The Eco-Radicals’ REAL Motives
“The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.” –– H.L. Mencken
The driving force behind the eco-radicals’ fierce efforts to strangle the free market with environmental regulations is their virulent hatred for a free, prosperous economy. Yet behind this hatred is an even deeper one. To understand why they try to wreck our economy, you have to grasp the shocking fact that many eco-radicals hate the human race and Western civilization. They hate the fact that you, your family, your friends, and millions of other human beings live and prosper on this planet.
Most of us are naive about the environmental movement. We believe that when eco-radicals say we should “protect the environment,” they mean we should protect it for people. What they really mean is that we should protect the environment against people. People are the enemy. Rats, swamps, and old-growth forests must be protected against you, your family, and the rest of the human race.
To confirm this, just watch nature programs on public television. In every program I’ve seen, human beings are depicted as the enemy. These programs portray humans as vicious, violent destroyers of birds, wildlife, forests, rivers, and oceans. Nature is seen as “pure,” “fragile,” and “innocent” (including child-eating hyenas and alligators). Environmentalists or their sympathizers create these programs, so the programs reflect the environmental movement’s deepest attitudes toward the human race.
If environmental groups valued human life, they wouldn’t try to cut our oil supplies by banning drilling in arctic wastelands or off the coast of Florida and California. They wouldn’t ban the hunting of alligators that kill children. They wouldn’t file lawsuits against housing developments that give people shelter, to protect kangaroo rats.
They wouldn’t have lobbied Congress to ban DDT, the pesticide that saved the lives of millions of people worldwide from malaria. They wouldn’t ban logging in northwest forests to protect spotted owls, a ban that destroyed over 30,000 logging and sawmill workers’ jobs.
Here’s what one environmentalist had to say about loggers losing their jobs:
“Loggers losing their jobs because of Spotted Owl legislation is, in my eyes, no different than people being out of work after the furnaces of Dachau shut down.”
In other words, forcing owls to move to another forest because you cut down trees they nest in is just as evil as murdering six million people in gas chambers. Owls are as important as six million human lives. If loggers unintentionally kill a few owls, they’re as evil as the murderers who ran the Nazi gas chambers. Therefore, we should have no sympathy for loggers who lost their jobs. Here’s another quote:
“Somewhere along the line . . . we quit the contract and became a cancer. We have become a plague upon ourselves and upon the Earth . . . Until such time as Homo sapiens should decide to rejoin nature, some of us can only hope for the right virus to come along[emphasis added].”
In other words, this eco-radical wishes the human race to die out—for your family, your children, your friends to die, so that the “sacred” Earth will be free of the “plague” of human beings.
These are quotes by radical environmentalists. These quotes eloquently reveal the eco-radicals’ utter hatred and contempt for the human race, and for human life and progress on this Earth. Are these the kind of sick people that we, and State and Congressional legislators should be listening to?
I knew that the environmental movement values swamps and kangaroo rats over human life, but I didn’t realize how sick this movement really is until I read a shocking article in the New York Times. It seems that in Brazil, “endangered-species” regulations forbid hunting “protected” wildlife. This ban includes the dreaded jacaré and caiman, two Brazilian alligator species.
The jacaré is a vicious, prehistoric, man and child-eating monster who inhabits the Amazon River Basin. In the high-water season, alligators infest the riverbanks near where Mrs. Ramos lives. One evening in August, an eighteen-foot jacaré emerged from the lagoon to forage for food in waters flowing around the stilts of her house. The New York Times article described what happened to Mrs. Ramos’s son:
“Gilson (Mrs. Ramos’s 17-year-old son) went down to tie up his canoe,” said Sidecley Conceicão Andrade, a barefoot, 12-year-old neighbor. “In the dark, he thought he grabbed the canoe, but it was the jacaré’s tail. It took him away and ate him up.”
Can you imagine the horror of being eaten alive by an alligator? Can you imagine the nightmares and searing pain Mrs. Ramos must feel when she thinks of her son? Well, Brazil’s environmental regulations killed her son and hundreds of other innocent victims of alligator attacks.
Imagine that you lived in Florida and were the parents of a beautiful little girl. How would you feel if an alligator protected by the Endangered Species Act snatched your daughter and ate her alive? How would you like hearing your little girl crying for her mommy or daddy while the alligator ripped her to pieces? I apologize for describing such a horror in detail, but I want to bring home the real meaning of environmental laws like the Endangered Species Act. If you want to picture the essence of many eco-radicals’ contempt for human life, just remember what the jacaré did to Mrs. Ramos’s son.
