Mikro on Education and Politics

I have raised a free thinking libertarian. I can die happy...

But seriously, Mikro came up with this project all on his own. All I helped with was typing it up, and blocking and copying the latin terms he generated with Google Translate. Here, then, is Mikro's world view, diagramed:

First, Mikro applies his penchant for cladistics and latinate names to politics....



A: education system bureaucrat (homo bureaucratus)
B: student (homo discipulus)
C: worker (homo laboris nervis mobile lignum)
D: manager / sheep herder (homo pastorus)
E: sheeple (homo ovis dormiens)
F: fat cat corporate type (homo plutocratus)
G: the poor teacher who isn’t allowed to teach what they want to teach (homo magister tristis)

(Those squiggly things are chains, which also serve as puppet strings...)

Next, we have Mikro on educational choice:




A: Unschooler: homo discipulus liberum arbitrium (student free will): The unschooler has a varied diet, by his own choice, of many types of knowledge. Looks amorphous because it can't really be defined and has few restrictions. Kind of like a gas.

B: Homeschooler: homo discipulus semper discentes, et ubique (student always learning, everywhere): The homeschooler feeds mainly on knowledge from books, field trips, homeschool group classes and nature walks. They have a lot of choice over their meal, but their moms make them eat their educational vegetables. You can often find them in libraries, museums, and parks. The flaw among homeschoolers is a lot of us think we are know it alls. I didn't just say that, did I?

C: Homo discipulus discipulus: The typical school kid. Their diet consists of books, worksheets, bubblegum and test prep, and cafeteria lunch. They don't get to pick what they learn. They learn what they are taught.


And then there is Mikro on different types of school kids:


Mikro's classified schoolkids diagram:

A: homo sterotypicus discipulus The typical student. Its diet consists of bubblegum.
B: homo bullyensus discipulus The bully. Feeds on others' fear, esp. that of homo technophilius.
C: homo technophilius discipulus The geek. Feeds on electrical current and information.
D: homo rebellious discipulus The rebel. Feeds on knowledge and freedom.

Albany Gun Rights Rally

Yesterday, we spent the day at our state capitol in Albany NY, protesting Gov. Cuomo's NY SAFE law, which is gun control legislation that was unconstitutionally crammed down the throats of law abiding citizens in the dead of night, without time for public comment or even for the legislators who voted for this garbage to *read* the bill they passed. (Most of the provisions of the new law do not go into effect for months or, in some cases, a year. Where then was the exigency necessitating the Governor's use of a Message of Necessity to bypass the normal legislative process? Obviously, there was none.) NY SAFE is rife with errors, including their failure to exempt law enforcement from the strictures they placed on ordinary citizens. We want it repealed, because it seriously hampers self defense and amounts to a ban on the sale of almost every modern firearm in NY State. The 7 round magazine limit basically makes 90 percent of the handguns manufactured after 1911 unavailable for purchase after April 15th. Manufacturers have stated they are not going to produce 7 round magazines for NYers, because that might encourage the rest of the country to jump on Cuomo's idiot bandwagon.

Since I'm going there, you're gonna get my opinion...

First, whichever side of the gun control debate you fall on, please read the very informative analysis of gun control from a legal perspective recently published in the National Law Journal.

I am a retired lawyer and the Constitution means a lot to me. I swore an oath to support and defend it, and I take that seriously. I believe the NY SAFE act violates it and will be overturned by the courts. Whichever side you are on, the article I linked to is worth reading and considering. There is an old saying in legal circles: "Hard cases make bad law." That is what I see happening today. Emotion and outrage are running roughshod over what should be a logical and reasoned process that aims to do the most good while restricting individual rights as little as possible. Instead, we have hysteria and paranoia from both sides. That will not solve the problem.

NY and CT had some of the strictest gun laws in America, even before the tragedy in Newtown. If the laws already on the books were actually enforced, it would make more difference to safety than passing a slew of new laws that will only affect law abiding citizens who voluntarily comply. Very little was done by the new NY law to address mental health issues or actual criminals. Instead, most measures only affect law abiding gun owners who have already successfully gone through the gauntlet of hoops New York makes us jump in order to own guns.

