I am growing tired of living in a culture of judgment. It is happening more and more from both sides of the political fence. From Bill O’Reilly to Cooper Anderson, we have pundits telling us how we must live. The NeoLiberals claim we must be unhappy if we have less wealth than someone else, demanding that the earnings of capitalists and conservatives is redistributed to make things fair. (Of course, the “deserved” wealth of Hollywood elites and the Democratic leadership is exempted from this redistribution.) Meanwhile, various conservative groups clamor about graduation rates, library books, drug use, and alternative lifestyles, criticizing the choices being made by their fellow Americans.
    
I thought America was founded on the principle of individual freedom, not the freedom of the groupthink to tell the individual how to live. If we are to truly be a country that believes in freedom for the individual, we must respect the right of the individual to choose how to live that free life. Obviously, the rights and freedoms of the individual end where the rights and freedoms of another individual begin. The issues of which I write are those that do not directly affect anyone other than the individual.

The tired and trite mantra of the NeoLiberals that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer is based on several faulty premises. One, it assumes that to be happy, one must have wealth and luxury. It belittles any sense of accomplishment or satisfaction one can derive from the simpler pleasures in life. Henry David Thoreau is rolling over in his grave over the hypocrisy of the left. This mantra also assumes that life is meant to be fair and that everyone must get the same things, the better same things being reserved for the NeoLiberals. That destroys any need for the individual to work to achieve success, disparaging the ability of the individual to make it without help from the Nanny State of the NeoLiberals.

Another one is that the NeoLiberals interpret the statistics to fit their own views of the world. Basically, they lie or change the rules to suit the mantra. The sob stories they attempt to produce or more often discredited that proven true. When exactly does one stop living in poverty and how does yearly income have anything to do with that? There are some very wealthy individuals in America who earned no income this year but are certainly not living in squallor.

Last of all is the blatant hypocrisy of the left regarding wealth redistribution. Another important mantra of the Neoliberals is "Do as I say, not as I do." (Great book, by the way.) They call for others to do things they themselves are unwilling to do. Just how much food is wasted by Hollywood at their awards ceremonies or movie location? How many "homeless" or "poor" people get invited to Democratic fundraiser dinners? Why didn't Bill Clinton invite some of those sleeping on the street in front of the White House in for a stay in the Lincoln Bedroom?

Things are just as bad on the right side of the political fence. Neocons make the assumption that everyone must be able to meet the same standard to be successful and must accomplish those tasks in a preordained manner and timeline. Countless conservative pundits have criticized public schools over graduation rates and test scores without ever acknowledging the responsibility of the individual. If a school teaches world geography yet a student is unable to identify world locations for wither a lack of effort and study in class or no interest in retaining the information AFTER the test, how is the school at fault? If a student decides to work as a teenager instead of graduating, why is it anyone else’s business?

Conservatives claim to support individual rights and freedoms but are quick to offer judgment on how the individual chooses to exercise those freedoms. Freedom means that the individual is free to make bad choices as well as good ones. Thinking that everyone must get a high school diploma by age 18 or even at all is the antithesis to freedom. So is keeping certain books out of public libraries, filtering the Internet in schools, criminalizing drug use instead of addressing the negative actions as a result of drug use, or condemning alternative lifestyles. If Americans are to truly be free, we must be free to be stupid. 

I fully support publicly funded education, controlled by local school boards, with graduation standards set by the state. One has better odds at being successful in life with a high school diploma. Every American should have a chance to receive a free public education. But do not judge the teachers or the students, allow the free market and the school of hard knocks to do so. I also find alternative lifestyles to be in opposition of my own religious beliefs, but I will not act the part of God by condemning anyone else for making a different choice.

The overall problem is that the left tries to use laws and activist judges to force personal beliefs and agendas on the public while the right tries to use laws to force common sense, decency, and religious morals on every aspect of individual life. While the NeoLiberals will never be convinced to give up their goal of destroying individualism, capitalism, and religion, I would hope that Conservatives would realize that the right of the individual to make poor choices must be upheld, as hard as it is to let someone make a mistake. For some, that is the only way they can learn.

Ron Paul would be the worst American President since the 1920's. His brand of Libertarian isolationism would lead to world chaos which would end up dragging America into the very entanglements he would have us avoid. The United States of the 21st Century, along with the rest of the world, is not the same as it was when the Constitution of the United States was framed.

