Ethics as taught by the unethical

This is a story about an organization that:

• Forces all of us to pay for it, whether we ever want or need the services
• Forces its "recipients" into literal imprisonment 5 days of every week
• Continually lobbies for additional tax funding
• Fights any attempt at competition
• Does a demonstrably poor job of providing it's mandatory services

Does that sound like an organization you want teaching your children about CHARACTER?

I think not, but, of course, you and I have nothing to say about it, even though it's our children and our money we're talking about. It isn't that we have no choice at all... we can choose to put our children into a private school at additional expense while still paying truly excessive taxes for the public system. We can pay double, or we could just move out of the country. Those are your choices... take 'em or leave 'em. Nobody asked us to like 'em... that isn't part of the public education equation. It's all based on force, from foundation to daily practice.

Nevertheless, the Minnesota Department of Education formally announced the 22 recipients (schools) receiving a total of $1.5 million in grants for character education development.

A system that does such a poor job that it survives only through force and theft, believes it is qualified to teach our children about character. While they disrespectfully, even haughtily, force the taxpayers, the parents, and the children into compliance with whatever new scheme they pull out of their educational boutique, they somehow believe they are qualified to teach CHARACTER to eager young minds.

They will preach "diversity" and "fairness" and "kindness" while their organizational actions do precisely the opposite. While they preach equality, they'll practice coercive monopoly. While they preach understanding the rights and choices of others, they'll practice "my way or the highway".

It isn't likely that any organization based on force can perform any function well. Lack of competition alone is a debilitating factor, and the political underpinnings of public education constantly wreak havoc. It's no surprise that our government schools can't teach the basics well, but when they encroach into the ethics realm, they not only reduce the real learning skills further still, they're inflicting themselves into an area for which they have no qualification, no right, and only severely compromised experience.

Even good intentions, when built on the use of force, cannot produce good results. I'm reminded of the old sinful preacher, who preached "Do as I say, not as I do". Adults might be able to handle such hypocrisy, but asking children to learn "character" in an environment that could not exist without violating rights can only have disastrous long-term results... for the children.