The following fragments of conversations with union members are taken from Robert C. Townsend’s classic Further Up The Organization: Production Worker: “In a big union shop, management is the enemy – is something to overcome, or somehow get around. That’s the game everybody plays.” Machinist: “The minute you put on a blue …
Category: education
Nov 08 2023
A Brilliant Insight
No, not one of mine. Courtesy of Mike Miles: Let that sink in for just a moment.
Sep 29 2023
Beware “The Procedure”
It looks like a harmless word. At one time it was. It merely denoted a way of doing something, like the equally dreaded word process. And to be fair, there are times when it doesn’t stiffen my neck hair or move my hand to my sidearm. But that’s not what I have in mind …
Sep 28 2023
Hard On The Brakes Won’t Do It
Before I begin this screed, I’d like to express a thought that has often risen to mind but has seldom made its way through my fingers and into the sacred pixels of Liberty’s Torch: Thank You, Gentle Readers. Whoever and wherever you are, including those of you who read my crap to laugh …
Sep 15 2023
Bastiat Redux
In his last and best-known book The Law, Frederic Bastiat provides us with a striking description of the essence of State lawlessness: But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom …
Aug 31 2023
Actualizing Their Fear
In the usual case, making them fear us takes a show of defiance and a demonstration that you mean to stand your ground. Bureaucrats hate that; it means they’ll be forced to deal with you…and they cannot know in advance what kind of forces you command. The power of stubborn defiance has recently been …
Aug 19 2023
Right, Wrong, Or Socially Unjust?
In analyzing the phrase “social justice,” we see how prefixing the word justice with any modifier inverts its meaning. It turns something easily understood – inherently unambiguous, in fact – into something for noisy groups to argue and negotiate. But then, attempts to redefine “justice” to accommodate some trendy Cause are as old as …
Jul 30 2023
If I could do one thing to improve America’s long term prospects
I would destroy the publik skool sistim. And quite frankly, I’d take out a lot of the “higher” education system as well. At this point, when someone brags about their degree in my presence, I automatically assume that I’m dealing with a brainwashed drone who knows nothing about anything. When it comes to education in …
Jul 18 2023
I Want A New Lens
I want – possibly need – a lens designed and constructed for analysts to use in looking at the news. It would be utterly distinct from conventional lenses, for it would invert the usual idea of “focus.” It would blur nearby objects and events while it clarifies objects and events in the distance. That …
Jun 25 2023
An Early-Sunday-Morning Thought
A huge portion of the popular reaction against “public” schools arises from clashes over values: i.e., moral and ethical principles for living that undergird all other decisions. All education of any kind must be founded upon some set of values, because literally everything involved in human life is founded thus. It’s literally impossible to …
Jun 21 2023
They Will Not Let Us Be
Every day brings fresh proof: Violence broke out again in Glendale, CA, after Antifa showed up to a school board meeting at which parents were protesting the school’s promotion of “pride month” and gender ideology. Videos showed police on the scene in riot gear as well as temporary barriers being set up. …
Jun 15 2023
When They Realize They’ve Overplayed Their Hand
…they immediately try to squelch conversation about it – “they” being the anti-American Left, of course. One aspect of that is the denigration of any group that coalesces around the salient they’ve misguidedly created. Such a group is in the news today: To its members, it’s a grassroots army of “joyful warriors” who …
Jun 08 2023
Something You Might Not Have Realized
As the official school year dribbles out to its close, school-age kids are celebrating in anticipation of their summer vacations. What will they do with their time off? Well, when I was in that age band, I was sent to spend the summer on my wealthy aunt’s country estate in Dutchess County, where I …
Apr 13 2023
That Of Which They Do Not Speak
Education, though it is emphatically not a proper function of government, is an area in which governments are appallingly active. State education departments mandate specific aspects of school curricula. Elected school boards negotiate with “educators’” unions and set tax rates for their school district. Taxpayers foot the bills willy-nilly. The parents of school-age children …
Mar 03 2023
A Must-Read
Mike at Cold Fury has excerpted a fascinating story that must be read in its entirety. It’s about an incident in an American “public” grammar school. The resolution of the real-life conflict it depicts will have you howling with laughter. Hie thee hence!
Feb 28 2023
Educational Necrosis
In his classic study Systemantics, author John Gall presents a compelling case for the proposition that human systems of all kinds, no matter their origins or aims, will operate in failure mode –— the overwhelmingly greater part of the time. System failure in Gall’s analysis is determined by the comparison of the system’s ostensible …
Feb 18 2023
A Safe Place?
One of the reasons the C.S.O. wants us to stay on Eastern Long Island is that it’s relatively safe. That is: the crime rate here is fairly low, the public services are no worse than average, the above-average affluence means that we’ll be more reliably supplied with the necessities of life than a less …
Feb 17 2023
The State Giveth And The State Taketh Away
The battle for educational freedom is ongoing. One of the drivers on the pro-freedom side is the desire to keep kids away from all the “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” poison that’s infused “public” education. (Another is a desire to keep kids away from this sort of thing, which threatens to become widespread.) And in …
Feb 15 2023
Following Up On “…but outrage is mandatory.”
This began as a comment to Surprise Is Optional…, about the revelations of the zero mark given baltimore students. But I feel I owe Fran a more thorough effort, to make clearer whatever worth what follows may have. I cannot imagine that anyone who is a regular at Liberty’s Torch has not read 1984 at …
Feb 15 2023
Surprise Is Optional…
…but “outrage” is mandatory: Days after Gov. Wes Moore, D-Md., declared education a top priority for his tenure, Baltimore reported that zero students in 23 different public schools are proficient in math. Also, 93% of third through eighth graders tested below grade level in the same subject. Baltimore residents responded by blasting …
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