Just how deep does the rabbit hole go?
Education
Ron Paul launches His “Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity”
01 month ago
Ron Paul Institute Launch (Full Video)
http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/
Posted by Daniel McAdams on Twitter @DanielLMcAdams
Follow the Institute on Facebook and Twitter @RonPaulInstitut.
ABOUT THE INSTITUTE
The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity is a project of Dr. Paul’s Foundation for Rational Economics and Education (F.R.E.E.), founded in the 1970s as an educational organization. The Institute continues and expands Dr. Paul’s lifetime of public advocacy for a peaceful foreign policy and the protection of civil liberties at home.
The Institute mobilizes colleagues and collaborators of Dr. Paul’s to participate in a broad coalition to educate and advocate for fundamental changes in our foreign and domestic policy.
A prosperous America is profoundly linked to a foreign policy rooted in peaceful relations and trade with all. With peace, comes real prosperity.
Ron Paul’s real legacy in his writing, teaching, and in politics is his success bringing people of very different backgrounds and perspectives together under the common cause of peace, individual liberties, and prosperity. His institute energetically continues this kind of “coalition-building” in all aspects of its work. The Institute board is itself one of the best examples of how broad a coalition can come together and work for the same shared goals and values.
‘The neo-conservative era is dead’: Ron Paul announces DC think-tank
0Source: http://rt.com
Ron Paul. (AFP Photo / Brendan Smialowski)
Ron Paul has been retired from Congress for only a few months, but he’s certainly not shying away from politics. The former US representative has already announced his new project: the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity.
In a press release sent to the media Friday afternoon, the Ron Paul camp confirms that the long-time Texas representative will launch a think-tank of sorts in order to carry on his ideologies after his time in office has ended.
“After decades in and out of the US House of Representatives leading the call for a non-interventionist foreign policy and the protection of civil liberties, Dr. Paul is launching a revolutionary new vehicle to expand his efforts. The Institute will serve as the focal point of a new coalition that crosses political, ideological and party lines,” the statement begins.
According to the press release, the Ron Paul Institute will focus mainly on two issues: education and coming generations.
“It will fill the growing demand for information on foreign affairs from a non-interventionist perspective through a lively and diverse website, and will provide unique educational opportunities to university students and others,” his office says.
“The neo-conservative era is dead. The ill-advised policies pushed by the neo-cons have everywhere led to chaos and destruction, and to a hatred of the United States and its people. Multi-trillion dollar wars have not made the world a safer place; they have only bankrupted our economic future. The Ron Paul Institute will provide the tools and the education to chart a new course with the understanding that only through a peaceful foreign policy can we hope for a prosperous tomorrow.”
Ron Paul, 77, says he will formally unveil his latest endeavor next Wednesday at a conference in Washington, DC, only a stone’s throw from the congressional office he occupied for nearly three decades. Slated to attend the conference are the members of the Institute’s board of advisors, which contains a number of high-profile names including noted economist Lew Rockwell, the CEO of the Ludwig von Mises Institute and a longtime collaborator of Paul’s — he served as the congressman’s chief of staff from 1978 to 1982, and later advised the politician as he vied for the presidency.
Also on the Institutes board is Rep. Walter Jones, Jr. (NC), Rep. John Duncan, Jr. (TN), former Rep. Dennis Kucinich (OH) and Judge Andrew Napolitano.
Just earlier this month, Ron Paul unveiled his own homeschooling curriculum for students, which he describes as a program aimed to provide “education in liberty like no other.”
“Students will be exposed to thinkers they would never encounter in a government school. They will know history and economics better than anyone their age,” Rockwell wrote in an editorial announcing the start of the “Ron Paul Curriculum” published in The Daily Bell.
