"about poor education and the Constitution"

Low graduation standards are one reason for failing schools in America and for-profit colleges pretty much guarantee a degree to anyone who pays. I worked once in a Beef packing plant with a few people who were smarter than several teachers I taught beside. Every "for credit" class I took through my school district after earning my bachelor's degree at ASU West was a University of Phoenix guaranteed-to-pass class. I heard a woman who just earned a phd. from a for-profit school say, "I never can keep it straight - which one is true, fiction or non-fiction?" This woman graduated from the classroom to the counsellors office with a big raise because of her phd. BUT ... I had a principal who graduated from a HARVARD special class for minorities (summer school, something not a 4-year plan) who was dumb as a post. Once when she was talking to me it was the security guard (same minority group) who would jump in and clarify her sentences, correct her poor word choice, etc. So, we're muddled from top to bottom, aren't we?
Where to start to fix the education mess? Let's start at the top. Education is not mentioned in the Constitution, so therefore it, not being denied to the states, is a state's right. I mean, for God's sake can we at least begin with SOMETHING both sides agree on? And that one thing is the Constitution. The federal government should butt out of education except for the right of citizens of all races to have access to an equal level of that state's educational system. If Mississippians want to run last in a race to the bottom with Texans, let 'em go! The ridiculous thing is that Texas has a major influence on textbook publishers who wish to sell nation-wide, and, with the new Texas state standards in history, America's students will know less about Thomas Jefferson than they do about Phyllis Shalafly!
Private schools? Turn 'em loose. F... 'em. NO TAX dollars for you. Teach any BS you want. Exclude who you want, you private and religious schools, but NO TAX dollars for you! Oh, you say, they may teach lies. Duh, we're already teaching lies. Put back into place the fairness doctrine that Reagan took from broadcasting and apply it to textbooks, too. Republicans are fond of saying that the average American knows how best to spend his/her money, so lower taxes. Then they turn around and only significantly lower taxes for the rich and they tax US for "private" "charter" "whatever" schools.

"about a return to Common Sense"

Well, here I go with an idea I’ve been mulling over for years. My argument is that there is almost nothing in our national discourse that is untainted by greed and the need to feel superior to others merely because we were born in the USA. I hold it to be self-evident that almost no American actually reads and follows the Constitution and the New Testament. What we take to be news is mostly opinion and propaganda. We, the people, have been fooled and we act like fools because of that.

At the end of WWII we were fooled, first of all, into believing that even though the US helped win WWII, the Russians were now our number one enemy, that they were out-spending us on the machinery of war, that they were brainwashing us, that they actually COULD take over the whole world. Meanwhile, The USSR was starving and in no way capable of taking over the world. And they had died in massive numbers to aid our fight against Hitler. They had been our ally for God’s sake. I bring this up, not because my blog will be about Russia, but to show an example of how we were fooled by the secret agencies that grew out of WWII. I don’t even know how many there are. Let’s see, the CIA, the NSA, they spring to mind. But do not all American military branches have their own secret agencies? Were not private companies granted the status of our military (Blackwater, aka whatever), except that they were MUCH better paid! Why was there the destruction of 9/11? Had we not paid enough taxes to support our spies, both good and bad? Shouldn’t the cockpit doors on our airliners have been reinforced, locked doors, ever since the Palestinian hijackings of the 1960s? Shouldn’t the FBI have listened to the field ops that reported middle-eastern non-citizens taking flying lessons, but didn’t care to learn how to land? Good God! And NO ONE was fired or demoted after 9/11 except the field ops?

Recently, a relative of mine died. She was in her 70s, had undergone open-heart surgery, and her husband was a Baptist minister. Guess what? An autopsy was ordered to determine cause of death! The US investigates plane crashes to the nth degree, but Bush said it would be too troubling to America to do a scientific analysis of the debris at the World Trade Center? No autopsy for the body of the only attack on America since Pearl Harbor? That makes no sense, unless there was something to hide. You see, we’ve lost our common sense. We are no longer an informed nation; we are a nation allowing the super rich to form US into what THEY want. I’m sick of it.

The same people who will believe anything a Republican says deny any truth to anything Barack Obama or Nancy Pelosi say. People admire the “Christian” act of burning the Koran and other acts of phony or ignorant preachers and can’t see with their own eyes that President Obama has spent his presidency reaching out, not getting angry  (even when called a liar during his State of the Union address). In other words, he behaves in a humble Christian manner, on our national political stage. And let’s not forget something, lest you think it’s all because he’s black. The vicious attacks on President and First Lady Clinton began immediately upon his assuming the office. Let’s see, they killed someone in the White House, and… and… and… The battle goes back, way back, yet we Americans aren’t allowed to know the truth. It’s classified Top Secret. So are the lies. How can all these people believe Obama is not a US citizen unless the CIA, NSA, and all levels of spies know it? Why do they not stir up a fuss with them? It makes no common sense.

So my blogs are about common sense and finding that common sense in two important documents: the Bible and the Constitution. Actually, I’m only using some verses from the Old Testament book of Leviticus, the RED letters (Jesus’s words) in the New Testament, and a copy of the Constitution that includes the original language as well as strike-outs of that original language as changed by amendments.

So there’s the starting point. We, the People cannot any longer know what our government is really doing. We cannot believe most of what is said on the radio and TV and written in newspapers. So, let’s go back to original documents and apply common sense to them in light of today’s America. Get your Bible (red letter edition) and your Constitution and let’s go!