Blog – W.D. Edmiston

Conservatism vs. Liberalism?

Being an individual is often more powerful that joining a crowd

Conservatism

Bryan Mahlke

True conservatism, in the broad sense (not merely political) seeks to conserve the good, the true, and the beautiful as an inheritance to the succeeding generations. Conservatism has allowed the West to prosper in the excellence of morality, law, liberty, art, literature, science, philosophy, theology, and politics.

We had the correct starting point to build American civilization: the self-revelation of the one true, eternal, and self-existent God. An eternal God who desires a relationship with each of us as individuals and encourages independence and a good work ethic. No other culture has achieved as much prosperity.

Today, we are seeing the fast unraveling of the foundations of our civilization. This anti-conservative impulse began three or four generations ago but is advancing at a precipitous rate today. It is now even denying fundamental realities of human nature openly, such as human gender. The “leftist progressive” movement is actually regressive. Its end is not a utopia, but disorder and chaos. It would have us believe what is false rather than what is true. It is seeking to deny and destroy the ages of conserving what is true, good, and beautiful, which has been the foundation of our civilization. The very foundation that has allowed us to build to the greatest heights of excellence in every area of human flourishing. They seek to tear it down and lay a “better, newer” foundation.

That is a quite good definition of Marxist Communism since today’s tyrant has changed Marx’s original idea to one of destruction. Since his time, Soviet style, communism has destroyed entire countries like Tartar, Botswana, Mozambique, Chile, Cuba, Venezuela. It veils itself in foolish Marxist rhetoric, but eventually consumes and destroys.

But a foundation that denies truth, calls evil good and good evil, and displaces beauty with abomination, is not one that can attain even the heights we are now descending from. No, it will return us to the times of tribalism and human misery, while preserving the wealth of the select. The masses will not have the benefit of a good inheritance and become confused, even about the fundamentals of human nature. There will be no liberty, but instead tyranny. Civilization is at stake, no less.

Well said, Bryan WDE

Today’s blog is written by Bryan Mahlke, an engineer, veteran, and patriot. It is one of his first “point of view” articles. To me, what Mahlke says here is a call, not just on individual American’s but it outlines what our next run of elected officials must say to their opponents, and how our churches must encourage their members to speak out. Let me define terms:

Liberalism: in modern society is mostly misunderstood. It is the tradition that advocates free speech, a free market without government rules and regulations, and civil liberties of economic, politics, freedom of movement and speech. It is the rule, by the people, through elected officials as servants to the republic, and the general idea of “leave me alone” when it comes to government power.

That definition would fit loosely with the view of the founders of 1787-1788 and paraphrased from something longer by Wikipedia. (Full disclosure, I am a Wikipedia donor) If you look at classic conservatism; you see an entirely different style and type of definition. It is, by Wikipedia’s warning in the header, full of problems, which suggest it is not up to their standards, and may need to be rewritten. Yes, it should. It’s apparently been re-written by leftists, who abhor standards, rule and traditions that people choose to guide their lives. Leftists have parsed, redefined, and mis-characterized conservatives through their prism. It is at best, pseudo-profound nonsense.

Liberals and conservatives are not that far apart. Liberals want to be left alone, and see the offering of guides, rules, and paradigms as restrictive. Religions, some not all, and governments, have throughout history been just as guilty of moving toward the fascism that is often called liberalism. You can’t blame the liberal for not liking it. Using religion to hide behind has been a tool of tyrants, and is still being used.

That is where the fascist yrant hides—behind the name of good and well-meaning reforms. Conservatives like rules in the sense of a collective contract. We agree, metaphorically, to drive on our side of the white line, leave our neighbor’s things alone, and live together peacefully. If you want to dress differently, embrace art instead of commerce–we can live together. The only problem with that—is people. People are prone to adolescent whining and jealousy. That’s where our public leaders and pastors need to understand that leftist progressivism is not about fairness and equality. That is just what they hide behind. Leftist progressivism is no less than Soviet style aggression that destroys everything it touches until it controls everything that is left. Our leaders need to understand, explain, and fight that aggression. It’s not just modern liberals wanting edgy art and colorful murals on our buildings.

And the pastors, politicians and oldest among us should understand that the evil we face is neither liberal nor conservative. It is neo-Marxism, with is less neo and more the oldest evil in literature and scripture. Mahlke’s view is from a real conservative, and you will find none of the ideas the leftist tries to blame on them.

We are the government. We are here to help you.

Author, W.D. Edmiston

Posted in part – April 15, 2020 Tags

A recent magazine article suggests we should forgive ourselves for what what said while we were “in the dark” about the Chinese Origin Viral Infections Disease. Okay, go ahead. But there was no reason for anyone to be in the dark about the bug. News reports told us crazy things the World Health Organization and Center for Disease Control warned us government was on the wrong track. The first thing thwy said was it had a 98% mortality. Then Fauci said we didn’t need masks, and there was no need to get all shook up.

The government, those tax payer funded absent minded adult arrested adolescents decided it was the opportune time to have a crisis and they created one. I’m not at all sure it was not a plan in the works for a while before the first announcements. There will be more on that in a later post. But as a review, the article below, which I posted in April of 22 serves as a reminder of just how screwy it all got. I for one are not at all inclined to forgive tactical mistakes. Government was told, all of them, that their plan would be disastrous. Every last one of them should be voted out of office.

WE ARE THE GOVERNMENT, WE ARE HERE TO HELP YOU

Government: “You are “ordered” to stay at home unless it is essential.

Citizens: But I can go out if it’s essential.

Government: But when you go out, stay back 6 feet.

Citizens: “So we are in lockdown?”

Government: “No, you can still go in and out of town, do your essential business, your essential travel and of course we essential people in government will be here to help you.”

Citizens: “Oh, so not much has changed.”

Government: “Yes, it’s a crisis, Trump messed up everything, stay home so you don’t spread the disease.

Citizens: “I’m not sick. I feel fine. If the Highway Patrol will let us go a few miles over the speed limit without busting all of us, what if I’m 5.5 feet away, do I get a ticket?”

Government: “Well no, our mathematical models tell us everyone will just follow the nice orders and do as they are told. We shouldn’t need to enforce anything, that’s not nice.”

Citizens: “How has that worked for you with “Gun-free zones” and “Safe Spaces” and “Drug-Free Zones?”

Government: “This is different? We used the right words and we offered you an enticement.”