Photo source: http://rt.com
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Related posts:
Homeschooling: The Future of Liberty
Announcing the Ron Paul Homeschool Curriculum
Homeschooling: The Future of Liberty
01 month ago
Source: http://www.the-free-foundation.org
By Ron Paul
Homeschooling: The Future of Liberty
A common feature of authoritarian regimes is the criminalization of alternatives to government-controlled education. Dictators recognize the danger that free thought poses to their rule, and few things promote the thinking of “unapproved” thoughts like an education controlled by parents instead of the state. That is why the National Socialist (Nazi) government of Germany outlawed homeschooling in 1938.
Sadly, these Nazi-era restrictions on parental rights remain the law in Germany, leaving parents who wish greater control over their children’s education without options. That is why in 2006 Uwe and Hannalore Romeike, a German couple who wanted to homeschool their three children for religious reasons, sought asylum in the United States. Immigration judge Lawrence Burman upheld their application for asylum, recognizing that the freedom of parents to homeschool was a “basic human right.”
Unfortunately, the current US administration does not see it that way, and has announced that it is appealing Judge Burman’s decision. If the administration is successful, the Romeikes could be sent back to Germany where they will be forced to send their children to schools whose teaching violates their religious beliefs. If they refuse, they face huge fines, jail time, or even the loss of custody of their children!
The Administration’s appeal claims that the federal government has the constitutional authority to ban homeschooling in all fifty states. The truth is, the Constitution gives the federal government no power to control any aspect of education. Furthermore, parents who, like the Romeikes, have a religious motivation for homeschooling should be protected by the free exercise clause of the First Amendment.
The federal government’s hostility to homeschooling is shared by officials at all levels of government. Despite the movement’s success in legalizing homeschooling in every state, many families are still subjected to harassment by local officials. The harassment ranges from “home visits” by child protective agencies to criminal prosecution for violating truancy laws.
Every American who values liberty should support the homeschoolers’ cause. If the government can usurp parental authority over something as fundamental as the education of their children, there is almost no area of parenthood off limits to government interference.
Homeschooling has proven to be an effective means of education. We are all familiar with the remarkable academic achievements, including in national spelling bees and other competitions, by homeshcooled children. In addition, homeschooled students generally fare better than their public school educated peers on all measures of academic performance.
It makes sense that children do better when their education is controlled by those who know their unique needs best, rather than by a federal bureaucrat. A strong homeschooling movement may also improve other forms of education. If competition improves goods and services in other areas of life, why wouldn’t competition improve education? A large and growing homeschooling movement could inspire public and private schools to innovate and improve.
When the government interferes with a parent’s ability to choose the type of education that is best for their child, it is acting immorally and in manner inconsistent with a free society. A government that infringes on the rights of homeschooling will eventually infringe on the rights of all parents. Homeschooled children are more likely to embrace the philosophy of freedom, and to join the efforts to restore liberty. In fact, I would not be surprised if the future leaders of the liberty movement where homeschooled.
I believe so strongly in the homeschooling movement that I have just announced my own curriculum for homeschooling families. Please visit this revolutionary new project at http://www.ronpaulcurriculum.com.
This column may be reprinted and/or redistributed by electronic means provided author credit is given and no alterations made.
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Related post:
Announcing the Ron Paul Homeschool Curriculum
Announcing the Ron Paul Homeschool Curriculum
0Source: http://www.tomwoods.com
By Tom Woods
April 6, 2013
Announcing the Ron Paul Homeschool Curriculum
Over the past several weeks I have mentioned that I’ve been at work on a K-12 homeschool curriculum. That wasn’t the whole story. Today I can tell you the whole story: it is the Ron Paul Homeschool Curriculum.
There is nothing like this curriculum anywhere. Here are just a few of the factors that set it apart.
(1) Grades K-5 will be available for free. You have six years to try out the program without having to spend a dime.
(2) Students will learn the origins and travails of liberty in the Western world and in the United States in particular.
(3) Students will learn the economics of the Austrian School.
(4) Students can learn at their own pace. If they’re advanced and move more quickly, they can quiz out of the first two years of college and enter college as juniors.
