Feb 13th, 2015. Keene Sentinel letter to the editor:
Democracy: Two wolves and a sheep voting on what’s for dinner!
That’s exactly what went down at last Saturday’s deliberative session, where a small group of fiscally responsible residents went head-to-head with the tax hungry education industry.
As was expected, they were completely outnumbered, ridiculed and ultimately silenced. School board member Susan Hay summed up the proceedings perfectly, “We don’t need a very small minority of people in this community — that do not in any way represent the will of the people — telling us how to do our job.”
This brings up a very important question. Who, then, represents me? If I have no voice because the powers that be disagree or outright refuse to hear me, why then should I be forced to pay into such an institution. What happened to deriving their powers from the consent of the governed? Well, I officially renounce the consent I never swore to in the first place.
And what is this “will of the people?”
I seem to recall a time in this country’s history where it was the “will of the people (voters)” to run the indigenous peoples (minorities) off of their land and onto reservations. Once upon a time, it was the “will of the people” to keep certain minorities and their children’s children in bondage. Not too long ago, it was the “will of the people” to prevent certain members of society from casting a vote based on their gender, skin color or property ownership.
These days, it is universally understood that those actions were absolutely immoral and that just because the majority, or, in most instances, the plurality, agreed one way, it didn’t make it right. But have we learned from those past mistakes?
Though we are undeniably freer today, many are still caught up in that old system of thought where the mandates of the collective far outweigh the rights of the individual. Now we live in the age of entitlement, where every year more come to expect those free social programs that can only exist because Peter was robbed to pay Paul.
Of course, these thefts are legitimized because it was government that ultimately did the stealing. It would be unlawful for you or me to steal directly from our neighbors, but it’s perfectly acceptable to cheat and use government to do it for us. Which brings us back to the People’s Daycare (i.e. public school).
This year, the board’s recommended budget is set to increase to $64.5 million. At 3,200 students, that’s more than $20,000 per student. Like our federal debt, the amount is physically staggering and it’s only going up. Despite what you may have heard, our school administrators and board members have absolutely no willingness or desire to bring that number down unless they are forced to do so. It doesn’t matter if you agree with the budget or not, whether your kids are home taught or sent to private school, or whether you even have kids in the system at all, the school will get your money at the end of the day regardless of how well they do. The majority has declared it so and if you don’t pay up, they’ll take your home as punishment.
And of course that is the most ironic part of this entire process: the anti-bullying stance these school authorities spout off on a regular basis. Well, I have a news flash for you. Your beloved system is fundamentally built on the practice of bullying others. You’ll give us your lunch money or we’ll take your house.
If you don’t like it, you can run for office yourself (join the ranks of bullies). Or, move to another playground (and take your chances with another gang). Sadly, most kids (beaten down) accept their fate and hand over their money willingly. A small few do fight back, regardless of the odds stacked against them.
They do this because they believe in true freedom and not some nonsense ideology they learned in government school. They do this because they believe that no majority EVER has the right to vote away the rights of a minority.
Conan Salada