Citizens: “How so?”

Government: “It just is.”

Citizens: “That is an unacceptable response from government. You only function at the will of the people.”

Government: “Just stay home and respect the safety of your fellow man, uh… person… oh, human being. It’s the kind thing to do. It’s nice.”

Citizens: “Is there a curfew? Are you going to arrest me? Who says my travel is not essential?”

Government: “We can fine you or put you in jail. But we might do a curfew. But we will try to guilt you into compliance; everyone else is wearing a mask. We think you should.”

Citizens: “Who is we.”

Government: “The government. We are experts remember?”

Citizens: “Where in the law does it define what is essential, and how in the world with government’s recent record of failure, can you be experts?”

Government: “We are worried about that right now, this is a crisis.”

Citizens: “Aren’t you enforcing a few rules that the Constitution says you don’t have the right to meddle in at all.”

Government: “This is a crisis.”

Citizens: “You keep saying that. So, if certain people have written books about the government you don’t like, will that be a crisis?”

Government: “That’s different.”

Citizens: “You said that before too, but it isn’t. You forced some companies to volunteer to set up labs in their business spaces, took up the time of their people and equipment to make things for the crisis. People are being fired for wearing a masks made with stars and stripes. How is that okay?”

Government: “Some companies have volunteered to do that to help with the crisis. They are woke, are you woke? Flags are signs of oppression.”

Citizens: “But, you made companies close, and made them supply materials even if they didn’t volunteer. That is oppression. Then you stuck sick old people in nursing homes with other not-sick old people. They died.”

Government: “Probably, but don’t go getting a group of people together to discuss this, just go home and do as you are told. Getting together violates the shutdown rules. Violation is considered a mental health matter.”

Citizens: “But isn’t that the same an ordering me to keep soldiers in our homes like the King of England did to the colonists. Didn’t they tell the colonists they could not get together to ask for grievances – they had a Revolution about that didn’t they?”

Government: “You wouldn’t do that to us, we are the government, we are here to help you. We know best.”

Citizen: “Some of the state Governors have gone bat-crap-crazy thinking this gives them Martial Law abilities and then some. What says you won’t do the same thing. It is a violation of the Constitution and you are supposed to defend the Constitution, it was in your oath of office. It seems like some big corporations are getting rich off if this.”

Government: Well, that’s the States, that’s not us. Besides, I was looking for a few good campaign photo’s out of that whole oath thing and they didn’t turn out well. I can’t speak for the others. The Constitution is such an old document, do you really think it is applicable today?

Citizens: “But it is the law of the land. You cannot ignore it because it is inconvenient. What you are doing it is a direct violation of how the country was founded. It is a First Amendment issue. You can’t order the public to do something you don’t have the power to order or enforce.”

Government: “But we are helping you, you are getting a check? Look at the nice distraction, please. I do this with my car keys and the grandbaby. Look at the nice checky-poo.”

Citizens: “Very subtle, but the DOJ is already asking for more Constitutional restrictions to be lifted to detain people for as long as necessary under the crisis without a hearing. It’s a violation of the Constitution’s guarantee of a speedy trial.”

Government: “Well that’s just one idea. Did you see the check we sent you?”

Citizens: “Haven’t some of the specialists in emergency management said a general shutdown is not a cure? One guy said the masks didn’t work. The next week he said we should wear them. Then another group said the masks could make it worse. You don’t sound like experts. ”

Government: “That’s different. This won’t last a long time.”

Citizen: “You are arguing over medicines that may help. How is that helping? Why are the prices of medicines going up, and why do only the expensive ones work?”

Government: “Well you don’t know as much as we do. We are helping you be safe. Got to close some businesses to keep people safe. Gotta stay apart, gotta have testing and tested medicines. Some businesses stay open, so we can… well nevermind.”

Citizens: “But you are setting precedent, all law is based in precedent. Besides, the more people go back to work, the better off the country will be when this all passes. There are processes to allow low risk and no risk people go back to work.”

Government: “What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.”

Citizens: “That’s an entirely Marxist attitude toward the population. You seem hell bent on making businesses, especially small business suffer.”

Government: “You keep saying that kind of thing. Is there something wrong with you. We are the government, we are here to help you, we don’t do things wrong. Perhaps we should have the doctor take a look at you. You seem a little high strung, maybe you are coming down with something. Don’t worry, we are from the government, we follow the science, and we are here to help you. This all works out, the Chinese did the same thing. They are on the road to recovery.”

Citizens: “The Chinese lie to their people about their statistics, they have no respect for them or their lives. I should feel so much better because we are following the success of a totalitarian dictatorship?”

Government: “See, I told you the government was here to help you.”

Everything is Broken

The terms Build Back Better and The Great Reset, sound wonderful. But to question the inference, they also say, “everything you know, everything your parents taught you, that you found good, and you enjoyed in this society, is broken.”

By extension, that means you too. Does that sound logical to you? If we need a reset, or need to build back – doesn’t that say either “build from a different foundation” or “clear the screen and start over?” If you are part of the country, you need to forget all you know and start over, build back, reset, get with the program.

Your elected officials in government, along with their agency friends and appointees, think you are broken, dysfunctional, and thinking the wrong way. Most of those in the upper tier, think you were born unfit for anything past hourly wage work. Listen to them, they will tell you. How many times have they said, our schools must teach our children the skills they need to get a good job.

Not, to cure cancer, not to invent, help create new ways of developing individual talent, Individuality is the problem, you must be part of something. The manufacturers have control of things like new phones, new computers, and plans to introduce incrementally upgraded versions into the 22^nd century. They don’t want you to learn so much you invent something we never heard of to replace both. Maybe a ring you wear that opens a neural pathway, to the internet that displays in your head, with a display you can change by thinking. That would bankrupt them. Gone like the buggy whip and galvanized milk can.

It is a delightful irony that the people in our government too, with its record of waste, lost millions, overreach, and foolish human pride, thinks they can just dream up programs to save us. “If you just sit still a minute, we will sort this out.” They seem to say.

Sitting still is the road to poverty, the solution to anything is movement, creation, excellence. Politicians are supposed to arrive at the Congress, with a list of ideas from the people in the areas they serve, their constituents. Instead, they cozy up with the long-term office holders who tell them how things are done in Washington. The notepad with their list of constituents wishes is used to level a desk with a missing foot-pad, something practical.