Radical environmentalism and its strangling regulations threatens our health and our lives. But environmentalists can hurt us only because most of us have fallen for their propaganda. The problem is that we’re a good-natured, but sometimes naive people. We give everyone the benefit of the doubt, including environmentalists. We think eco-radicals are normal human beings like we are, and couldn’t possibly mean what they say. That’s what the world thought about Hitler—people didn’t believe what he said in his book, “Mein Kampf.” But we can’t be naive any longer.
We have to judge eco-radicals by their words, values, and actions, and recognize that the agenda of too many environmentalists is evil. The only way to stop them is to de-fang them, to take away their power, to repeal most environmental regulations and abolish the Environmental Protection Agency.
The Miscalculation of a Thief and Rapist
“Jimmy, let’s hit that big, brick house on Chester street. It’s the biggest house in the neighborhood. Remember when we followed the pretty young wife the other day? Remember the expensive jewelry she was wearing? Remember the Mercedes she was driving? There must be a fortune in that house, Jimmy,” said Benny Doland, his mouth almost watering.
Benny Doland was tall and skinny, about 30 years old. He had small, narrow eyes, a long nose, and heavy, wet lips. He had a high-pitched voice and his hands moved erratically as he talked.
He was talking to Jimmy, his partner. Jimmy Greeves was short, barrel-chested, around 27 years old. He had cold, brutal eyes, a small nose, and a thin, tight mouth. He looked at Benny Doland with contempt. “Yeah,” he said, “the little wifey was sure pretty, wasn’t she Benny? I sure would like a piece of that.”
Benny looked at his partner with fear. He had seen that look on Jimmy’s face before, and he remembered what happened the last time they hit a house. Jimmy had raped and strangled the pretty young wife in that house, and left her for dead on her living room floor. Jimmy Greeves had raped her five times. He had spent so much time raping the girl, that they didn’t search the house to find the cash and jewelry. They left empty-handed. Benny didn’t want that to happen again.
“Jimmy,” he said, “remember what happened the last time? Please, Jimmy, let’s keep our minds on robbing the place, not the girl. O.K?”
Jimmy looked up at his partner with a sneer. “You just case the joint and find the loot in the house, Benny. I’ll take care of the pretty little wife.” Jimmy looked at the cold eyes of his partner and didn’t say anything.
Then Benny said, “Jimmy, what if they have a gun in the house? What if the husband has a rack of guns and his wife knows how to use them? I don’t want to get killed just trying to rob a house.”
Jimmy Greeves looked at Benny with contempt. “You idiot, don’t you read the newspapers? Our friends in the State legislature just passed a gun-control law that forced all gun owners to hand in their guns to the cops. Ain’t that grand? We always used to worry about getting shot when we hit a house. Now, we don’t have no more worries. If I could, I would kiss the moron politicians who passed the gun-control laws. They give guys like us a free ride. All we have to do is break into the house, and the house and pretty little wife is ours for the taking.”
Benny’s wet lips smiled at the thought. “Yeah,” he said, “I forgot about that. You’re right. They just passed that law. And all the obedient law-abiding citizens in this town turned in their guns. Do you believe that? I guess they think they don’t have to worry about guys like us any more. I guess they think the cops will protect them. Ain’t that a laugh, Jimmy? Yeah, Jimmy, let’s hit that house tomorrow night. Remember, we saw the husband with his packed bags riding off to the airport yesterday. I guess he’s going on a business trip. The wifey will be all alone.”
Jenny Hanson loved her house, her husband, and her two little daughters. She was 25 years old, with beautiful blue eyes, a delicate nose, and a wide, sensuous mouth. Her dark, lustrous hair flowed over lovely shoulders. She had a lush, curvy body that she tried to hide under sweatshirts and baggy jeans.
But Jenny Hanson also had an inner core of steel. She was raised as an army brat. Her father was a Marine Corp colonel who loved his daughter to distraction. Because he loved her so much, because he saw how beautiful she was, and because he knew how men were, he taught his daughter how to use guns from an early age. Jenny Hanson was a deadly shot.
