My Answers to “Curious”

June 7, 2010 by Ian Freeman
Filed under: Response 

An anonymous commenter on the Keene Sentinel site has asked questions, and I will answer them (quoted exactly as they were written) here so they aren’t lost behind the Sentinel’s paywall after a week:

1. are you advocating 12 and 13 year olds drop out of school and self educate?

No, I’m advocating they visit SchoolSucksProject.com and listen to the podcast there.

2, If freedom of life choices and self ownership is the foundation of your ideology when does a person start to make these choices for themeselve?

Consensual interaction between humans and nonaggression is the foundation for me. Of course freedom to choose is also very important. I think people are ready to choose when they are ready. There is no set age.

3. What do you believe the age of sexual consent should be legaly?(Ian please)

I don’t believe in the violent monopoly fantasy of the state, so I can’t answer what should be “legal” as I do not wish to impose my beliefs on others. I think people should be free to make mistakes sexually and that putting consenting people in jail cells and calling them “sex offenders” for the rest of their lives does not help people who make poor choices. I believe ostracism is the proper way to handle people who are behaving in ways you find distasteful. I’m tired of seeing teens sent to jail and given criminal records for consensually experimenting and photographing themselves. Molestation and rape are abhorrent to me, as they do not involve consent.

4. Are you video taping these children and putting it on the web as is per your custom with most of your other actions?

It is common for news organizations to record and playback footage of young people in public. This is not what I am doing and is not a goal, but if I want to record in public, there is always the chance that young people could be captured on video. It’s also possible they could be interviewed. Again, I’m not doing these things, but I don’t oppose them being done.

5. Do you consider it “harming” some one if you approach their child without thier consent to influnce them counter to how their family values are structured?

I don’t consider conversation harmful. If you consider certain ideas to be dangerous it is your job to prevent your child from coming across them or else just help them thoroughly understand why your ideas are the best. Surely if your ideas are so good, they will easily hold up to our horrible, dangerous message of peace and consensual interaction between human beings.

Comments

16 Comments on My Answers to “Curious”

    2. Brodie on Mon, 7th Jun 2010 3:32 pm

    I love it! Awesome responses! Of course this person does not seem to be just curious, given the accusatory nature of some of the questions.

    3. Bradley Jardis on Mon, 7th Jun 2010 3:55 pm

    I once caught a seventeen year old male having sex with his fifteen year old girlfriend in a car.

    I did nothing.

    The law says the seventeen year old should have been arrested for a felony and register as a sex offender for life.

    4. Seth on Mon, 7th Jun 2010 4:12 pm

    Wow, it’s crazy you had the power to utterly destroy that guy’s life. I’m glad you did the right thing.

    5. LSNL on Mon, 7th Jun 2010 4:18 pm

    Great job Ian. Thank you.

    Jardis, that reminded me..
    I know a girl who took nude, and partially nude, photos of herself once a month for about two years while she was dieting, and exercising. She created a strategy for getting into shape, kept a journal, lost over 70 lbs, and now runs in marathons. I’m uncertain, but I think she was 15 at the time (I know she was under 16). She is now older than the magical age of enlightenment (she’s 22), and has yet to regret it, or realize that she victimized herself. When she mentioned this to me, I felt I had to tell her that she needed to be aware of the fact that possession of those photos might come back to haunt her, and that she should probably destroy the hard drive on her old computer, rather than just try to erase it, when she was ready to get rid of it. She was quite proud of her journal, photos included. The concern was over the legal trouble she’d get into if the “authorities” discovered it. I believe that gets you a life sentence labeled as a sex offender w/minor. I doubt that would help enlighten her to the fact that she was supposedly both the perpetrator, and the victim.

    6. Paul on Mon, 7th Jun 2010 4:30 pm

    Good answers Ian.

    7. Dan on Mon, 7th Jun 2010 4:52 pm

    Very good and thoughtful responses.

    8. Paul on Mon, 7th Jun 2010 4:55 pm

    I think it’s worth noting that while ostracism is appropriate for behaviors one merely finds distasteful, defensive force is justified in response to violence against persons or property — like rape or molestation (or theft, assault, murder, etc). In these cases, the perpetrator should be made to make fair restitution to the victim(s), and if the perpetrator is a continuing imminent threat to others, he/she may need to work to do so in a secure environment.

    While ostracism is an important tool, it is inadequate to respond to violent — perhaps even psychopathic individuals. Defensive force to stop an attack is justified, as well as to obtain fair restitution.

    That’s my view anyhow :) … I think it’s fairly well accepted.

    9. Ian M. on Mon, 7th Jun 2010 6:49 pm

    As a high school student it sucks being forced to go to government run school. I simply do not have the option to go to a private school or be taught at home. In school we are forced to learn by these strict policies that tell us what we HAVE to learn with in a certain amount of time. The teachers that teach us force new material upon us when we might not be ready for it. If I were to be home schooled I could learn twice the amount of stuff than I am learning now.

    Being in government run high school has made me so furious. The teachers tell me that I MUST learn something, but really I only need to learn this to break into the government’s education system. As people of America we are throwing are money away at a lost cause. Funding should go towards private schools to make it more affordable. This lost cause can be compared to an ongoing failure known as the War on Drugs. Every day citizens are losing there money to this useless war, same thing is happening with people being forced to pay their taxes, most of which go to government schools. I could rant on for hours or days on similar topics to these but I will end here.