We must stop treating these folks like movie stars. Those who have been there long enough to know “how things work” have overstayed their welcome. How things work is how the American voter, tells them to work. They are underperforming, self-indulgent public servants with a tendency toward opportunistic graft.

So much out of the ordinary has happened in the last few weeks that relate to TriA behavior, it seemed time to post a blog or two about them.

Too many Americans, taught in public schools, have the attitude, “What can I do about it?” But they do not vote saying, “My one vote does not count.” That’s faulty logic, and you learned it in school. How often were you offered a vote in public school, the ability to decide for yourself? Do remember learning to make decisions? Were you told to think for yourself, what deduction or reasoning were and how to use them? Probably not. It is seldom on the curriculum. Modern schooling is about discipline, passing state tests, and group promotion. All off it is an old, outdated system, forced on schools by big business-who want you and your children stamping parts and entering data eight hours a day.

This kind of logic is made for the adult arrested adolescent, or TriA, a person the union influenced public schools delivered on the easiest kind of education. Those who believe there is an ultimate authority on every issue, who do not think for themselves and believe mainstream media sources. There is a better way. See, The TriA Book on Amazon

There you go again. . .

Both Democrat candidates for the President and Vice President are spouting claims of hypocrisy while simultaneously playing hide-the-weenie with even those left-leaning media folk who always support them. The main-stream media cannot get a straight answer out of them any more than Trump could in the debate. The choice of candidates that will shoot straight with America is beginning to weed themselves out. Trump has so many claims about him that even if he was caught with a secretary in a DNA laden blue dress, you could not separate that out from the many claims that are transparently false. Meanwhile, Harris is hiding a lot of skeletons in her closet and Biden seems to be hiding in a closet taking a nape.

A recent Wall Street Journal commentary article by Johnathan James (below) asked,

“Is this the Democrats’ presidential version of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s infamous 2010 plea that lawmakers needed to first pass a behemoth health care reform bill so the country could find out what was in it?“

Read the article here: “Harris Takes After Biden, Dodges Question on Packing Court”

Our Schools are not Smart

Part Three -One of the efforts to change modern schools that have shown some success are the charter schools. Some of them have been extraordinarily successful while others have closed for various and not consistent reasons. Harvard Education Magazine published an article in 2017 that describes the origin of Charter Schools as a locally controlled, small system that matched community needs to the education children received. The idea took off with major donors like Bill Gates and the Walton Foundation supporting them. Bill Clinton supported the movement and few candidates today dare not support “school choice,” although the progressives tend to call all sorts of things “choice” when they are not. Charter School success and its attraction to donors almost immediately made it a pop-up target for the firing squad in the district level teachers and of course the National Education Agency and of course the American Federation of Teachers(AFT.) The AFT mirrors the NEA in its focus as well as its founding. It was founded by pacifists and leftists as a union. It became embroiled in politics early with Albert Shanker a son of Russian born parents. His rabid union work upset and pushed back real education reform in New York for decades. They too are strongly against the Charter School idea. On the other hand, the Charter School should be more accurately called a Franklin School. They are local and designed to teach in a similar manner to what Benjamin Franklin envisioned.

Politics and Junk Science and Jealousy

One of the early proponents of Charter Schools Chester Finn said that charter schools report uneven success rates. That is to be expected in any new system not troubled by an over-arching body that sets out goals or uses such a set of goals to measure their success. Finn went on to say, that what people understand about charter schools is about the same mix of misunderstanding. But when they discovered, by the presentation of a two-sentence description of them the rate of approval jumped from 28% to 52%

“If you are an adult invested in district education for jobs, and you discover charters are slowing eating your lunch, you will grow intense in your desire to contain or kill charters.” Finn

At the time of the Harvard article there were 3 million children in Charter Schools, by 2020 another 2.7 million were added with several times that many hoping to get into them in the future.

What is the problem between the NEA or district school systems and Charter Schools? Want to guess? You are right, it is the money. The chief exception to Charter Schools is that they syphon off money that should go to the “backbone of American Education” which are to the progressives, public schools. But secretly, I would suggest it is the fact they are being outperformed by direct teaching and not the NEA approach of sprinkling it over the tops of the children like fairy dust and hope it creates magic.

The point of it all? If you went to middle school or high school any time in the last fifty years you did not get the education your parents paid for. A great deal of the money went to progressive democrat candidates directly from Union leadership of the National Education agency and the American Federation of Teachers. In 2016 they gave $32 million dollars to progressive Democrat candidates.

Home Schooling is Growing Fast and Gaining Acceptance.

The home-schooling programs and co-operatives that have begun in middle-class America have been surprising. Many liberals ignored it at first, assuming it was a passing fad. On March 23, 2016, a publication of the National Home Education Research Institute, by Bryan D. Ray said:

Homeschooling – that is, parent-led home-based education; home education – is an age-old traditional educational practice that a decade ago appeared to be cutting-edge and “alternative” but is now bordering on “mainstream” in the United States. It may be the fastest-growing form of education in the United States. Home-based education has also been growing around the world in many other nations (e.g. Australia, Canada, France, Hungary, Japan, Kenya, Russia, Mexico, South Korea, Thailand, and the United Kingdom) . . . There are about 2.5 million home-educated students in the United State . . . it appears the home school populations are continuing to grow (at an estimated 2% to 8% per annum) over the last few years.

According to Ray no single group has embraced home-schooling. It is not a religion only group, nor is it a “hippie thing” and cannot be sloughed off as a niche. The parents are neither all black nor all white and race seems to play no part in the piles of information gathered about their social makeup our outcomes. Gender, social skill, status, or ability to make and have friends has no effect. Most of the children have higher test scores than those taught in government schools. It is a way forward to what might be called common knowledge; the ideas that parents and family are best suited to teach children. When we follow the money, we see that taxpayers spend $11,732 per pupil while homeschool families spend about $600 per year.

To me, the home school movement is the best evidence that exists that American parents really care about their children’s education and safety. When my son was in scouting many of our more motivated scouts were home-schooled. Two of them, had little in common other than scouting but became friends. One was from a thrifty, church going, home-school family and the other had parents who often fought, drank, and did not provide help or even a quiet space for him to study. Because he was often late to public school he was expelled; his parents being too drunk to drive. Together, the two scouts began working together to get high school diplomas. It took two years. One of the other families gave him a computer, a neighbor allowed him to use his Wi-Fi. When they graduated, they took a placement test for the military. Because of their good grades and test results, both were quickly accepted for military training. Their Eagle Scout badges placed each of them in special rank and salary. Home schooling works.