Jenny had a close friend growing up, Betty Draper. One night, when they were teens, she witnessed her friend Betty being raped by a gang of drunk teenagers. Jenny had managed to escape before the gang could get her, too. That terrible night was etched in her brain, in her heart. Later, her friend Betty had committed suicide.
Sweet, lovely Jenny therefore kept several loaded pistols in her house. She kept them hidden and locked up, so her daughters could never find them or reach them. When the State legislators passed the gun-confiscation laws, her father had called her from his base in Colorado. He told her, “Honey, the hell with those damn politicians. The government in Australia just confiscated all handguns. Guess what? Rapes, robberies, and murders are way up there. What else could you expect? Jenny, I forbid you from handing in your guns. Do you hear?”
Jenny said, with love in her voice, “I know, my wonderful, protecting Daddy. You didn’t have to tell me that. Do you think I would give up my guns because some gun-control morons want to take away my right to defend myself and my children? May those bastards be damned for disarming us. Especially for disarming the women in this town. Now every woman on my block is threatened by rape or robbery because they can’t defend themselves with a gun. Don’t worry, Dad, I have my revolver armed and loaded. Good-night, Daddy.”
Her father, on the other end of the line, was proud of his daughter. “O.K. sweetheart, I was just checking. You know how I am. Good night, and call me if you need anything.”
“O.K, Dad,” Jenny said.
At 9:15 p.m. the next evening, Benny Doland and Jimmy Greeves broke a back window on Jenny’s house. What they didn’t know was that Jenny had a good alarm system. She was upstairs in Sara and Melissa’s bedroom, reading to them from their favorite book. When she heard the alarm go off, she got up very slowly from the bed. Sara and Melissa looked up at their mother with fear.
“What is that noise, Mommy?” Melissa said. Jenny looked down calmly at her daughters and said, “Sara, Melissa, I want you both to stay in your bed and be very quiet. I have to see where that noise is coming from. It’s very important that you be quiet so I can hear the noise. O.K, darlings? Do you promise?”
Sara and Melissa both nodded their little heads yes and watched as their mother walked slowly out the bedroom door. They heard the outside key to their door lock, something their mommy had never done before.
Jenny walked to the master bedroom, went into the closet, opened a stepladder, then took away some big boxes on the top shelf. Behind the boxes, was a small locked box. She took out a special key, opened the box, and removed the fully loaded revolver.
She calmly walked out of the master bedroom and down the carpeted stairway to the big living room. She heard the voices of two men whispering to each other. She heard drawers being opened, cabinet glass being smashed, and she heard curses too. She knew the men would find nothing. All their valuables were hidden in a secret safe under the floor in the master bedroom. The men’s voices were angry, she knew, because they had found nothing.
Jenny switched on the light to the living room and came down the stairs. The two thieves, startled by the light, turned around and saw this beautiful woman slowly, calmly walking down the stairs towards them. What astounded them most was that the girl seemed to be totally unafraid. She held her right hand behind her back as she walked towards them.
“Get out of this house right now,” Jenny said. She faced the two men with utter calm. “There are no valuables here,” she said. “They are all in our bank vault. You will find nothing, here. If you leave now, I won’t call the police.”
Jimmy Greeves was astounded. This ripe plum was giving them orders. He was also angry. He said, “You bitch. Where’s the cash? Where’s the jewels? Don’t give me that crap about the bank vault. We saw you wearing those expensive jewels. We tailed you.”
“I told you there is nothing here.” Jenny said. “Those jewels are fake. There isn’t more than $100 cash in the house. Now get out, or I will call the police.”
Jimmy Greeves’s eyes turned cold. He took in every curve of her body, lusting for her. He wanted her even more for being so arrogant. “O.K., just for being nasty to us, me and Benny are going to have some fun with you. You won’t mind, will you, bitch? We know you pretty little housewives always lust for bad guys like us. You asked for it, so now you’re going to get it.”
Jenny was seeing her friend Betty after she was raped and beaten. She was remembering the phone call Betty’s mother made to her six months later, telling her that Betty had committed suicide. Jenny looked at the short, ugly thug approaching her and felt the steel rising in her.
She took the revolver from behind her back and pointed it straight at Jimmy Greeves’s chest. The thug’s eyes opened wide with shock as he saw the pistol come up. She fired twice, point-blank, and Jimmy Greeves flew backwards from the impact of the bullets. He lay dead on the floor in front of Benny Doland, whose startled eyes were wide open. Benny looked down at his dead partner, then looked at the barrel of the smoking revolver in Jenny’s hand. What scared him most was the calm, merciless look on Jenny’s face. He panicked, and ran screaming out the front door. Jenny watched him run with a grim smile of satisfaction.
