Looming Red

Passing through the public schools, one will hear about the racism that had made its way into the constitution when black slaves were called three fifths of a person. As if there were no debate in the constitutional convention, this arbitrary fraction of a person is said to demonstrate the racism of the people at the convention. The teacher of the seventh or eighth grade class will then lament that blacks were not said to be a whole person. Without knowing about the debate that went on to arrive at this 3/5 fraction and why that fraction came about, the ignorant student’s lack of background falls prey to the teacher’s ineptitude.

The uninformed objection is as simple as it gets. Blacks are a whole person and therefore the fraction was racist because it didn’t define blacks as a whole person. The no-less ignorant student then goes home thinking that he/she has learned about a great sin of our nation’s past and promptly forgets about it during after-school game time.

Some time later in life that same ignorant student will hear a politician, pundit, or other ignoramous refer to the famous fraction and recall back to when they heard it the first time and formulated an uninformed opinion. Now their uninformed opinion attracts them to the ignorant commentator or candidate who reminded them of it. Continuing to think themselves smart and well versed in at least the basics of America’s fundamental sins, they are again distracted only to repeat the cycle some time in the future. On and on this goes with the person never realizing that the whole premise was a three fifths lie.

Why don’t they just think? How did the fraction even come about? It came about because of a compromise. Some in the convention wanted blacks to count as whole people and others wanted them to not count at all. What the ignorant fool politicians and poor students do not understand today is that it was the anti-slavery delegates who argued for blacks to not count at all.

The pro-slavery delegates wanted blacks to remain slaves, but wanted them to count in the apportionment of representatives in the congress. That would have meant that a state with a large slave population with not only no property owning rights but actually being the property of those with rights to own property and vote, would still have those slaves counted the same as free people. Imagine, where the issue of slavery would become an issue ripping at the thread of the nation in congress after congress what would have happened to further the cause of the pro-slavers if they had more representatives in congress counting those with no civil and free rights.

The argument of the delegates in the constitutional convention who aimed to have blacks not counted at all, zero fifths of a person, was not to make a philosophical statement about blacks and whites. Their argument was to have the constitution declare to the world the evil reality of the plight of the black slave in the former colonies. The pro-slavers wanted no statement in the constitution of any kind regarding their plight. They wanted the benefits of the free labor to the wealthy slave owners, as well as the benefit of their numbers to apportion them power in the congress. It was a great victory to get that 1 whole person down to three fifths.

The world reading about the new American constitution could see plainly that some had fought to make the slave-holding states less powerful by declaring more truly the reality of life in some of the former colonies for black people. The only tragedy of the three fifths apportionment was, given slavery could not be abolished in he convention without losing states in the union, that truer statement could not be made, that blacks in early American states were not people to those who considered them property of other men.

Turn on any TV show that has some interaction with public sector employed characters and you will get a narrative of shrinking public sector budgets leading to financially strangled public sector employees. Two episodes in a row of the SyFy show “Warehouse 13″ have characters employed in the public sector who bring up budget cutbacks. This TV show is not unusual in this depiction as it is very common to hear the narrative.

Specifically in the world of public education, media narratives of financially smitten educators abound. Congress comes back from recess for emergency funding to support the budgets of locally run districts. The president gives speech after speech with backdrops of teachers in an effort to get wide support for the plight of the starved teachers.

Many states and school districts have managed their affairs into the toilet. As a result of that and the economic environment, money for the public schools is said to be tight. You and I can, through our local school boards, attempt to fix our local problems, but we cannot effect one bit the decisions of some far off locally run education system. Yet, the argument from the president and other socialists is that we must pay for those far off districts and boards none the less.

Obama says that our kids will not get the education that they desperately need, because the sainted teachers will not have the money to come back and teach this year. Our kids will suffer without an education. In the spirit of this gushers and bailouts presidency and congress, we must give whatever our hopes are for our money to pay for the aims and designs on our money for the teachers and their unions. This is nothing but another bailout for those communities that have screwed themselves over with bad management on the backs of those who haven’t.

What is the point?

The national debt, contributed to by this bailout mentality is climbing and climbing. The deficit is rising. The private sector is shrinking. The government mentality is to consume and consume the surplus and non-surplus of the private sector and put off the payment to an undefined later date. Well who is going to pay later?

The debt and deficit will be reconciled by higher taxes and inflated-away savings values. Those are the only two ways this can be resolved. Unless there is an epidemic that kills off the current working generations, the current working generations will pay in shrunken retirements and shrunken pay before they retire. Still, they are not the only ones that will have to pay. The ones that will supposedly suffer by the lack of teachers are the ones who will pay later for debt today.

Anyone who has lived in a country with runaway inflation can tell you of the value of an education in such an environment. Yes, you may have a slightly larger edge over those who don’t have an education, but it is an edge that makes you king of the trash heap. Education in a hyper-inflation environment has very little effect on your ability to raise yourself out of poverty. There are no examples in history where people in mass could do anything but leave their country or revolt  to change their personal situations in mass when presented with such a circumstance.

So, again, what’s the point? If bailouts like the current one for local education lead to monetary collapse, one cannot raise by any means himself from such a collapse, what is the point of having an education payed for by bailouts?

Imagine that social mobility from incapable and poor to capable and well off is an old-time water wheel. As new water runs down stream past the paddles, the wheel turns. The part of the wheel that was under water is soon the part at the apex of the rotation. When there is freedom in the system, with a stable currency and manageable expenses, each part of the wheel can one day be at its own apex.

The American dream is that from even underwater means, one can rise to his or her own apex. We can be successful with that talent and hard work with which we have been blessed to possess or perform. That mobility it provided by a system with freedom in the rotation of the shaft on which our wheel turns.

When hyper-inflation kicks in, runaway taxation ensues, and the other burdens caused by the bailout mindset become evident, the rotation of our water wheel stops as though a tree branch is thrust in the spokes or the bearings have seized up. No amount of running water can push the wheel. You can work hard, you can work smart, you can educate yourself, but nothing pushes your wheel. You remain underwater. Underwater becomes your apex.

So, what is the point of bailing out education systems that will educate for a future where education does nothing to push your wheel? We might as well all be illiterate in the rice fields.