Most of the 300 million schoolchildren currently quarantined in their homes will return to school once the epidemic fades. But some parents may discover that learning outside of schooling benefited their children and strengthened their family. They may start to wonder if homeschooling or other schooling alternatives could be a longer-term option. They may realize that education without schooling is not a crisis but an opportunity. Forbes

There is another matter; children have found they like computer education more than expected. That sends another many-sided message entirely to schools, legislators, parents and business. Maybe, redesigning education to suit a Democracy instead of old outmoded German beliefs set up by politician Horace Mann and progressive John Dewey.

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Schools are Indoctrination, not Smart or Democratic

The National Education Agency

Part Two – The hobgoblin in this story is the National Education Agency. Since the 1940’s the NEA has been the richest union in the country and has followed Wundtian policies to place political activists in something like 4000 politically active campaigns or in local congressional districts around the United States. Like Wundt, they use their own sources to create “experts” who will legitimize their greatness and ability by holding workshops that give continuing education credit and even graduate school credits to those that attend. Of course, the Department of Education, the oversight arm of American government, is full of either former NEA members or ones trained in their workshops. This means that even in non-union states like Texas, the government programs, and requirements for things like Michelle Obama’s questionable lunch menu must be met. Government standards are often cut-and-paste versions of NEA recommendations. The NEA is one of the larger donors to Democrat causes giving hundreds of millions of dollars each year. It encourages its teacher to vote for Democrat candidates in not-so-subtle-ways. Money is flying in every direction but especially in states with union campuses

No middle-class parents I have ever met actually believe that their kid’s school is one of the bad ones. Not one. . .

John Taylor Gatto[1], Author, award winning teacher

Bias, Groomed to be Governed

Numerous books and articles have been written about our schools being “dumbed down” and the maestro of that idea is John Tayler Gatto. It would be a good idea to read Gatto’s book as soon as possible if you have children. It is a powerful read for parents or those who want our education system to match our American lifestyle. Mr. Gatto has a thousand good ideas. He was the teacher of the year in New York in 1991.

He introduces us to the “Seven-Lesson School teacher” in an hour long speech, given to Alliant International University, a home schooling group. His talk is about what they dodged by home schooling and keeping their kids out of modern schools. Gatto explains that rather than giving children the three R’s we are using the excuse of teaching them, while they are groomed to be governed. Gatto has other books and a series of YouTube seminars explaining deficiencies with the schools he has observed. Gatto died in 2018 and as this is written there is no champion, I have found that has picked up his torch.

What has happened is the Charter School and Home School movement? The very fact that the National Education Agency is against them is proof enough they might be on a better track. The effect of the unintended consequences of the COVID Crisis may result in even greater success. Hurricane Katrina turned New Orleans schools into an almost 100% Charter School system according to Forbes Magazine.

Myth in Education, Ideology, Radicalism & Magical Thinking

Today’s liberal, left-wing, Marxist, progressive, and nice beliefs about education are discarded theories that have been elevated to “sacred” status. One of the more poorly understood is the myth of the supremacy of Dewey style, liberal education. When it was introduced it was considered progressive or something related to progress. Everyone assumed that progress was a good thing and everyone should be all for it. It was yet another misnomer, a good word added to a bad thing. Progressive does not relate to progress, science, and academic rigidity, development of individualism, talent, or exceptional skill. Progressive education is about control. It is focused on the need of the upper classes and intellectuals to enforce their control on a nation of voters who they believe are not able to manage themselves properly. It is behavioral modification of the type we often call brain-washing lumped beneath the less frightening term; progressive. It is rampant in our schools, on television, video games, and movie plots.

Progressive liberals’ myths are held by those who have deep convictions that Marxist doctrines are fair and equal. Those are really just magical thinking about practical matters. Fair and equal do not apply to multitudes, they apply to friends, neighbors, children. But liberals believe in fairness and equality and they are not afraid to manipulate truth, reality, or your children’s minds to introduce them to those ideologies. Their beliefs fueled by those myths lead them to be convinced that the only cure for the world is a single government. Toward that end, they see the population of that world easiest to manipulate and control when they are not well informed. When it is pointed out that every attempt at socialism has ended in failure, the respond that it has not yet been tried the right way.

The population in a world government should not think there are options, only that their government will keep them relatively safe. Both Aldous Huxley and George Orwell included a drug in their dystopian novels that calmed the population to keep them occupied. Both authors feared even in their time, the idea of a world government that would quickly and without discussion become out of control. Do you think that might be the reason those in the upper classes, who are afraid of the unwashed masses, might support the use of recreational drugs today?

They think a dumbed-down, distracted population, controlled by an unlimited one-world government is the solution to world peace. They equate world peace to more money and power for themselves. They come to this conclusion in Wundtian fashion without regard for the soul or the desires of many to do more for themselves that merely have a safe and happy existence. They have not employed the scientific method. They tell us and themselves they have and developed no usable theory. It is just another belief, based in an ancient myth; one most people had no idea how frightening the limits of “the one-world” were. Eventually, left unchecked, they will use Soviet and Alinsky style controls to get power and line their pockets.

The Second Myth

Photo – Elizabeth Blanquel – Unsplash

The second myth is that there is some proven practical system already devised and used in some other school, or once-upon-a-time place that teaches reading, writing, and arithmetic extremely well and produces relatively age-appropriate literacy in those areas. It has never happened that way. There is no universal system of the sort. Progressive education tells us that they have reams and reams of data and studies to back up their methods, but all of them are the same basic old German methodology that is out of sync with American Constitutional values. Of course, removing the protections we have been guaranteed by the Constitution has been their plan all along.