When the police arrived, they arrested Jenny for unlawful possession of a handgun.
WHY RAPISTS & ROBBERS LOVE AUSTRALIA’S GUN-CONTROL LAWS
SCENE: Melbourne, Australia:
“Sir, what are we to do about all this crime?,” asked Captain John Downey, Melbourne’s Chief of Police, to the Australian Minister of Security, Percy Sumner.
Captain Downey, tall, forty years old, square shoulders, close-cropped hair, and brown eyes, was speaking to the Minister in his huge office overlooking Melbourne Harbor in Australia. Minister Sumner was fifty years old, a short, heavy-set man, with a red, round face, brown hair, round eyes, and a small mouth.
One wall of the office had a huge map of Melbourne, with yellow, red, and blue pins stuck on the locations of recent crimes. The yellow was for burglary, red for rape, blue for murder. Alongside this map was a chart showing crime rates for each of the three crime categories. The chart showed a definite pattern — crime rates had been increasing in Melbourne over the last five years.
Downey said, “I don’t know what to do anymore, sir. No matter how many police we put on the streets, no matter how much we increase prison sentences, the crime rates keep going up. I don’t understand it, sir. I don’t know how to stop it.”
Minister Sumner tightened his little mouth. He said, “It’s all those guns out there on the streets, Captain Downey, that’s the problem. We’ve forced every gun owner in Melbourne to register every gun and rifle they own. We’ve planted our agents at gun shows. We’ve started suing the gun manufacturers. It’s those damn guns. If so many Aussies didn’t own guns, the crime rate would fall. I’ve been discussing this issue seriously with the Prime Minister, Captain. We have agreed that the only solution is gun confiscation. Confiscate every gun in Melbourne and the crime will stop. No guns, no crime, right Downey? That sounds like common sense, doesn’t it?”
“Yes sir,” Captain Downey said eagerly, “that’s what I’ve been suggesting to you for the last year. Another reason we want to confiscate the guns is because when we make drug raids without warrants, sometimes our men get shot as intruders. Some home owners actually have the gall to try to defend their homes against our boys, who are just doing their duty. I don’t want any home owner with a gun in his house. We should also make it a crime for a home owner to use a gun to defend himself in his home against a burglar. If we let him have that right, you never know when he might use that same gun against one of our men who break down his door on a drug raid.”
“The same goes for the women. We can’t allow them to carry a gun, either in their home or on the streets. If they think a mugger is threatening them or might rape them, they should contact the police. We’ll be there within an hour. What if the woman owned a gun and didn’t know how to use it? You know how stupid women are with guns, Minister. We can’t trust them with a gun. And women are so careless, they’ll leave the gun lying around the house where children can find them. It’s worth confiscating everyone’s guns, just so one child doesn’t die from a gun accident.”
Minister Sumner nodded his round head vigorously in agreement. He said, “Good ideas, Downey, I’ll suggest them to the Prime Minister. I think we’ll be able to get the confiscation laws passed in about a month. Thank you for your time, sir. I’ll talk to you again in about four months. By that time, our wall charts should start showing a big decrease in crime. Good day, sir.”
“Good day, Minister. Thank you for your help in this matter. We’ll put a dent in the crime, wait and see.” With that, Captain Downey confidently walked out of the Minister’s office.
FOUR MONTHS LATER:
In the same office. Outside the window, the late afternoon sky was dark and cloudy, and the two men were having another heated conversation.
“Look at the charts, Captain Downey. By God, look at them!,” said Minister Sumner. “The graphs are going straight up, there going off the wall! What in blazes is going on? Our crime rate is triple what it was four months ago. Didn’t you confiscate all the guns in Melbourne, Captain? What the hell is going on?”
“Yes, sir, we did confiscate all the guns,” replied Captain Downey, pacing nervously in front of the Minister’s desk. “I just don’t understand it. We put out the confiscation order the day after we spoke at our last meeting. It was in all the newspapers. We think most law-abiding Melbourne citizens complied. Our local police stations report that over thirty thousand registered guns were handed in.”