Speaking of the Framers, they themselves became involved in interventions and other "unconstitutional" acts with the ink barely dry on the Constitution. We had the Monroe Doctrine, Tripoli, the Louisana Purchase, and other sorts of pragmatic actions that would have horrified any Libertarians while giving Dr. No fits of apoplexy. Since those who framed the Constitution found it necessary to stretch things quite a lot, why should we suddenly harken to the call of Ron Paul to limit ourselves to interpretations so strict that they could lead to our ultimate destruction?

Critics of public education often cite business models as a means by which all of the woes of education can be solved. They claim that free market forces should rule the academic arena, promoting vouchers, charter schools and even the total elimination of public schools. The problem with this view is that education is not a product, it is an ideal; and ideals do not translate well to the marketplace.

In a free market, a customer is free to purchase goods and/or services from whomever the customer chooses. This competition in the marketplace encourages the producers of goods and/or services to meet the needs of the customer better than anyone else. Of course, the most important part of this transaction is that the customer places value on whatever is being produced. If the customer places no value on the product, there is nothing the producer can do to require the customer to take part in a transaction.

Analogies drawn between education and business fail in their comparisons because education has little or no value in today’s America. Conservatives constantly deride public schools as being totally worthless and unnecessary while liberals have no use for facts and knowledge if they do not further the left’s campaign of indoctrination. If the so-called leaders from both sides of the political divide cannot place any value on the pursuit of knowledge for knowledge’s sake, how can one expect parents and students to do so?

 

The world of business is driven by profit margins and the law of supply and demand. The most successful businesses are those that can supply what customer demand, maximizing profit while minimizing costs. Schools today, both public and private, are charged with supplying a service, and education, that is not always in demand by the customers, the students. How can one determine profit margin or minimize costs without being able to adjust supply for something not in demand? It is impossible for schools to establish a free market business relationship with a captive customer base.

There are a multitude of problems in public schools today but solutions will not be found in the free market models being proposed. American society must undergo a fundamental change that starts placing value on education and the pursuit of knowledge. The conservative right must give up its insistence on a direct practical application to everything that is taught in a classroom while the liberal left need to stop letting “feeling good” get in the way the facts. Perhaps the best answer would be to eliminate compulsory education laws but still provide a public education for those who want one. Only then would one truly see the free market at work when Americans realize how little can be done without a high school education.

In reviewing the Golden Compass and the rest of the Dark Materials trilogy (Courtesy of the public library), I am left with a burning question. Why does Pullman only kill the Judeo-Christian God? Do aetheists believe in Allah? Why are the muslims left out of this anti-theology screed of Pullman's? He also makes no reference to the Hindu or Buddha  yet by his very words he holds any belief in a diety to be contemptible. Could it be that he believes those religions to be of little consequence?

Muslims particularly should find the entire Dark Materials trilogy worthy of condemnation, not only for the slights aimed at the People of the Book, but its denial of the teachings of his Prophet, Muhammad, peace be upon him. According to Pullman, Allah is nothing more than a tortured angel, a sham. There is no heaven, no glory in the Afterlife. One would think that the Mullahs would make some sort of public statement, especially those residing in Britain.

 

Personally, I hope the film flops. It is not worthy of the comparisons being made to the Lord of the Rings nor the Chronicles of Narnia (ironic, that.) I will look elsewhere for entertainment and I urge my two or three readers to do the same.

Walmart is an evil place to shop. It pretties up its inferior products and pimps them out to an unsuspecting public. I would no sooner purchase durable goods at a Walmart then stab myself in the eye with a pen. I can’t wait for the day when the rest of America realizes that quality is always the better value and Walmart goes the way of Woolco, Jefferson Ward, and other relics.

 

Personally, I deplore Walmart’s Business Model, not because of any misplaced liberal notions of wages or benefits, but because it is a model that favors short term profit over offering quality goods for sale or even allowing some of its suppliers to remain in business. Huffy is one case of how Walmart destroyed one of its suppliers, something Sam Walton would have abhorred.

 

I also find fault with most of the durable goods Walmart sells. Clothing items sold by Walmart tend to wear faster than other brands and rarely fit me well. I can never find slacks or khakis that are long enough in the leg and shirts from Walmart are too short on my torso. I have has similar poor experiences with appliances, electronics, hardware, and even plants sold at Walmart.

 

So, as a result of my intense dislike for Walmart, I exercise my rights by not shopping at Walmart. Instead, I bargain hunt elsewhere or pay a slightly higher price for better quality goods. Walmart Apologists may call me a fool for not taking advantage of the great bargains offered at Walmart but I do not see them as bargains. I see them as a trap for the unwary and uneducated.