RECLAIMING LIBERTY

In each instance he lists the problems caused by government in these areas and then outlines what we need to begin to do to correct the problem.

Ron deals also with the conservative failures of the past century and how, in spite of the rhetoric the conservatives hand out to folks at election time, all they really end up doing is conserving the programs the liberals pushed a few years ago and calling that conservatism. And there is no need to think that will change anytime soon. It works, it gets votes, so why switch? In relation to the "conservatives"--so called, Ron notes on page 17 that: "In America's contemporary political system, ideas such as states' rights, a constitutionally limited federal government, local control, and individual liberty are dead! Southern conservatives have spent the last century trying to preserve a political system that no longer exists. To make matters worse, liberals have known this all along, while our contemporary conservative leaders are either too foolish to recognize it or too cowardly to admit it." Ron labels them as "the keepers of an extinguished flame." Can't argue with him there.

He continues: "By the end of the twentieth century, no 'right thinking' conservative would be found advocating a return to the original constitutional federalism where the federal government was secondary and state and local control of limited government was primary." He noted that today's "neoconservatives" have only one thing in mind--"control of the Federal Empire"--and they couldn't care a rip about the "Republic of Republics as created by the Founding Fathers."

Ron has again observed: "Thus we have witnessed in our lifetime the movement of conservatives from opposing socializing schemes to adopting them, provided this would help them win political office. In the twentieth century conservatives exchanged principles for the idea that the end justifies the means. In so doing, conservative leaders have become willing collaborators of the liberals, as together they move America away from the principles of liberty and toward the enslaving ideas of socialism. The political history of the twentieth century in America was written in the language of failure--conservative failure!

Since one area of concern to me is education, I will note a few of Ron's comments in that area. He has correctly stated that: "Free" public education is relatively new in the South. Prior to the War for Southern Independence, there were almost no 'free' public schools. Many people think that this resulted in a high illiteracy rate in the South prior to the war. But, in fact, at that time the South's literacy rate (and educational level) was almost as high as that of the North and major European nations. Noted Southern historian Frank L. Owsley reported that 'if college attendance is any test of an educated people, the South had more educated men and women in proportion to population than the North or any other part of the world'."

He notes the founding of the government education system in the North by the Unitarian, Horace Mann, and how Mann wanted the educational system to be controlled and paid for by the state rather than being private or church-related. Ron noted a case in 1785 where Rev. Jeremy Belknap argued before the New Hampshire General Court, where he advocated "equal and compulsory education for all, emphasizing that the children belong to the State and not to the parents." Did you catch the date on that--1785?

Ron also commented on voucher systems and charter schools, and while he feels these might be small steps in the right direction, ultimately he feels they are bandaid solutions and he says: "Actually these efforts are not so much intended to 'ease the pain' as to pacify the populace. These types of efforts are all that current conservative 'leaders' can come up with because they are trapped in the liberal/socialist political system."

And he observes, in conclusion: "Because living Americans have never seen an educational system that is not based on the socialist system, it is hard for some of them even to comprehend an educational system based in individual choice, where parents use their income to purchase educational services. In many respects we are like the citizens of the formed Soviet Union and its Eastern European bloc nations, who grew up under socialism and then one day their system was suddenly gone! They had no idea on how to order their society--they had never been free." Unfortunately, that describes where most Americans are in regard to education.