“Thirty thousand, did you say?,” asked the Minister. “I thought our gun-registration rolls showed ninety thousand register guns in Melbourne. Why only thirty thousand handed in? What is going on? Didn’t you indicate on your confiscation orders and newspapers ads that anyone not handing in their guns would be subject to prosecution and five years in prison?”
“Yes we did, sir,” stammered Captain Downey. “But all of a sudden, every owner we contacted said they had lost their gun, so couldn’t hand it in. What are we going to do sir, get search warrants to search the homes of sixty thousand gun owners? If they’re hiding their guns, we probably won’t even find them.”
“Not only that, sir, as usual the criminals are not paying attention to our confiscation laws. They get their guns illegally, like they always have. We’ve caught a few house burglars and interrogated them, sir. They have been going on a rampage. They used to hit a few houses a week. Now they are hitting a dozen a week, sir. We were puzzled.
We asked them why? They just looked at our interrogators with contempt, like our men were idiots. What do you think they said, sir?”
“What?,” asked Minister Sumner?
“They thanked me, sir.”
“Thanked you, Captain? What the devil do you mean? Why did they thank you?”
“Because, sir, they thanked me for the new gun confiscation laws, and the laws forbidding home-owners from owning or using a gun for self-defense. They thanked me for making their job so much easier and safer. They said they now just knock on the mark’s door, pretend to be the gas man, barge into the house with their guns drawn, and loot the house. They said they’re not afraid of getting shot anymore by the home owner. Some of them had the effrontery to tell me to thank you personally, sir,” Captain Downey said with outrage.
“They did, did they?,” Minister Sumner said, getting red in the face. “We’ll see about that. I’m going to suggest to the Prime Minister some new gun-control laws. I want him to give us the power to make random searches without warrants in every house and apartment in Melbourne. I want him to increase the prison terms for gun possession to thirty years without chance of parole. I want him to forbid all gun clubs and guns shows — that’s probably where the burglars and murderers get their guns.
I’ll also ask him for the power to confiscate anyone’s car, home, or bank account who is caught with a gun. That will solve the problem, by God.”
“But sir,” Captain Downey protested meekly, “we’re already getting hundreds of complaints about the increasing, heavy-handed tactics of our gun squads. There’s been some nasty newspaper articles mentioning our Constitution, ‘rights of the people,’ and all that crap.”
“The hell with that,” Captain. “What do we care about so-called ‘rights?’ We have a crime spree. It’s an emergency. Our efforts must not be thwarted by silly notions about rights and Constitutions. Guns are killing people every day. That’s all that matters.”
Captain Downey said, “Yes, sir. I hope you’re right. I surely do. I am just a little afraid of civil unrest, sir, that’s all.”
“To hell with civil unrest, Captain, said Minister Sumner. “That’s what our riot police and prisons are for. We know best how to solve this problem, and we won’t let a bunch of agitators stop us. I will ask the Prime Minister to put my new suggestions into place immediately. You’ll see quick results.”
“Yes, sir. I hope you’re right, sir. Please let me know when the new laws are in place, sir, so my men can start enforcing them.”
“Very good, Captain. I will do so. I will then meet with you in another four months. Good day, Captain.”
“Good day, Minister.”
Of course, four months later, in that same office, the charts where now going ballistic. Crime rates were soaring. Australia had gained the international distinction of having the second highest crime rate in the world (after England, who also has strict gun control and confiscation laws).
WHY RAPISTS AND ROBBERS RAN FROM ONE FLORIDA TOWN
“Mayor, we’ve got a big problem on our hands,” said Police Chief Bud Anderson to Mike Branden, mayor of Palm City, Florida, a small city of 200,000 old-fashioned Americans, sitting in the middle of the Florida panhandle. It was a beautiful spring day in April.
Bud Anderson was a handsome man, in his thirties, dark brown hair, blue eyes, a wide, easy mouth. He wore a light-blue short-sleeve shirt and jeans. Mayor Mike Branden, also dressed casually, was in his forties, tall, and well-built. He used to be an orange-grower, his family going back generations in Palm City. He had a weather-beaten face, strong mouth, and calloused hands the size of mitts. He had just been elected mayor in November and won the election on his promise to clean up crime in the city.
Over the last five years, the city had become a little Silicon Valley, with computer companies moving in by the droves because there were no corporate taxes in Florida or in Palm City. The city was prospering, and the newly-rich computer millionaires and their employees with stock options were all building big, fancy houses by the river. The money and big houses had attracted the thieves. The city crime rate had been exploding, especially home burglaries and rapes. All the women in the city were scared and up in arms over the crime spree, and wanted something done. Mayor Branden promised to do something about it.