(5) The emphasis in this program is not simply on teaching from a different point of view, or teaching material that no other school or curriculum offers, although the Ron Paul Curriculum does both of these things. But it also emphasizes oral and written communication, so that students will be able to spread and defend their ideas effectively. Students will have their own blogs, start YouTube channels, and even learn the basics of video production, website design, and Internet marketing.
(6) It’s cheap. For access to the forums, it’s $250 per year. Each course is just $50. No textbooks — they’re awful, and we use pdfs and primary documents to teach students — so you’ll save hundreds of dollars that way as well.
(7) Parents who wish they’d had the chance for this kind of education can listen to the lectures their children are hearing. We’ve made them of a length that works well with the average commute.
By September 2, we expect to have the material for grades 6-10 available. We’ll continue to add grades until December 2015 — our target date — when we expect to have the entire K-12 curriculum finished.
My own role will be to teach high school courses in Western civilization, the U.S. Constitution, government, and the history of American wars. All the courses on the site are available as part of the overall curriculum or a la carte, for those who would like individual courses.
These courses are centered around a 36-week schedule, five lessons (25 minutes each) per week per course. This means that for each course I will need to record 180 lessons. If you are wondering why I have not found the time to answer your email lately, I hope you will understand now. I have dropped not quite everything, but quite a bit in order to focus on this.
Here’s my three-minute pitch:
The website officially launched today. Right now the site has an excellent course on high school preparation, which covers such topics as how to study, personal goal-setting, time management, public speaking, speed reading, typing, note-taking and retrieval, software for essay writing, how to set up a YouTube channel, how to set up a WordPress blog site, and that most challenging skill, how to read a book. Between now and September 2 you can join the site and access that course for $25.
This, I am convinced, will prove to be Ron Paul’s most significant contribution to the cause of liberty — and that’s saying something. Please check out RonPaulCurriculum.com, and stay tuned for more news as we move forward with this exciting project.
For people wondering what Ron Paul has been up to since retiring from Congress, then, here’s your answer. And he has more announcements coming.
Tonight Dr. Paul will speak to a very large homeschool convention in Ohio. He has a book coming out on education. This is all part of the same package: Ron Paul’s revolution in homeschooling. Be a part of it.
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Related post:
Homeschooling: The Future of Liberty
Proposed Tennessee Bill Would Cut Welfare Benefits When Kids Fail At School…
01 month ago
Source: http://weaselzippers.us
Image credit: http://weaselzippers.us
I’m for anything and everything when it comes to getting people off welfare. Most people who eventually lost their benefits after welfare reform was passed in the late 1990s say their lives improved because they started working and were supporting themselves.
Via WaPo:
Education’s often seen as the key to breaking the cycle of poverty. Do well in school and you’ll find a good job. Fail and you’re destined to a life of being poor.
So it’s understandable that a Tennessee lawmaker would back legislation linking school performance to welfare benefits — until you stop to think about the cold, hard realities of parenting a family under such circumstances.
Knoxville Republican Stacey Campfield proposed Senate Bill 132 in January. It would require up to a 30 percent reduction in Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) — or welfare — payments to parents or caretakers with children who “fail to maintain satisfactory progress in school.”
Despite facing a firestorm of controversy after first suggesting the bill, Campfield has persevered. Rep. Vance Dennis, a Republican from Savannah, Tenn., sponsored the bill in the House. This past week, the bill cleared both committees and appears to be on its way toward passage and law.
Your Kids — Like Your Money and Guns — Belong to the “Community”
11 month ago
Source: http://www.lewrockwell.com
MSNBC Cadre Member: Your Kids — Like Your Money and Guns — Belong to the “Community”
Whenever a progressive refers to “investments,” he or she is referring to confiscation of private wealth.
Whenever a progressive invokes the “community,” that term refers to a state-engineered collective in which the individual has no rights.
