My diatribe for the day: why schools won't change for the better --
I was in a "restaurant" in Warrenton a few nights ago to meet with another attorney and a prospective client. The place is called, "McMahon's", and has a decidedly Irish atmosphere. I got to chatting with the bartender, Irish guy with a thick accent, and in whose speech the most frequently occurring adjective is something like "fahcking". The topic of firearms came up somehow, and he said, "Where I'm from, the fahcking law don't allow no fahcking guns." I observed that any government that is afraid of its own citizens has to make sure the public is disarmed. He agreed, and observed that the government he's left has good reason to be afraid.
We are engaged in a cultural war between the Roman system and the Germanic/Scottish system which formed the basis of constitutional government in the United States. Roman culture has been brought to this continent (subsequent to the formation of the American Republic) in successive waves of immigration from Ireland, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, and more recently Mexico and Central America. Some states are already predominately based on the Roman system, including Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Massachussetts, Illinois, California, and Hawaii. As children of recent immigrants are born in the U.S. and grow into voting citizens, that transition will be complete. I see this not as something I am afraid will happen, I see it as something that has already happened, and is now in consolidation and integration. Six of the nine justices on the Supreme Court are Catholic; most of the news-faces you see on television have surnames reflecting ancestry from some client state of the Vatican. Law enforcement, prosecution, probation and parole, etc., are increasingly dominated by such folks, whose cultural norms are not consistent with those of the "founding fathers". It's not a matter of one religion trying to suppress other religions because what I'm talking about is not primarily a religion, it's a worldview. Even people raised in that system who have rejected the Catholic church still share the values and norms they received from the Roman system.
You may have noticed that the list of states I identified are also those with the strictest gun control legislation. As Roman culture advances throughout the United States, that will become the norm throughout the U.S. The Roman system is inquisitorial rather than adversarial; it depends on hierarchical systems of personal loyalty, rather than social responsibility, intellectual honesty, and voluntary compliance with the law. Governments based on the Roman system have good reason to be afraid of the citizenry, and very much need to protect themselves from an armed populace. They have "subjects", not "citizens", and as Justice Scalia recently stated in the Heller opinion, you may have rights, but they're subject to "reasonable regulation". That is to say, what's "reasonable" from the government's perspective is all the "rights" you'll have. From the point of view of the Germanic/Scottish system, if your rights are subject to regulation of any kind, they're not rights, they're privileges. The Roman system regards the people as an expendable resource to be exploited for the common good (as the government defines, "good"), and for the benefit of the State.
Since the United States began to control school curricula in the early Twentieth Century, the pro-federal propaganda machine has been in full operation. Molding the minds of the future citizens is the most powerful weapon the imperial State has. Therefore, I submit, not only will schools neither implement nor promote an intelligent approach to the ownership, possession, and use of firearms, they will increasingly implement and promote the concept that the ownership, possession, and use of firearms is shameful and evil.
I had lunch the other day with a number of our crew in a barbequeue restaurant in Prince William County. One of our number said he'd been born and raised in California, and is an ex-L.A. policeman. He's recently acquired land out in the Western part of the Blue Ridge in Virginia, and said that, even though the local culture there is very much in accord with the notion that shooting on one's own property is normal, healthy, and good, he still feels shame and guilt for enjoying doing so. It's because he is a product of the culture of California and the California public schools. The Roman system depends on an internalized system of shame, fear, and guilt for implementation of social control.
I think that in twenty years, this will have become the norm throughout the United States. As Franklin reportedly observed, one has to work to keep a republic. I think that a republic is like a nuclear power plant. The engineers and scientists who came up with the theory and design don't run the thing. Our government was designed by brilliant political thinkers and statesmen, but we've got Homer Simpson running it. Overly engineered systems cannot be run by just plain folks, and most folks have trouble operating a toaster. That's why so many "food processors" sit unused in American kitchens. And I am convinced that the Germanic/Scottish model requires small groups of like-minded people who respect intelligence in order to operate; the Roman system has been developed over millennia of actual experience with organizing large numbers of ordinary people. Most people need a king; when the Israelites demanded that Samuel annoint a king for them, he warned them about what a king would do to them. But no, they said, we have to have a king like all the other tribes. Well, I think it's true. The Roman system will work best for the average WalMart shopper, who will never understand social responsibility, much less his personal responsibility to his fellow citizens that he voluntarily comply with the law. He needs a king, or pope, to inform his decisions.
The schools are changing, but it isn't for the better, from my perspective, but in a way that will be more appropriate for the masses. Or "sheeple", if you like. Ironically, public education is the only way to deflect the evil aspects of the takeover; but control of it is already long gone.
The horse has been out of the barn for a long time. No point in yelling and screaming about slamming the barn door to keep the horse in, now. That horse is long gone.