/year, a veterinarian between $1,500-$4,000/year, and a mechanical engineer about $5,000/year.

More than 95% of all BIRTHS in the US took place at HOME.

90% of all US physicians had NO COLLEGE education. Instead, they attended medical schools, many of which were condemned in the press and by the government as “substandard.”

Sugar cost $0.04/pound. Eggs were $0.14/dozen. Coffee cost $0.15/pound.

Most women only washed their HAIR once a month and used BORAX or EGG YOLKS for shampoo.

Canada passed a law prohibiting POOR people from entering the country for any reason.

The five leading causes of death in the US were:
1. Pneumonia & influenza
2. Tuberculosis
3. Diarrhea
4. Heart disease
5. Stroke

The American flag had 45 stars. Arizona, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Hawaii and Alaska hadn’t been admitted to the Union yet.

The population of Las Vegas, Nevada was 30.

Crossword puzzles, canned beer, and iced tea hadn’t been invented.

There were no Mother’s Day or Father’s Day.

One in ten US adults couldn’t read or write.

Only 6% of all Americans had graduated from HIGH SCHOOL.

Coca Cola contained cocaine.

Marijuana, heroin and morphine were all available over the counter at corner drugstores. According to one pharmacist, “Heroin clears the complexion, gives buoyancy to the mind, regulates the stomach and the bowels, and is, in fact, a perfect guardian of health.”

18% of households in the US had at least one full-time SERVANT or domestic.

There were only about 230 reported MURDERS in the entire US.

Just think what it will be like in another 100 years.

It boggles the mind!

My response…

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…with one of my favorite editorial writers in America. Vin Suprynowicz is the Assistant editorial-page editor for The Las Vegas Review-Journal and has been for many years now. He’s also a nationally syndicated libertarian columnist and author of Send In The Waco Killers: Essays on the Freedom Movement, 1993-1998 and The Ballad of Carl Drega (both non fiction). His newest work is a novel entitled The Black Arrow: A Tale of the Resistance.

In catching up with his past columns tonight, I came across one published February 6, 2005 that’s titled, Teaching preschoolers to read ‘not encouraged’ Here are a couple of excerpts where he’s quoting a disgruntled government teacher:

But, “Arithmetic was not the only institution that has gone by the wayside. Teaching in general had been all but banned,” Mr. Lewis, former director of studies at Washington’s World Charter School, finally figured out. “A genre of lesson planning and required ‘pedagogies’ had sprung up that allowed a maximum of about 10 minutes of actual teaching per class period. The remaining class time had to be devoted to a combination of ‘touchy-feely’ techniques, politically correct propaganda, and ‘activities.’”

—————————-

“I not so long ago looked into some federal funds for preschool reading programs under the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act,” Mr. Lewis continues. “I was initially optimistic, as I had recent success getting 3- and 4-year-olds reading fluently. … On inspection of the grant materials, I found I did not qualify for the simple reason that the government ‘absolutely’ did not encourage the teaching of actual reading to preschoolers. Recognition of the letters of the alphabet was the maximum acceptable instruction.”

I hope this is enough to get you to click the link and read the entire column. In his subtle, inimitable way, Vin proceeds to tie the whole thing into gun control. After you’ve finished that column, click the first link and bookmark it so you can read the rest of what he’s written, and will write. It’s well worth the time.

(Also, additional information about Vin is available from his web site.)

Reading that column I was reminded of my 4 year old coming to me today with a stack of Bob books in her hand and saying, “Daddy? Want me to read one of these to you?” (I was working and she was interrupting, but you’ll never get me to discourage reading. There’s always time for reading together.) She proceeded to pick out the tenth of twelve books. (They’re numbered and get progressively harder.) I encouraged her to pick one of the lower numbered books because I haven’t had time to work with her on them much. After a bit of negotiation, we settled on number 5 and she read the whole thing with only very minimal help. That’s not the beginner set in the Bob series, either. We skipped that one. We started with the second set and we’re going to have to get the next level soon because my 6 year old has mastered the ones we have and the 4 year old is close. (It pains me to think where they would be now if they had a mother that cared and hadn’t kept them from me for the better part of the last 3 years.)