The third and last section on schools will be posted in a couple of days. Meanwhile, take time to leave us your email so we can keep you up to speed on new books, events or other stories. Just use the Mailerlite form in the sidebar. No spam, we promise

[1] Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling John Taylor Gatto, 2017/1992 New Society Publishers, POB 189, Gabriola Island, BC, BCVoR 1Xo, Canada

Our Schools are not Smart

Modern Schools are not smart

Part One – As the probable cause report on Adult Arrested Adolescent gets closer to its end, schools must be the last and most sensitive area of concern. It is because nice people and dupes have allowed the National Education Agency, which is not national, not education, and not as the word seems to imply, part of our government — to function as if it were. The National Education Agency is the poster child for a progressive group that is hidden by its name. The NEA is a union in the style of the old brass knuckles AFL/CIO and Teamsters. It is not about educating children as much as representing teachers. If it were appropriately named it would be the Progressive Teachers Association. Its self-undertaken role to make schools subject to centralized style, top-down control is the problem for America and our school systems. By now, the evidence that the left has no boundaries to how they will skew things should be evident. It is no stretch then to look at the National Education Agency and find more than one hobgoblin in their activity. The American Federation of Teachers has similar clout, financing, and progressive bent. Both groups are some of the biggest donors to primarily progressive, Democrat political campaigns.

There are numerous books, journals, articles, and online stories on modern education that say our schools are failing. Before we go into describing the sins of those who purposely misuse and purposely design failure into our system there is something else that is important. In 1981, almost 40 years ago Ronald Reagan had a study made that you should find interesting – read it as your time allows. One of its major findings was:

Secondary school curricula have been homogenized, diluted, and diffused to the point that they no longer have a central purpose. In effect, we have a cafeteria style curriculum in which the appetizers and desserts can easily be mistaken for the main courses

The single biggest problem with fixing them is the concept that “there must be a way for us to follow.” Most famously, in recent times is Common Core. The problem is not that specific system regardless of who designed it. It is the idea that there is a way, common, singular. It is not, “No Child Left Behind,” ” Montessori, ” or “Every Student Succeeds Act” either.

There is no one-size-fits-all method that applies well to anything. Did you know the first shoes were neither right nor left? It did not matter what foot you put them on. The idea did not last long. The average thinker who has tried multi-tools, do-it-all cooking pots, or similar gadgets sold on late-night TV should be aware of that. You don’t work on the Space-X rocket with a cheap sloppy adjustable wrench. You use tools designed for the situation. Teaching should focus on local needs and the teachers should be allowed to design their own methods within a set of learning goals. Those teachers are much more likely to reach high goals than a loose-fitting government blob of data.

The public assumes that someone somewhere has created a well-balanced set of educational attainments that prepare our children to be good citizens, good employees who know how to manage their money and deal with bills and a household. We want children to be comfortable with science and mathematics well enough to do a good job or advance to higher-order skills in college. Graduates should also read and write well. To large a number are leaving schools with diplomas and with few or none of those skills.

Each community has different needs. The children who will make their lives in those communities need to be educated to meet community them. To attempt to force-fit an adjustable education to Chicago and Southern Louisiana with the same curriculum is a poorly thought out plan. It is an attempt to make education easy. The only way teaching is easy and applicable is within a family setting in a community where children are safe and supported by extended members. It worked quite well that way for many years either side of the Revolutionary War. That changed with government control of education after the Civil War. This can be substantiated by a short review of how schools have worked in the past. Applicable teaching is not easy for a centralized government source – so they dumb it down. Local school systems must take their own educational needs seriously and many do.

Over the last several decades, social meddlers have attempted to design education with a little bit of everything or a lot of only the things that are universal to all children’s needs. That did not work well either. There are of course some parts that are common, but just the common things are not education. Most importantly, schools have been playing babysitter too long. If it takes twelve years to educate children when the basics can be attained in only 100 hours, as experts have claimed, there is something wrong. What are they learning?

In times of change, learners inherit the earth; while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists. Eric Hoffer, Ordeal of Change[1]

They are fully indoctrinated to believe in contradictory messages. These are poorly substantiated Green movements whose goals are not what they seem to be. They teach racial inequality by teaching equality – each step defines a more difficult level of equality to reach, making perpetuation of racial unrest the norm. They teach anti-violence while simultaneously enforcing class division with tests that separate the higher scoring to the lowest scoring. The actual effect is for the students to easily see who the “dumb” ones are; and that is how they view it. Their non-violence goals also ignore the validity of the Constitution and the amendments that enumerate areas government is not allowed to regulate. Then classes devalue human life while teaching sexual education in fringe courses. Schools teach no moral codes or the need for personal codes of conduct. Instead, they expect all of us to look to government authority as the judge of human behavior. Then they attack the foundations of America – especially religion, the character of our founders, and the actions of people by rewriting history in textbooks and publications like the 1619 Project. The trouble with all of this stems from those around thirty-five years of age who are primarily taught in progressive schools and are fully Adult Arrested Adolescents. They have been taught to think they should apply 21st-century values to those who were living in 18th and 19th-century conditions they know nothing about.

The NEAs stated goal is to change America from a country of individual free thinkers to one of inclusion, collectivism, and decision making based on feelings, e. g. progressive.

A part of the progressive educational process is to always keep the students in a lower rank, having little power, and therefore in many schools, the students live by a code that tells them that to be “too smart” is not a good idea. This is an unintended consequence of an education system in which the inmates recognize the lack of coherence and shallow content of the program. Therefore, they think they should just shut up, get out of school any way they can and do as they please. They have no idea how they will get on with their lives unless their parents continue to support them, or luck intervenes.

Parts two and three will follow this blog in the week August 17 – 21. Sign up, give us your email and we will notify you of upcoming offers, new books, and good news. Thanks for reading. We welcome your comments.

[1] Hoffer, Eric, Ordeal of Change, 2006, Hopewell Publications, LLC., Titusville, NJ

About the Police – Leadership

Part Three – We need our police because we know nothing about safety in America is going to change as a result of the recent social unrest. We are not foolish enough to think all this horror in American cities will have a positive outcome.

We have seen riots before, they do not really work well. Mr. Obama says these riots are not like those of the ’60s and ’70s. I was there in uniform then, and while what the protests are different, the lives that are being disadvantaged if not destroyed are exactly the same. What Obama offers to fix the problem are more agendized public officials and Union labor contracts based on fairness and equality. Those are what caused today’s problem. What the public knows is that protests and rioting, breaking things, and destroying lives cannot work. They do not achieve their goals. They are temporary social upheavals. You cannot create peace by harming a large part of the public – especially those who are offering jobs. What that period did was make society more open to things like abortion, sexual experimentation that led to the AIDS and Hepatitis epidemics, open drug use, and gang violence. That’s what the turmoil of the ’60s and ’70s brought to America; a coarsening of our public. Then the liberty we gave to our people to live below their promise has us holding our noses in many American cities. The police had nothing to do with that, it was the public and weak public officials that dumbed down the penal code and softened their stand on maintaining order.