“Bud, tell me what you think the problem is,” Mike Branden said. “Tell me what you think we can do.”
“Well, Mike,” Bud Anderson said, “I think the thieves and rapists have it too easy. They’re smart. They case the mark’s house carefully before they break in. They only break in when they know the wife is home alone. But that’s not the real problem, Mike.”
“The real problem is that the women are defenseless. You may not know this, being so new as Mayor, but about five years ago the previous Mayor passed gun laws that made it illegal to have a gun in the house, and illegal to use one against a burglar. He also made it illegal for anyone to carry a concealed gun outside the house. That’s when our troubles started, Mayor.”
Mike Branden grew up with guns ever since he was a boy. He belonged to the National Rifle Association. He loved skeet shooting, and bought his kids their first rifles when they were eight years old. He taught them how to shoot straight and how to use a gun safely. His wife also owned a rifle and handgun, shared his love for skeet shooting, and was a crack shot. Mayor Mike Branden was not a college graduate, but he had guts, common sense, and imagination. He immediately saw the problem, and the solution.
“Well, I think we’ll change those gun laws, Bud. Thieves and rapists have it too easy around here. They know they can rob houses and rape women with no risk.
Let’s put the risk back. Let’s see what happens when they get shot if they break into a house or bother one of our women. I’m sick to death of all the gun laws in this country, so let’s try a little experiment. I’ll convince the City Council to revoke our gun-control laws. Next, I’ll convince them to pass a new law requiring every man and woman in Palm City to own a handgun or shotgun, and know how to use them safely. I want a pistol and shotgun in every home. I want every woman walking around town with a concealed gun in her purse or under her dress. Let’s see what happens when we change the laws. Let’s see what happens when we give the victims a way to defend themselves.
I also want you to put a series of ads in the Palm City Gazette and Daily Press that announces the new laws, so everyone knows that every Palm City resident will soon be armed. I want you to set up gun safety and training courses on the local firing ranges, so we know that every woman in this town will be dead shot.”
Bud Anderson’s eyes lit up with admiration for his new Mayor. He had been wanting to revoke those gun laws for the last five years, but never dreamed of the daring plan the new Mayor now wanted to put into action.
“That’s a damned fantastic idea, Mike. You’re going to make a hell of a Mayor. I think the citizens in this town are going to love you. They’re going to have a great time learning how to use a gun again, especially the women. I know the women will form gun clubs. They’ll probably want to buy designer guns with pretty colors. Hell, I might even buy a pearl-handled 45 myself.”
Mike Branden laughed out loud at his Police Chief’s boyish enthusiasm. He said, “I think the new laws should be in place in about a month, Bud. Let’s meet again in about three months and you can tell me whether we’ve had any success with the plan.” Bud Anderson gave a mock salute to his Mayor, said “yes, sir,” and walked out the door into the Spring sunshine.
THREE MONTHS LATER:
It’s a hot July day in the Mayor’s office, and Police Chief Anderson and Mike Branden are having an enthusiastic conversation.
“Mike, mother-of-god did your plan work! The crime rate has dropped like a rock in Palm City. Burglaries are down 80 percent. Rapes are down 90 percent. I’ve never seen anything like it. It all started about two months ago, Mike. There was a burglary gang that had been hitting most of the houses. Well, about ten of them have been shot, three killed in the last two months. As soon as the burglar alarm goes off, the women took their guns from their purses and started shooting. I’ve interrogated some of the thieves we caught. They’re pretty stupid and don’t read much, so they weren’t aware of the new gun laws. They thought we were still operating under the old laws. You should have seen the shock on their faces. They were mad as hell. They never expected pretty young housewives to be spraying them with semi-automatic fire. They were mad as hell at you.”
“Then there were the rapists who didn’t know about the new gun laws either, the ones who prayed on women at night in the shopping-mall parking lots. Did they get the shock of their lives! About twenty of them have been shot already, five killed. They just came up to the women, brazen like, thinking they could get away with anything like they used to. Then the girls suddenly pulled out their pretty pistols and started firing away. You should hear how the women laughed with glee and pride when they told me their stories. They told me how thankful they were to have their guns. I think all the women in this town love you now, Mike. It’s a good thing you’re already married.”
