The New Clarion

The New York Times has an article about a school that encourages children not to have best friends, but to have many friends.

“I think it is kids’ preference to pair up and have that one best friend. As adults — teachers and counselors — we try to encourage them not to do that,” said Christine Laycob, director of counseling at Mary Institute and St. Louis Country Day School in St. Louis. “We try to talk to kids and work with them to get them to have big groups of friends and not be so possessive about friends.”

Doesn’t this sound like a leftist attempt to turn children into little collectivists? Selfish individuals, you see, find friends they value. But modern education since Dewey seeks to socialize children. Don’t be “possessive” about friends, just relax and be friends with everyone.

Who know? Maybe American educators will succeed where the Russians failed in creating homo sovieticus.

I just want to draw your attention to a piece by Steven Den Beste called “A Feature, Not A Bug.”

Devastating our economy and making us economically uncompetitive is a feature, not a bug. The whole “global warming” scam has been about throttling the industrialized world, especially the US, by restricting use of energy. It was never really about saving the world climate, it was always about trying to bring about international equality. You could tell that because the Kyoto accord restricted use of energy by rich nations, but permitted poor ones to increase their use of energy.

It important to remember that the left’s goal is egalitarianism. To make us all equal requires destruction, not prosperity. Obama’s presidency is a radical departure from what we knew before. I think many Americans are afraid to see this truth in all its horror.

(I’m sorry that I have not been blogging much of late. I’ve been acting a lot. I just finished doing Bottom in Midsummer-Night’s Dream, Capulet in Romeo and Juliet and the Ghost and Claudius in Hamlet. Awesome roles! At the moment I’m doing another great role, Shylock in Merchant of Venice. How could I resist playing a guy who wants to cut a pound of flesh from a Christian? [Come on, now -- that was a joke.] I’m busy this summer, but I have not given up blogging, and I expect to get back to it later, especially when we get into election season. Oh, yeah — you know we’ll have plenty to say then.)

Directly on the heels of the discussion about the Civil Rights Act and its consequences for freedom of association, comes this gem of incipient fascism built upon the precedent established thereby:

• “Plaintiffs’ assertion of a new ‘fundamental right’ to produce, obtain, and consume unpasteurized milk lacks any support in law.” [p. 4]

• “It is within HHS’s authority . . . to institute an intrastate ban [on unpasteurized milk] as well.” [p. 6]

• “Plaintiffs’ assertion of a new ‘fundamental right’ under substantive due process to produce, obtain, and consume unpasteurized milk lacks any support in law.” [p.17]
• (more…)