Good police officers cannot be led by less-than-ideal supervisors with great vision, high personal standards, and advanced training. Even the best police agency is a blunt tool for establishing good public policy. And good public policy starts with making people feel they have opportunities, not that they need help and handouts. Even more important is for the executives of the community to have a real understanding of the police department’s role. It is to make people feel safe. New political candidates, in their naivete of the role of a city leader’s responsibility, cannot do well without training or experience. That role requires a high level of wisdom, maturity, and critical thinking skills. The short answer to what will work best is what we have done before, arresting bad people and sending them to court to be judged. But sometimes we stray into ideas and procedures that seemed good at the time, but now we wonder. Soft courts have made a huge impact on that problem.

Where this has been most obvious is in drug enforcement. Drugs are a difficult issue, but the methodology of ratcheting up the heavy-handedness of drug enforcement, while complicating the prosecution, evidence gathering and adding asset forfeiture processes are an overreach. The use of more and more military-style approaches to defeat drug suppliers scares the public. Officers are not perfect and when they play soldier the do what soldiers do, break things, and kill people. The public sees that as excessive. Especially while the culture, and adolescently minded media figures, including the newly elected city officials, either use or make jokes about drugs. The public sees that and they do not trust it.

The reaction young police officers have to that sort of training is to want to use it to go home at the end of shift. It frustrates police chiefs when officers often forget that they must do their regular jobs while remembering they represent all the public, not just their own goals of being super cops. But politicians love big drug busts. So frequently our people are on the news, sporting more pads than an NFL lineman and scary black weapons. Dealing with the public should not take several layers of bulletproof material. When people respected police officers, and the officers did not think every time they took a call their lives would be threatened, it didn’t. In part, the so-called War on Drugs has made us hyper-vigilant, worried, suspicious, and mildly deranged.

The drug wars have complicated enforcement. It tends to focus on big busts while ignoring the damage to the public trust that comes from military-style engagements. Meanwhile, the profit potential involved in drug supply has outstripped the economy of almost every other commodity on the planet.
Totally lost on those public servants and the public they serve is that any resistance to police authority is an affront to society; a resistance to civilization. It is not just some young person resisting the police they have been taught to disrespect. The kids are really resisting us. In other words, you and I, and the civility we expect from everyone around us. The weak politicians with, wink-wink attitudes toward monied people who they protect, and give special treatment do not make them popular with the working class either. The Rule of Law is just that, a rule, it is not the “best practices” of criminal reorientation.

Well trained police chiefs know that there are several lifetimes of development behind what they do. There are large and small improvements, safeguards, procedures, methods, and scientific approaches already in place that tell officers how to deal with the public on what may be the worst day of their lives.

So, there you have it. More than what the defund police reformers are asking for is already written into the structure of police agencies. Not only that, but it has also been improved over the last almost 200 years. There is a problem, the police have been dumbed down by the very same kind of Adult Arrested Adolescence that the protestors represent. We have been scolded by emotionally frail, agendized adults, who have regressed into childish behavior because of the false ideology of fairness and equality. Their goal amounts to making sure nobody gets their feelings hurt while being arrested. What has not changed is that the protestors have not had a similar improvement in their approach. They still want to break things and kill people. These are not primarily peaceful protests.

The early Dragnet radio and television shows featured Jack Webb in the role of Sergeant Joe Friday. Sgt. Friday, on the occasion an police officer was caught doing criminal things often said, “The only problem we have with getting good police officers is having to choose them from the human race.”
The police career has a cost. But people able to be good police officers recognize their job exposes them to that worst day of the lives of ordinary people. What people do to each other evokes a realness that only those who have done it can appreciate. When social reformers, union interests, and dilettantes try to make the job a neat and clean one, they attack the police, thereby disturbing the civil order you and I expected them to provide in the first case.

People are not animals, and they should not be subjected to social experimenting. Right now there are a lot of “experts” who think people can be behaviorally trained, by developing new types of reality. New types of living spaces, new relationships that depend on groups instead of individual effort. They think people can be controlled by tuning their brains to listen to music and be preoccupied while doing menial work. They can have exercise on bikes with televisions that take them riding in foreign countries, being heroes inside of video games. There is a problem with that. What you see in dozens of movies and television series like Total Recall, Fringe, Terminator, and Lucy are attempts to soften your resistance to living in an alternate reality. Think of how easy people will be to manage if they do not need to visit Italy or the Pyramids. We can show them pictures just like they are there. It is nothing more than what the Romans offered their citizens. Those people worked hard, had few things luxuries, and did not enjoy much freedom in a ridged society. But rather often, the Roman government offered up what they called, “bread and games” or what you may know as Gladiators fighting in arenas; Chariot Races; and Animal Spectaculars. All of these were brutal and uncivilized by modern standards. But they kept the citizens happy enough they would not riot or cause problems. Now our leaders are leaning toward giving us alternate realities to distract them from life’s drudgery. Not a way to improve yourself or incrementally improve your situation. They only want the population distracted and made compliant. It will only be a short step to using powerful, subliminal messages during the games to reinforce compliance in all things. If you think that is silly, ask yourself how many times you have lost track of time on a video game, or social media.

Now come the thinkers. These young skulls are full of new ideas that, because of their total lack of a good education, they think are new. Those kids assume because they have an idea it is better than those developed and polished over decades. They know this, how? Why from watching television and shows that tell them the engine that drives America, capitalism cannot be trusted. That all persons involved in corporations and those corporations are greedy, have no social consciousness, and do not mind trampling the little guy with their hob-nailed boots. They know this stuff because it has been spoon-fed them by the very people who plan to control them using those tropes.

People need police not because 99% are dangerous as the top tier elitists fear, but because for a thousand different reasons, 1 or 2% of the population does not work and play well with others. Those are the very people you see burning down cities across the nation. Do you really think that type of person gets a gold watch and retires to the suburbs after their goofy ideas about no police are met. No, they will decide something else is broken. They may decide everything in the suburbs should belong to them or be destroyed. In fact, they have already said that. They are the people who disobey rules simply because there are rules.

There is another fact that the genral public understands. We have seen it in recent polls. Some 80 of all social strata of people think the police need to stay right where they are – maybe made a little stronger. Why is that? Because we have long memories.

