Culture War

I have come to the conclusion that the culture war exists because of the government. You can add this to the already lengthy list of things I blame on the government.


The reality is, however, that it's not for malicious reasons that the government is provoking the culture war. In most cases the government is just trying to do what they can to make life a little bit better in the U.S. In this case, the voting public has decided that it is in the so-called public interest for everyone to receive an education up to age 16. Certainly, everyone would agree that education is a good thing, and a well-educated society will be better in many respects, although I do not agree with the education ideologues that believe that through proper education we will somehow be able to cleanse the world of all it's woes. The problem is that the voting public left it up to the government to do the educating. This is, of course, the natural course of things. The government is naturally predisposed to assume more and more control. After all, if they are paying for it, certainly the government should have a say in what the curriculum is, what standards are used, etc., etc. Ultimately, the government assumes complete control of any system it is expected to subsidize, which is why I am generally opposed to government subsidies of all the things I like. This is where the culture war begins. What curriculum will the government teach that will please all the parents? What will the discipline standards be? What will be the methods?


While the free market can be extraordinarily flexible in meeting the demands of parents, primarily by creating more schools that cater to specific demographics. The government seems pre-disposed to provide a one-size-fits-all solution with only subtle deviations. Add to this the inflexibility which results from various court cases, referendums, and certain interpretations of the constitution, and you have an extraordinarily rigid structure that can only be controlled from the top down. So, if a parent is displeased with the curriculum, or the discipline standards, they hire the ACLU or the ADF (depending on your cultural and political background) to represent them in a court battle to change the entire national public school system. Does that seem a little heavy-handed? I think so, too. But what other choice does the parent have? Talk to the school board, they will probably tell them that they are legally obliged to follow xyz federal requirements, and they are helpless to assist the parent. So, while the parent has other options (like move, send the kid to a private school, or homeschool), the only way to change the school that your child is already attending in any meaningful way is to change the whole system.


It is because the government runs the schools that we have such heated debates over whether or not prayer should be allowed, or any mention of God, or sex education classes, or courses on global warming, or evolution. The reality is, that many people are engaged in the so-called culture war because they do not feel like they have the option to send their kid someplace else.


Of course, there are others that simply don't like the current state of things. These people are always determined to ramrod (this is one of my favorite words, an oldie but a goodie) their beliefs down everyone's throat regardless how the anyone else feels about it. These people exist on the left and the right in seemingly equal proportions. While these little tyrants and fascists are certainly a problem, the surest way to strike a death blow against them is to remove the apparatus they most often use against the cause of liberty: the government.