Are Teacher’s Unions a Greater Threat to Liberty than Terrorism?

Brad Warbainy has an excellent post with some great follow-up discussion going at The Liberty Papers in response to a comment talk show host Neal Boortz made on his program. The Talk Master made this bold statement: “the teachers unions are a greater long-term threat to freedom and prosperity than Islamic terrorists”. Brad’s agreement with Boortz is reflected in his post following up with perhaps even bolder commentary backed with some good old fashioned logic. As luck would have it, Boortz found Brad’s post on the internet and has linked it first on his Nealz Nuze “Reading Assignments.”

As to the statement itself…yes, the long term effect of the teacher’s unions controlling the education of the vast majority of future voters/leaders is a greater threat to liberty than Islamic terrorism. As Boortz often points out, The Communist Manifesto states that the “most advanced countries” have “Free education for all children in public schools” along with abolition of private property, “A heavy progressive or graduated income tax” (that sounds familiar), “Abolition of all rights of inheritance” (the death tax anyone?), and “Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the state.” Why would Marx consider public education as such an important aspect of creating a communist state? It only makes sense for government to want to acquire more power; the easiest way to accomplish this is by indoctrinating the next generation of citizens. But that couldn’t happen here…right?

Unions by their very nature value the collective interests over the interests of the individual. Unions demand pay raises and benefits based on groups of workers; the individual’s interests with individual efforts matter very little. Bad teachers, in many parts of the country, are very hard to get rid of while good teachers receive the same benefits and pay as the bad teachers. According to John Stossel’s special report on 20/20 titled Stupid in America, a New York City school teacher who sent multiple emails with sexual content to a sixteen year-old student was fired after six years of litigation. Six years and $300,000 later the school district was finally able to fire him! In New York at least, rather than firing bad teachers the district is expected to pay up to $20 million this year to these teachers to do nothing but basically sit on their fat incompetent asses (at least they are kept away from the children to keep them from doing any further harm). Why is this the case? You guessed it: teacher’s unions!

This collectivist dogma of the teacher’s union seeps into the curricula of schools nationwide from grades K-12. Children are not adequately taught how to reason, to value themselves as individuals, or how to properly pursue their own selfish interests. Instead children are taught what to think rather than how to think, to not question but conform to society’s traditions and norms, and to rely on others (by force of government) to fulfill their needs/wants to get along in life.

Government schools contribute a great deal to the political correctness agenda being pushed which is very anti-individualistic and anti-capitalistic. The history books are dedicated in large part to the greatness of government while the individual efforts which lead to history’s greatest achievements receive very little attention. Capitalism is attacked both directly and indirectly in the classroom. Students learn that America owns a ‘disproportionate’ percentage of the world’s wealth; what America contributes to the world’s wealth (not to mention individual efforts required to attain the wealth) is often overlooked.

Ever heard the saying: “The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world?” Imagine the threat to liberty when generations of school children are taught a collectivist world view for thirteen or so years! Look no further than our current generation of leadership of both parties (many of whom were taught in government schools). Look at how many of the ten planks of communism have been fulfilled in America. Look at how these planks are implemented with little or no resistance. While terrorists try to acquire weapons of mass destruction, government educators long ago acquired “weapons of mass stupidity” in the form of government education centers (a.k.a. public schools). Do you still think Islamic terrorism is a bigger threat to our liberty than government education backed by teacher’s unions?