If we did away with parole for violent offenders and actually required them to serve their entire sentences, and increased the minimum sentences for crimes committed with guns, we might actually make the world a safer place. If we made sure persons adjudged to be dangerous to themselves and others were promptly reported to the NICS database so that they would fail background checks, that would be highly useful. Too many states do not adequately update this information. I do not know how NY's record stands on that score.

Telling a homeowner that they can only defend against potentially multiple assailants in a home invasion context with 7 rounds does not make anyone safer, except criminals. The Georgia mom who put 5 bullets into the guy that chased her and her kids down in an attic crawlspace would have been SOL if he had an accomplice. I do not want to have to potentially fight off someone who is a threat to me and my kid with less than all the bullets my gun will hold.

That said, here are some photos from yesterday's rally. I am trying to teach my kid the value of standing up for what he believes in, and I think it was a homeschool day well spent.









































Finally, this is our State Senator, Greg Ball, speaking at the event:



Although I generally try to keep politics off the blog, I am tired of being demonized and having words put in my mouth. So now you have my position straight from the horse's mouth. I am a legal gun owner. I have had guns for over 20 years, and they have never hurt anything but paper. Gun owners: we look just like everybody else; we are your neighbors; and we care about kids just as much as you do. We differ on the issue of what makes them safer.

Occupy Wall Street

I do not teach the fairy tale versions of American History and Civics taught in public school. You know, the one where happy pilgrims and indians are bossom buddies, where the government is always beneficent and benevolent and never ever does us wrong, where one man one vote actually results in equal political clout for all, and where the police are always our friends. If you want my radical outlook, listen to Pete Seeger's "What Did You Learn in School Today?"



Anyway, the right to free speech and peaceful protest matters to me. I frequenty exclaim in frustration that I am neither democrat nor republican, because neither party represents me. My son calls me a hippie Constitutionalist. I resemble that remark. I wanted Mikro to see people standing up for what they believe and petitioning our government for redress, so we stopped by Occupy Wall Street to see civics in action, just a few days before Bloomberg's police raid.

Trick or Treating Dragon and Get Your Government Off My Holiday

Mikro had a blast Trick or Treating tonight, even though our control freak village government cancelled Halloween. I left a comment on our local online news outlet as follows:

Here comes the Nanny State, preempting parental judgment, treating us all like errant children and sending us to bed without dessert. Well, BOO to you, [village] brain trust. You haven't declared an emergency, you let us run around on these now suddenly unsafe roads all last night and today, spending our money in village stores, and *that* wasn't unsafe, but families celebrating together is? Give us some credit for enough common sense to avoid the posted as potentially hazardous areas without punishing the entire village for Con Ed's poor response time. Driving is not an essential part of trick or treating. It can still be done by walking (or rolling in a wheelchair or scooter.) This is America, all the erosion of our freedoms recently notwithstanding, and I will not cower at home because you think I should. My family will be out, safely enjoying the holiday, despite your unwarranted interference.


Under what authority do they presume to cancel a holiday? Will people be OK with it when it is Christmas, Yom Kippur, Thanksgiving or Election Day next? This was not a government sponsored event that they had a right to regulate. And if the streets were unsafe for this purpose, they were unsafe for all purposes. This was over reaching.

So, in flagrant disregard for the paternalistic decree, out we went, safely, rationally, and without a hitch, joined by friends and fellow rebels from the neighborhood. Amazingly, since it was allegedly so very dangerous, there was *less* police presence than in previous years. Yet we went about our Trick or Treating for UNICEF unmolested and unharmed.

Mikro collected about ten dollars. I've been dropping all the change in my pockets into a UNICEF container since October 1st, so he will have a fair amount to donate from that. I think I'm up to about $30 there.

We finished the dragon costume in the nick of time, and over the course of the evening, it sprang a few seams that now need repaired. Since we may have an official, resceduled date for Trick or Treating here in the village, he may get to wear it again.