Whenever a collectivist refers to “public education,” that phrase is shorthand for the process of destroying a child’s developing sense of self-ownership and indoctrinating them in the notion that they are the property of the “community.” This process is also known as “socialization,” which is the indefinable value-added element that supposedly makes “public education” superior to homeschooling.
Whenever an advocate of “public education” refers to “our children,” conscientious parents should take a quick inventory of their arsenals.
Melissa Harris-Perry, a slogan-spewing news reader for the Stalinist media outlet called MSNBC, ran the table of these collectivist nostrums in a recent installment in the network’s “Lean Forward” ad campaign. The “Lean Forward” spots feature various MSNBC luminaries holding forth like Communist Party functionary exhorting the cadres at a “struggle session” in the Chinese Cultural Revolution.
Harris-Perry is a collectivist of such passionate conviction that she regards opposition to Obama’s radical centralization of power to be a species of sedition. She considers private firearms to be a pestilence, but embraces a vision of social engineering that would require a great amount of gun-related violence by state functionaries. Although she is a credentialed academic, she has the odd and annoying habit, so common among adolescents, of ending every statement with a vocal inflection that suggests a question. In her “Lean Forward” ad, she uncorked this specimen of unfiltered collectivist cant:
“We have never invested as much in public education, because we’ve always had a sort of private notion of children – your kid is yours, and totally your responsibility. We haven’t had a very collective notion of, `These are our children.’ So part of it is that we have to break through our kind of private idea that kids belong to their parents, or kids belong to families, and recognize that kids belong to whole communities. Once it’s everybody’s responsibility, and not just the household’s, then we start making better investments.”
Like many others of her ideological persuasion, Harris-Perry is a stranger to concision. Someone who represented a slightly different strain of collectivism – albeit not as different as Harris-Perry would insist – stated the matter much more tidily almost exactly eighty years ago:
“When an opponent declares, `I will not come over to your side,’ I calmly say: `Your child belongs to us already…. What are you? You will pass on. Your descendants, however, now stand in this new camp. In a short time they will know nothing else but this new community.”
Those words were spoken on November 6, 1933 by the community-organizing, civilian-disarming, socialized medicine-promoting, government stimulus-peddling, unitary executive who presided over Germany’s National Socialist government. When Harris-Perry and her comrades demand that we “Lean Forward,” that’s the direction they have in mind.
Government School’s Communist Thought Indoctrination Process
22 months ago
Trying to make sense of the seemingly insane policies of those government run ( and others) schools and the agenda behind it all.
Source: http://www.lewrockwell.com
By Becky Akers
And She Quotes Isabel Paterson!
Vanessa Richardson tells me she is “a homeschool mom. My son” – and, presumably, her student – “and I made a video in regards to the insane over-reaction of school officials over toy/imaginary guns in schools.” Her video not only exposes the ideology behind Leviathan’s demonizing of self-defense but provides a powerful inducement to teach your children at home – all in only 6 minutes and 22 seconds!
Enjoy.
Administrative Bloat in US Public Schools
02 months ago
Source: http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com
Only to bureaucrats can the idea occur that establishing new offices, promulgating new decrees, and increasing the number of government employees alone can be described as positive and beneficial measures.-Ludwig von Mises
(Chart via Mark Perry)
Ron Paul Writing New Book on Education
22 months ago
Source: http://spreadlibertynews.com
By Katie Glueck
Former presidential candidate Ron Paul, a longtime foe of the Federal Reserve and champion of a smaller foreign policy footprint, is turning to education in a new book slated for release this fall.
In “New School Manifesto,” scheduled for a Sept. 17 release from Grand Central Publishing, the former GOP congressman from Texas will promote home schooling and “free market principles applied to education,” according to an official book description.
“He makes the case for individual freedoms as they pertain to educating our children, and nimbly dissects the most pressing issues that need to be addressed from the libertarian point of view,” the description continues.
