Thomas Jefferson's Birthday
And Why We Fund Public Education
“An educated citizenry is a vital requisite for our survival as a free people.”
- Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson was born on April 13, 1743. Today we fund public education, university studies, invested billions and billions, hundreds of billions of dollars, trillions of dollars actually, at institution after institution after institution of education, kindergarten through higher learning over the years because of his influence. In order to protect our freedom. That quote of Jefferson's is the actual basis of public education funding in this country. Those words used to justify the establishment of public education at every level in this nation, in every jurisdiction, and the taxation to fund it - for that reason, our survival as a free people. Not to make expert workers to fill each cog in the wheels of production and business enterprise, deferring every area outside our expertise to the hands of other "experts." Which is what public education has been hijacked and repurposed to produce.
Public education is to teach and learn, to learn how to learn and reason within our own common sense. So we don't believe absurdities as spun by a King's court of chosen "experts." And become subjects of a ruler again. Jefferson's vision was to have us immunized to absurdities by teaching us how to learn and think for ourselves, become our own experts in any discipline. It's why we are taught core basics no matter what we specialize in. To learn the basics of other fields so we may learn more about them if others claiming to know more in their specialization tell us we must follow their commands. So we have the tools available to validate or discredit their commands.
We tax and spend all of the money for education to prevent what's happened and is continuing to happen. Today those who seek to rule over subjects spend our tax monies on public education to learn how to rule us, not to ensure we remain free; the opposite of Jefferson's vision.
The "experts" applying their expertise are manufacturing the consent of once-free people to "follow the science" into servitude under totalitarianism. A "soft tyranny" is the goal of would-be kings wielding their chosen "experts" the people are supposed to trust as a means to their power. Against everything that Jefferson and those who shared the same understanding envisioned when he made the case for funding public education.
Rene Descartes had a dream. His dream marked the beginning of the Modern World, our world of triumphant rationality, began on November 10, 1619, with a revelation and a nightmare. “I think, therefore I am” came from his dream. His dream helped construct the Age of Reason, the Age of Enlightenment. Descartes went on to challenge himself and everyone to “Question Everything” they thought they knew, that they were taught to believe by culture and authorities of the time. To help learn how to learn he went on to develop the Scientific Method. His legacy and that of others in his age helped produce the minds that led to the idea of America. He helped produce the understanding of man and nature that Thomas Jefferson advanced. And wanted to ensure future generations would continue.
So it falls upon us to do our best to educate. Freedom has called us to be the educators. Thomas Jefferson knew and told us. We forgot.
Happy Birthday, Thomas Jefferson! The best gift we can give him is to apply his wisdom and teach others.
With all due respect to Thomas Jefferson (and I do respect him), in my opinion public education is a terrible idea, much as having an official, government-sponsored religion is a terrible idea. Anything government funded is doomed to degenerate into a "one size fits all" dystopia. If public schools were shuttered, their buildings sold, and the tax money returned to parents to spend as they see fit (and in the long run, never taken from them in the first place), there will be a blossoming of educational options, costing WAY less than the bloated public schools do today.
I don't see any way public schools can be saved. We can, of course, keep spending more and more money trying.
Many more quote from Thomas Jefferson are available, all particularly illuminating, but perhaps one from John F Kennedy is most appropriate.
“I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone. Someone once said that Thomas Jefferson was a gentleman of 32 who could calculate an eclipse, survey an estate, tie an artery, plan an edifice, try a cause, break a horse, and dance the minuet.”