“I think the bad guys are getting the picture, Mike. Burglars and rapists are getting scarce in Palm City. Matter of fact, I just got a call from Ben Radley, Police Chief at Hampton Bay. They still have the same idiotic gun-control laws we had here. Seems they’ve been getting a sharp rise in house burglaries and rapes there. Looks like our bad guys are moving on to easier ground in Hampton Bay. I sure feel sorry for the people in that town right now. Ben Radley wants to talk to you real bad. He wants to know how you got crime down so fast in Palm City. Who knows, Mike, maybe what you did here will spread all over the country. I hope so.”
“One other thing, Mike. Every teacher and principal in every public school in this town now carries a concealed gun. Every one of the kids know this, and they now feel real safe in the schools. They’re not worrying anymore about one of their deranged teen-age friends suddenly going on a shooting spree, like what happened at Columbine High School. If anything happens, they know they don’t have to wait an hour for the cops to show up. They know the teachers and principal can protect them. Did you know math and reading scores are going up at the schools, too? It’s the damndest thing.”
“Mike, I think you’re going to be Mayor in this town for as long as you like. I hope you stay on forever, because Palm City folks are really grateful to you. At first they were a little skeptical about your plans. But now, after they’ve seen the results, you couldn’t get them to give up their guns anymore. We’re even getting calls from newspapers, magazines, and TV stations all over the country. CNN wants to interview you, did you know that? They called me this morning. You’re becoming a celebrity, by god!”
Mike Branden laughed out loud. “Me, an orange grower, a celebrity? Forget the interviews Bud. How about we go fishing this afternoon after work? It’s getting kind of quiet around here, just the way I like it.”
Bud Anderson, grinning, stuck out his hand to shake Mike’s big, calloused hand, for he now counted Mike Branden as a good friend. That afternoon, they caught a dozen trout at Briar Creek lake. It was a fine afternoon.
Public-School Exremists with a Mission
One reason public schools get away with educational failure, year after year, is because they are run by school officials who passionately believe in what they are doing. As the great English writer C. S. Lewis wrote, “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. Those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
Public-school true believers often fall into this category – for over a hundred years, education “experts” have been tormenting our children with public schools, allegedly for the children’s benefit. Like all true believers, these people believe that they know what is best for our children and society, and seek to enforce their beliefs on parents.
From the 1850s to the 1920s, public-school activists such as Horace Mann and John Dewey worked to create a public-school system like the one they admired in Prussia (Germany). Mann and Dewey considered public education a religion, with a holy mission to mold children and society. Simply teaching children to read, write, and do math was too commonplace a goal for them. Mann and Dewey wanted the schools to have total control over children’s lives. This meant removing parents’ influence over their children. Mann put it this way: “We who are engaged in the sacred cause of education are entitled to look upon all parents as having given hostages to our cause.”
Dewey also had a utopian vision for America and he wanted the common schools to achieve his vision. To create a socialist America, public schools had to mold generations of children into the habit of obedience. In his Pedagogic Creed of 1897, Dewey wrote, “Every teacher should realize he is a social servant set apart for the maintenance of the proper social order and the securing of the right social growth. . .”
Public Schools Expand Their Control Over Our Children
By the early twentieth century, public schools had expanded their functions into areas undreamed of in the 1850s. Schools took on the role of social agencies, with nurses, social centers, playgrounds, school showers, kindergartens, and “Americanization” programs for immigrants. Public schools became a major agency for social control.
Unfortunately, today’s public schools are fulfilling Mann’s and Dewey’s socialist vision with a vengeance. There is hardly any area of children’s lives that school authorities don’t push to control or manipulate. Politicians and public-school apologists in many states are now pushing programs that would make kindergarten compulsory. Public schools also now spend billions of dollars for psychological counseling, school-lunch programs, parent welfare-outreach programs, special-education classes, bilingual classes, early-childhood programs, drug and sex education classes, as well as programs for millions of “at-risk” or “special-needs” children.
This government-knows-best philosophy is the deepest reason why public schools get away with educational murder and can never be fixed. Many public-school apologists believe that your children’s education must be dictated by local governments and school authorities. By implication, they believe that parents are an annoyance at best, and at worst a danger to their children’s proper education. That is why public-school true believers will never voluntarily give up control over our children. They see themselves as noble idealists who know what is best for our children. That is why these “idealists” have contempt for parent’s rights.
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