    -Ian M.

    10. Paul on Mon, 7th Jun 2010 7:34 pm

    Ian, if possible, do what I did: ask your folks to try homeschooling. My reasons were very similar to yours — I was bored to tears in math and science because it was too easy, and bored to tears in other subjects because I had little interest. One sized fits all solutions, and teaching to the average, shortchanges students.

    11. Ian M. on Mon, 7th Jun 2010 7:48 pm

    I would love to get homeschooled but my parents don’t have the time for it. As of now I make do with what I have and try to keep positive thoughts going. There must be other teens out there that have the same thoughts as me, we just need to find them.

    12. bil on Mon, 7th Jun 2010 8:19 pm

    Ian M.-since you are stuck in a government school,perhaps you could use the time wisely and learn something useful.Not a wise remark,I will tell you the useful thing.Learn how to learn,it is the most important thing you can do.It will stay with you forever.Learn how to take notes,how to find information that interests you,and how to follow it on various tangents.Most people never really learn how to learn about something,and the resources that are availlable.
    When you get this figured out,a whole new world will open up.The blinders will be removed from your eyes,and you can see things from all points of view,not just the ones that you are ‘officially’ supposed to learn without questioning.I was also bored in school,and barely graduated.Yet I took the time to get an education on my own,learning not what someone else thought was important,but what I thought was important and interesting.My jobs have taken me to many wonderful places,and many people don’t believe me when I tell them I didn’t go to college,I barely got out of high school.The best part is that you learn more if you are interested,and sometimes even learn what they wanted you to,by accident.But you have the advantage of seeing it from both sides,and learning WHY something is so,not just that it is.It will get you far.Good luck. —bil

    13. Pat on Mon, 7th Jun 2010 9:06 pm

    Ian, you are a master.

    14. xrazorwirex on Mon, 7th Jun 2010 9:47 pm

    When I was in highschool I spent my free time (and some class time; we convinced the school to offer networking classes) learning about careers I was interested in. I downloaded torrents of information on electronics and by the time I was a senior the teacher used my tests as the key in physics class during the electronics quarter.

    This gave me a huge edge when it came time to start my career and I would probably still be unemployed if I hadn’t have taken initiative and learned what I needed to learn on my own.

    Figure out what you’re good at and want to do and spend as much time as possible learning about it (and doing it, if possible). School will be over in no time and you can forget about all the days you wasted in a hot room learning how to spell 5+14 in spanish.

    15. gibson042 on Mon, 7th Jun 2010 10:27 pm

    Kudos to Ian for these incredibly articulate and reasonable responses. I hope Curious is willing to engage in an ongoing dialogue.

    16. Abbie on Tue, 8th Jun 2010 12:17 am

    ian m, tried video school? its kinda cheap.

    17. LSNL on Tue, 8th Jun 2010 2:55 am

    Ian M.,

    I would suggest to you that the greatest benefit you’re likely going to get from government schools is the experience of surviving it, and enjoying time with friends. I believe government schools do more harm than good, so I am not one to suggest that it’s better than nothing. On the other hand, if you’re going to go, try not to take it too seriously, and enjoy the time you have with your friends. It won’t be long before you & your friends will have little to no time to enjoy each others’ company. If you’re an academic type, and convinced that you’re going to go to college, I’d suggest making that you’re absolute priority. However, put some serious thought into whether or not college will be worth it, as many find that it was a shockingly serious waste of time, and money.

    I’d be willing to bet that once you’re six months out of government school, you’ll marvel at the abuse you tolerated while in school, and how you couldn’t have known anything else just 6 months previous ( and hopefully you won’t allow yourself to be treated like that again).

    Here are some links you might find valuable;

    Khan Acadeny: http://www.khanacademy.org./

    John Taylor Gatto:
    Liberty Forum – “Open Source Education” http://www.homelandstupidity.us/2009/04/01/john-taylor-gatto-walkabout-london-an-unscientific-look-at-open-source-education/
    “The Underground History of American Education” http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/index.htm

    Alliance for the Separation of School and State: Alan Schaeffer @ Liberty Forum: http://www.homelandstupidity.us/2009/03/14/alan-schaeffer-alliance-for-the-separation-of-school-and-state/
    Website: http://www.schoolandstate.org/home.htm

    Some other links..
    http://www.schoolsucksproject.com/
    http://www.garynorth.com/public/department99.cfm
    http://unschooling.org/
    http://werhumansbeing.com/
    http://www.freedomofeducation.net/
    http://www.robinsoncurriculum.com/
    http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/home/home/index.htm
    http://education-portal.com/articles/Universities_with_the_Best_Free_Online_Courses.html
    http://www.abeka.com/
    http://lifehacker.com/software/technophilia/discover-the-edu-underground-307427.php
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8z1buym2xUM&feature=player_embedded
    http://freetalklive.com/path_of_liberty
    http://www.garynorth.com/public/6135.cfm
    http://www.garynorth.com/public/6442.cfm

    There are many excellent free education resources on the net. Good luck!

    To the other Ian; I apologize if I wasn’t suppose to ad all those links. I’ll try and find the rules of the site as soon as I post this, and brush up. :)

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