50 MILLION WASTED MINDS?

I have never known of any non-defense research project that justified the confiscation of the property of men, women, and children by force or threat of force. Tax money consists of private property that is seized by government under the claim that politicians and bureaucrats are more skilled in using it than are those who earned or otherwise honestly received it. Even if this claim were true, the seizure would be inherently immoral because the right to economic freedom from theft is a self-evident part of the inherent human rights to life and liberty.

It happens that government programs are inherently counterproductive as compared to private ones. People are not, however, completely repressible. They will get some valuable work done regardless of their circumstances. It is said that there is an immense positive return from government-funded research. This is misleading. There is instead an immense positive return from research - government has merely horned in on the credit by forcing itself on the research community as an unnecessary, inefficient, and immoral middleman.

Nowhere in America today is this effect more obvious than in the educational system. Funded by the most pernicious sort of taxes - the threat to throw families out of their own homes if they do not pay property taxes regardless of their current income - over two million bureaucrats and teachers have created schools that, regardless of the best efforts of the remaining outstanding teachers and students, have a net negative value to the education and development of young Americans.

With about 20,000 students now using our self-teaching home school curriculum, the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine has been receiving between 100 and 250 letters and calls from parents each day. There are numerous varied sorts of requests and questions, but the following unedited letter that arrived recently from an American mother summarizes many of them: "Dear Dr. Robinson: "I am the mother of two children (11 and 12 years old) who have been public school 'educated.' I asked questions, raised concerns, and did everything I was told to do by the teachers. I participated in damaging my own children even though every step of the way I had strong feelings that something was wrong.

"I removed my children from the public school a year ago and began homeschooling them. They can now add, subtract, multiply, and divide. I am having a terrible time teaching them to read because they can't get past the method they had in school - skip or guess words. I have noticed that homeschooled children who have never attended public school consistently do much better than homeschooled children who have attended public school.

"Homeschooling my children has been most frustrating because they have developed habits and traits in the public school that are difficult to overcome. Such as they expect me to somehow put knowledge into their heads without their participation. I have come to believe that accusing the schools of doing nothing is inaccurate - they are actively damaging the children.

"Your homeschool curriculum sounds great for kids who have never been damaged by the public school system but can it work for mine? Sincerely,'' There is no shortage in America of truthful voices raised in opposition to the anti-science, anti-technology, anti-free enterprise message preached by the demagogues who are seizing control of our nation.

There is, however, a shortage of citizens who have the ability and inclination to listen to the truth. For the cause of that shortage, you need look no further than socialist schools. Your tax dollars at work.