***

This is the last of the three-part series on the police. Something else will come up and when it does, look here for my take on it. Sign up for future announcements, new books and other offers.

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About Adolescence Then and Now

O Adolescence, O Adolescence,
I wince before thine incandescence.
Thy constitution young and hearty
Is too much for this aged party.
Thou standest with loafer-flattened feet
Where bras and funny papers meet.
When anxious elders swarm about
Crying “Where are you going?”,
thou answerest “Out,”
Leaving thy parents swamped in debts
For bubble gum and cigarettes….
Ogden Nash,

What we know about Adolescence now.

Part One – In the last post, the discussion was about Hoffer and Adult Arrested Adolescence. If we are going to examine the theory of the Tri-A maybe describing adolescence would be good.

To review, the thesis is that certain adults keep adolescent characteristics well into adulthood, partially out of habit but also because as their brains develop, they get “stuck” in adolescence. My first question was, “If they fail to break out of an adolescent thought structure do their brains fully develop?” Observation seems to show they do not.

This connects to two of the principal features of the adult arrested adolescent state. The first is what Hopper describes as “damaged self” and it is a description of a type of personality development that includes substantial self-loathing. The second is a matter of brain development that fixes (arrests) the adult in the complex of adolescent behaviors.

There is a third concern, and it is that Adult Arrested Adolescents (TriA) are easily groomed for risky street protest activity by movement organizers. Since the adult brain is not fully formed until the age of 25 years, it is not fully capable of critical analysis until approximately that age. So, they are easily led. Failing to break out of adolescent naïveté and into adult responsibility leaves them in a thinking pattern that is so emotional and so able to believe two or more completely contradictory ideas; they may eventually need the help of a psychiatrist or counselor.

You try to protect them from something like this – but this is something new. It is due, many professionals conclude and empirical evidence suggests, to the protective nature of helicopter parents and a permissive agendized society that wants children to be pliable and easily led. Adolescence was once a very brief period of development. Today it may last from ages 12 through 24. That may be why your kiddo spends most of their time playing and will not keep a job.

Everything your child hears sees or reads today has been written with an intent to persuade them to adopt some cause or buy some product. They are also urged toward a liberal agenda as if it were a religion. It’s not coming from the black and white TV screens mounted on dark grey walls like Orwell’s movie 1984. But even while coming from the bright lights and colorful videos and animations, the aim is no different. News commentators, late-night hosts, sit-coms and sanctimonious documentaries tell us we must do something to save something else. It is all converting your child — and you into a different worldview.

Along with that limitation, s smothering parents and the progressive schools leave them with no adult script as they grow older. As Ammie Holmquist described in her article on “Adulting,” they may become attracted to any person or movement that promises to care for them. The article points out that Adulting schools have been created to teach children basic chores taught by parents in previous generations.

The latest generations of parents have kept their children so involved in band, track, dance, and other after school activities that they have less opportunity to learn from extended family. It is doubtful the latest round of parents can teach the same practical chores of just twenty-five years ago. Children are told they are special, that great things are in store. As a result, they wait around with their video games for those things to happen. Children who are taught they are exceptional get the idea they are owed good things. Some never even consider doing something to get them through their own effort.

Children who are never taught how to lose and win cannot deal effectively with difficult periods of life. Peter Grey, In Psychology Today, said “America’s college students are delicate, immature wusses who become traumatized, get the vapors and seek professional counseling any time they face adversity or — God forbid — earn a grade lower than a ‘B.” Grey blames “helicopter parents” who have kept their kids so busy with after school activities where they are protected and coddled. Their games have no winners, their achievements are made on safe sports courts and their practical education is made up of things they paste to cardboard display boards in science classes.

The results of the 2016 election show that his ideas have merit as liberal college kids sought counseling in record numbers when Hillary Clinton did not win the 2016 election. There is the opposite of being pampered. My children are adopted. After leaving law enforcement working in the adoption field was my next step. There was a big learning curve as well as some familiar themes on behavior and psychology. Children who are abandoned, mistreated, hurt, or deprived are just as confused by a system without parents. My children were lost in a world of make-believe to the point I once heard them comparing which Pokemon hero would best protect them if a burglar broke in the house. Many children coming through the foster care system were prone to magical thinking and believing in myth. They were the same type of “damaged” person that Hoffer described. There are always some in every one of my classrooms. They need attention, they get lost in Manga fantasy comics and are easily led by social movements and imaginative games and movies. They are easily led to gangs, race-related beliefs, and proselytizing from community organizers. They are told they are somehow being picked on and the deck is stacked against them. There is even a backward belief that it does not make any difference if they get an education, no one is going to let them be successful. They too become victims of a different brand of mass movement populist, most of whom forget them until the next election.

The main things you will see in adolescents are these six traits. Any parent who has dealt with a child between two and twenty-one is familiar. The next step will be to compare these things to what we see when the Tri-A is in action either in your world or the world stage.

A shortlist of adolescent characteristics:

• Creation and asserting identity, who am I?
• Resisting Rules and Authority/Magical Thinking
• It is a highly emotional period, ranging from hilarity to depression.
• Independence and self-centeredness
• Creating strong friendships
• Rapid changes in behavior, identity disturbance – or trying to find oneself.

In the Tri-A, these characteristics look a little different. You have a young adult through a full-grown older person who still thinks like an adolescent.

Seeking Identity – these fall into one of several groups. One I have dealt with often in law enforcement hiring is the “Comma Guy” who is not happy with the answer to, “Who am I?” They want to become police officers to answer that question. Their business card will then read, Bill Dewanabe, Police Officer. What comes after the comma can be private investigator, massage therapist (unlicensed,) but often can be translated – “self-proclaimed world’s foremost authority.” These types may have some college hours but are still poorly educated social misfits with low self-esteem. They want to re-invent themselves by literally wearing their identity as police officers, fire personnel, and of course, political candidates. They make poor police officers and worse politicians.

The next characteristic is resisting rules and magical thinking. Adolescence is a period characterized by both depression and a few manic periods thrown in. There will always be one who slips booze on the band bus or takes the family car on a joy ride with their friends long before they have a license. They have a bit of arrogance that says, the rules do not always apply to me. Move that forward into their late 20’s and they will have at least one DWI or minor arrest. Flaunting rules is like magical thinking, they have something special that makes the rules not applicable to them. In children, it means they believe in Santa Claus. But Tri-As, believe in unproven quasi-scientific doom and gloom scenarios right up to and including a zombie apocalypse caused by a rogue comet. They believe in the ‘butterfly effect,’ that is the wafting of wings of a butterfly in Colorado will cause a ripple that will eventually lead to a hurricane in the lower Caribbean.

