Suppressing Summer Vacation

Obama thinks the school day should be extended and the summer vacation shortened.

It won’t take me much work to write a post about this, because I pretty much already did it, three years ago…

(August 01, 2006) Stopped at a store while driving through Georgia today, and the man mentioned that this is the first day of school for the local children. Googling around, it appears that lots of Georgia school systems are starting classes sometime this week. And the longer-school-year trend is by no means limited to Georgia.

This is really very sad. Children need time to be with their families. They need time to develop their dreams. They need time to learn things that are not part of any formal program.

Educational “experts” will try to justify a longer school year with the argument that “there’s just so much more to know these days.” Such claims are highly exaggerated. The truth is, most public K-12 schools make very poor use of the time of their students. They waste huge proportions of the millions of hours which have been entrusted to them–waste them through the mindless implementation of fads and theories, waste them through inappropriate teacher-credentialing processes, waste them through refusal to maintain high standards of performance and behavior.

When an organization or institution proves itself to be a poor steward of the resources that have been entrusted to it, the right answer is not to give it more resources to waste.

Just a few points to add to the above:

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Flight 93

Thanks to Trent, I was reminded of something that I have always considered to be the most important fact about 9/11, yet which is rarely mentioned in these terms:

The only part of the American national security establishment that successfully defended America on 9/11 was the portion of the reserve militia on board Flight 93, acting without orders, without hierarchy, without uniforms or weapons, by spontaneous organization and action.

Most people don’t even know they are part of the reserve militia.

But the genius of the Founders lives on in this legal category, which recognizes that the ultimate responsibility for the defense of the country rests on and in the people. The standing Army, and the organized militia (National Guard) are the main line of defense, but the people are an army in latent form, the ultimate defense force, as any democratic people should be and must be.

This article, entitled The Militia And The Constitution: A Legal History, is very good. it establishes the deep roots of the militia concept, down to the American founding. Buried in the last footnote, it says:

The United States technically continues to have a national “general” militia, consisting of all able-bodied males between the ages of 17 and 45 years of age who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia. 10 U.S.C. § 311 (West Supp.1989). Likewise, state codes contain provisions establishing general “unorganized” militias. See, e.g., VA. CODE ANN. § 44-1 (Michie Supp.1989). For practical purposes, however, these “organizations” have ceased to play any real role in national defense.

(emphasis added) But look how wrong, how 20th Century, that last comment is. In the era of mass armies, the “practical purposes” of national defense did not have a place for the “reserve militia”. But in an era of scattered, seemingly random, attacks, by terrorists and saboteurs, the only reasonable hope to thwart, contain, defeat and respond to these modern enemies is if the population at large is resilient and mentally and physically prepared — and armed — to respond to the surprise and the initiative of the enemy, as the Flight 93 passengers did. For practical purposes, on 9/11 the “general militia” far from “ceasing” to play a “real role in national defense”, was the only “organization” that successfully played any role in national defense.

(The spontaneous evacution of Manhattan by ship and boat owners was a similar bottom-up response.)

The lessons of 9/11 have been left unlearned for eight years in America.

These lessons contradict most of what people claim to know about America, modernity, and how the world works.

Bottom-up, inductive, spontaneous self-organization is the essence of America.

It works in all fields when it is allowed to do so.

UPDATE: Jim Bennett wrote to remind me of his observation, “The Era of Osama lasted about an hour and a half or so, from the time the first plane hit the tower to the moment the General Militia of Flight 93 reported for duty.” Jim’s UPI column appears not to be online (why not?), but Mark Steyn quotes him here. We Anglospherists take the long view on these issues.

9/11 Plus Eight Years

(This is basically a rerun of my posts from this day in 2006-2008. Some new links added this year are at the bottom of the post.)

I am increasingly worried about our prospects for success in the battle against those who would destroy our civilization. America and the other democracies possess great military, economic, and intellectual strengths–but severe internal divisions threaten our ability to use these resources effectively.

Within days of the collapse of the Towers, it started. “Progressive” demonstrators brought out the stilt-walkers, the Uncle Sam constumes, and the giant puppets of George Bush. They carried signs accusing America of planning “genocide” against the people of Afghanistan.

Professors and journalists preached about the sins of Western civilization, asserting that we had brought it all on ourselves. A well-known writer wrote of her unease when her daughter chose to buy and display an American flag. Some universities banned the display of American flags in dormitories, claiming that such display was “provocative.”

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Big Wheel Cease from Turnin’

deltaqueen1

The steamboat Delta Queen is a well-known and much-loved vessel. Built in 1926, she is 285 feet long, with a steel hull, powered by two steam engines of 2000HP each. She was originally used for passenger service between San Francisco and Sacramento. After being refurbished in 1945, she began service on the Mississippi River and its tributaries, and has operated in that role ever since. Thousands of Americans have enjoyed river cruising on the Delta Queen.

Not any more, though. Delta Queen made her last passenger voyage in 2008, and is now tied up as a hotel in Chattanooga. The end of passenger service is not due to any structural or mechanical problems with the vessel, nor is it due to the difficult economy. Rather, the demise of the Delta Queen says a great deal–not much of it very encouraging–about the political and cultural environment now existing in this country.

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