This will be Paul’s fourth book with Grand Central Publishing, following “Liberty Defined,” “End the Fed” and “The Revolution: A Manifesto,” his editor, Ben Greenberg, told POLITICO. Greenberg said the book has been in the works for close to a year, and that a deal for its publication was hammered out in January.
In this book, Greenberg said, Paul will compare the postal service to the education system, arguing that in both realms, competition promotes better services.
“He’s basically saying the postal service didn’t have many competitors until FedEx, UPS and email, obviously, and now it’s changing the way everything gets done,” Greenberg said. “He’s arguing for that in education as well.”
Paul will address a variety of education policy proposals, he said.
“He’s taking the position that a parent should have the ability to choose what is best,” Greenberg said, a philosophy that would include home schooling.
Greenberg, who has edited all of Paul’s books done through Grand Central Publishing, said the Texan is “really easy to work with” and doesn’t require heavy editing.
“We usually do two to three edits for the main script, but not much,” Greenberg said. “His ideas are pretty fully formed. It’s just a matter of honing in and making sure everything is in the right order and just figuring out how to best say the message without becoming too repetitive or anything like that.”
Also on deck for the libertarian former lawmaker: talk radio. Courtside Entertainment Group announced this month that in March, Paul will offer “twice daily one-minute radio commentaries” with his talks also available as a weekly podcast.
“Even if you don’t agree with what he says, he always makes you think about things a little bit differently,” Greenberg added.
Image Reference
FreedomsLighthouse.net
Wealthiest US colleges suing students over default loans
0Source: http://rt.com
(Reuters / Kevin Lamarque)
Graduate student borrowers are defaulting on almost US$1 billion in federal loans that were given out to the poor. US colleges such as Yale, Penn State and George Washington are coming after them in the courts, suing for nonpayment.
All three colleges have pursued lawsuits against students who defaulted on their Perkins loans. The exact number of lawsuits is not known, but just last year alone the University of Pennsylvania filed at least a dozen lawsuits over the Federal Perkins Loan, Bloomberg reported.
Colleges are suing to collect unpaid Perkins Loans, given out by individual colleges to students who demonstrate extreme financial hardship.
Colleges depend on repayment of money to finance the new Perkins loans and so when graduates fail to pay back the borrowed sum, the current students are put at risk of not receiving new loans.
Between June 2010 and 2011 students defaulted on $964 million in Perkins loans, 20 per cent more than five years ago, Bloomberg reports.
The result is that the colleges go after the students in courts to collect the money.
“If you borrow to go to school, it may not be just the government that ends up coming after you if you can’t pay,” attorney Deanne Loonin told Bloomberg. “We offer credit very easily.” If the student doesn’t benefit financially from the education, “the government or the school comes after them very aggressively.”
Borrowers with multiple debts often put aside paying back the Perkins loans because it has a lower interest rate than other private loans.
After graduating with a Perkins loan, students get a nine-month grace period and a 5 per cent per annum interest rate afterwards.
Perkins is given out to those from low-income families and “they may have the least ability to pay it back,” Associate Director of Student Financial Support for the University of California System Nancy Coolidge told Bloomberg.
As the cost of higher education continues to soar, more and more students are forced to take out loans, which increased US education debt to US$1 trillion.
The average size of student loan debt has also almost doubled from US$17,233 in 2005 to US$27,253 in 2012, according to a study released by FICO Labs.
The increased amount of debt is connected to the increased number of defaults on loans, Daily Free Press quotes the study as saying.
In addition, a poor economy and high unemployment make it very difficult for recent graduates to repay their loans.
Around 5.9 million people nationwide have fallen at least 12 months behind in their payments.
This is a work in progess, a self learning tool and fun little project. Please excuse the slow development as it seems the needed proper time is always lacking. It is my hope that the combination of content and links to other sources of information in this simple blog may help awaken a few of the sleeping masses and encourage and inspire others to initiate their own research, ultimately for each person to be a light to help awaken others. Opinions expressed belong to me, myself and I. Also, a big thank you to all that take the time to visit, it is appreciated :)