I was informed by my children today, that the four year old of the woman I wrote about in Dumb broads and home education, cannot count to 10. They were astonished. My daughters were both counting to 10 both forwards and backwards by the time they were two years old. My four year old can count to 40 or 50 now and I haven’t had much time to actively work with her yet. The older one can count to 100 now. After a year of preschool and a few months of kindergarten (both against my wishes) she told me she could count to 100. She couldn’t get past 49 because she had been taught by memorization. I spent about 20 mins. with her showing her how the numbers relate with patterns and she can now count to 100 (and beyond) every time. Her younger sister listening in on that lesson is the reason she can count to 50 now and is doing basic arithmetic in her head. At four.

But what do I know? It’s not like I have a degree from Columbia Teachers’ College or anything. Heck, I don’t have any degree in anything. I haven’t spent a single second of my life in a college classroom (while class was going on). I’m just a dumb, uneducated redneck.

I’m sure the government knows best.

I told some of this story in a couple of comments at Vox’s, but I want to tell the whole story.

My neighbors are very nice people. Good neighbors, hard working, etc. They have many hangers-on and because they are so generous their house is a revolving door. Sometimes, I can’t keep track from one day to the next who’s living there and who’s just visiting. The homeowners are a man and his wife. They have one son.

The woman that lives there has a sister. She has three kids. The oldest is four, the next is three and the third is an infant. The baby has a different father than the other two and neither father is in the picture, at all.

Last weekend they had a birthday party for the boy that lives there. He was turning six.

Loser Broad first picked a fight with me by saying, “I don’t go for no ‘no-strings’ relationships. You wanna hook up with me, you’re gonna pay some bills.” (PLEASE note that I was only standing around witnessing the conversation up to that point! I was NOT involved. She was also smoking pot and I wasn’t.)

So I said, “There’s a name for that. It’s called ‘prostitution.’”

For some reason she didn’t like that. Truth hurts, I guess.

A few minutes later she literally gets in my face. I was a bit startled and stepped back. Turned out she was just trying to make our conversation private so she could say, “Mark, PLEASE put those girls in school!”

“MY girls?”

“Yeah.”

“No. Not a chance and I really don’t wanna have this conversation with you right now.” (We were at a party.)

“I know you’re a really smart guy and you can teach them everything they need to know, but they’re not going to learn the social skills they need from you.”

At that point, I turned behind me and pointed to the bounce house about 20 feet away where my kids were playing with about 5 others, including hers (this was a birthday party) and said, “Does it look to you like they’re lacking social skills?”

“But our schools here are some of the best ANYWHERE!”

“It’s a funny thing about that white speck on the top of chicken shit. It’s still shit.”

“OK. This conversation is over!”

“Thank God! I was wondering what it would take to get it through to you.”

While she’s lecturing me, her oldest is the same age as my youngest. My four year old is reading and doing basic addition and subtraction in her head. Her four year old can barely speak an intelligible sentence. Her three year old is worse. His speech sounds like my daughters at 18 months, though I recently learned that he has a hearing impairment. Little excuse, when you consider that it was probably her fault. Chain smoking, drinking and pot are not good for fetal development.

You’re lecturing ME?!?!

“The uh, the uh, I think there were some jelly beans thrown. The teacher got the rest of the kids out of the classroom for safety’s sake.”

Vox is usually right and he certainly is about government schools. If you love your kids, you’ll never let them near a government building, especially if it’s a school. If your kids are in government schools it’s because you’re ignorant or lazy. I hope it’s the former. If so, maybe I can help.

The lead into this post was a quote from a reporter covering a story about a 5 year old girl that was arrested… Did you get that? She was ARRESTED! As in: she was handcuffed and carried away in a cruiser for… throwing jelly beans.

FIVE YEARS OLD!

HANDCUFFED!

Thank God the teacher was on top of things and got all the other children to “safety” before they got hit with a jelly bean.

I got your “socialization” right here. Your primary argument against home education is my primary reason for doing it. I don’t want my kids exposed to this kind of “socialization.” It’s the blind leading the blind. Or, perhaps, it’s the evil leading the evil. Either way, my kids deserve better no matter what it costs me.

They deserve an education, too, and they won’t get it there.