Elsewhere you heard that adolescence is a highly emotional period of depression and hilarity. A lot of adults who binge drink, want quickie sex with anonymous partners, or often flip out into full rage are Tri-As who learned no impulse control. Suicides also fit into this mold. Those who learn some impulse control and can hide their highs and lows can be incredibly good in sales and motivation businesses, maybe entertainers. But the highs have lows and can become real psychological problems and being unable to control their emotions may become deadly. These Tri-As are the bomb-throwers in their chosen mass movement. Add to that, they are often willing to die for the cause, and every hill is the one they want to die on. From the perspective of a manager of a business or a police agency – we cannot have those people around because they are completely unpredictable. But to an agenda-driven community organizer, these people are golden. It does not bother them that they may die – the movement may not let them live after the revolution anyway. So many, like the Bolsheviks and the Brown Shirts found that out the hard way.

The last three categories in the list can be positives as well as negatives. Good friends are important to everyone, but having friends you continue to call “nice guys” when they are doing bad things is a problem. The TriA cannot differentiate between a real friend and one who is simply using them. Both independence and loyalty can be misplaced when the TriA has enjoyed the new friends in the local chapter of a mass movement. Even their parents cannot convince them the fun they are having in the group is not good. The last category, trying to find oneself should be done in good positive attempts to improve things. Following a cause and trying to promote a myth created by community organizers or Hezbollah are not positives. But young people do it every day and join a cause that will ultimately ruin them.

If our country has such a huge number of adult and almost adult people, who lack critical thinking skills, think magically, and are groomed to only accept the word of a central authority inside government or a politically correct does the country have a crisis? It is after all the very essence of the argument for the separation of Church and State. The overall tilt of society toward social issues is the very epitome of a religion. It is buying into a system that demands it be able to tell us what do to.

***
This is part one of a three-part article. Part 2 will discuss how a huge Union and mythology affect education. It will also introduce you to a Teacher of the Year who says schools indoctrinate rather than teach…

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About the Police – High Standards

Part Two – A modern police agency must have certain things, a court to which arrested persons are referred to guarantee rights, like Miranda, bond, legal representation, and judgment. Usually, there is some sort of jail or holding cell, and then the offender is transferred to a county-level system. A police department cannot operate without a supportive court system and the will of the city/county elected officials to monitor them. They are, by one definition, the last resort for a community. When a family or some citizens cannot control themselves, the city uses the police. Most importantly, the police are there because the city’s streets, roads, and other delights cannot keep 100% of the people happy.

Why do we have a police agency anyway? Simply, because writing up a city charter with lofty goals and written do’s and don’ts is not sufficient to give the other 99% of the population of any given city protection from the 1% who will try to live by the ancient moral code of, “you are not the boss of me.”

That simple fact should throw cold water on the concept of “defunding” the police and sending in helpful social workers. At least a tiny percentage will act criminally if for no other reason because there is a rule that says they cannot. They will not react well to someone wagging a finger in their face or suggesting that they channel their aggressive tendencies into more socially acceptable behaviors. Experience has taught us that getting old is the only predictable reason for a criminal to stop their behavior. That is because it just gets too hard to deal with the jail, the fines, or family pressure as the mind and body grow older. No prison reform system has been created that successfully “rehabilitates” criminals. That is a sad, but simple fact.

Police agencies were created when the Night Watch system failed. Just leaving a lookout, roaming the city sounds fine, but the reality was that those chosen were drunks, thieves themselves, or tended to sleep all night. A true police agency was not founded until organizational and philosophical procedures were established. The revisionist history theorists want to lump what they call slave catchers in with the night watch. Their goal is disingenuous, it is not to correct history, but to attempt to tie slavery to the foundation of not only policing but America’s early history. That is a factual error. Slave catching was never involved, and should never be associated with Criminal Justice in any way. It does not have a connection to a court system, city charter, or organizational and procedural underpinnings. The “arrested” had no rights, no protection of an attorney, nothing. Typically, when slaves were caught, they got a beating. That too is not part of an organized, professional police agency.

What advocates of a watered-down police approach ask for is accountability and a system that allows the police and courts the discretion to give leniency to some offenders, with honesty on all levels. But accountability and a system that gives leniency to some and not others are self-contradictory. The police feel the same way about accountability – at least those who deserve to wear the uniform do. But this is one place where equality is not well-liked by nice people who see enforcement as something sad for the offender. Holding others accountable often results in sadness which the soft-hearted find troubling. That is a problem with maturity.

What they all miss due to their own inability to think critically, is that those are the organizational guidelines every police agency in America uses now. What confounds those practices are, liberal, contradictory policies; making police jobs a part of union bargaining, allowing political pressure to throttle police investigation of criminality and criminal organizations, and applying utopian thinking to a procedure that deals with imperfect and broken things.

Unions are inherently Marxist/utopian ideas, whereas police agencies are inherently conservative. Police respond when social order has broken down. At best they restore the status quo – they do not reach past status quo and create a perfect or utopian society. That is not in the job description nor is it practical. The only place where near-utopian standards are called for in police agencies is in hiring and in their executive management positions. Good backgrounds are indicators of good future conduct.

Unions always try to lower hiring standards in the name of fairness, equality, and lower salaries. Such liberal and leftist thinking always see police recruitment as a jobs program to either lower salaries or build a voting base. That type of hiring devolves into a low average group of persons in areas like skill, education, ability to communicate, and learn. I have called them “beige” police recruits for years. That practice skews the ability of the hiree to perform a higher level of police performance. Police agencies need education and higher relative intelligence to meet their organizational goals. Dumbing down their hiring policies is backward thinking. They have no vibrancy; they have no willingness to be exceptional or to be people of exemplary conduct. Liberal thinking about hiring in this way always works against the elevation of the overall performance of every public service. If all one thinks they are doing is hiring voters for their political party any upright hominid will do. That sort of hiring will have exactly the same type of effect on hiring social workers or whatever discipline of substitute for police officers is chosen, with the same outcome.