A recent Fox News poll says that only 8% of Americans believe that “the people are in charge of the government.” And, while the Constitution says the House has the power of the purse, Obama seems to think they should provide unlimited funding for him to create his egalitarian utopia. One NYT columnist is even urging Obama to ignore the rule of law and unilaterally raise the debt ceiling if the House Republicans demand concessions from him.
I don’t know about you, but I find this attitude unacceptable. Join in on the discussion today, either by phone or in the chat room. Or, if you’re listening to a podcast recording, chime in below.
Today we’ll also discuss the Common Core, a program that entails the Federal Government taking more control over the education of our children. And more. See Program Notes, below, for links to the stories we plan to discuss.
Join in on the discussion live, either by phone or in the chatroom!
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Program Notes
Peikoff.com for podcast discussion on immigration, to be posted on Monday
Fox News Poll: Voters support delaying Obamacare, but oppose defunding it
Bosch Fawstin: Slave by Choice
Ayn Rand’s Philosophy: Who Needs It (Including the essay, “Don’t Let It Go”)
Obama Just Played His Big ‘Trump Card’ on the Debt Ceiling
NYT columnist: Obama Should Ignore the Debt Ceiling
Every Senate Democrat Voted In Favor of Exempting Themselves from Obamacare
Christie Spars with GOP Again, This Time over Education Standards (Included just for Bosch :))
Common Core English Language Arts, Appendix A (pdf document)
What is Wrong with Common Core?
Daily Caller: Here’s What Kids Will Read Under the Common Core
William Ayers’ Staff At Achieve, Inc. Wrote Alaska’s Standards
Terrorist “Professor” Bill Ayers and Obama’s Federal School Curriculum
Cato: More States Backtracking on Common Core
Cato: Common Core: The Great Debate (HT Ed Mazlish)
Don't Let It Go 
NEWSNIGHT interview: Glenn Greenwald
Re: Common Core English Language Arts:
I read this article on Frontpagemag.com :
“English Studies, R.I.P.” by Janice Flamengo
(excerpt ) >>David Gilmour, an English instructor announced that he doesn’t love women and Chinese writers enough to teach them in his fiction course, and that he prefers books by “very serious heterosexual guys.” He listed as his favorite “guy guys” Elmore Leonard, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Anton Chekhov, Marcel Proust, Leo Tolstoy, Henry Miller, and Philip Roth. The one exception was Virginia Woolf, but he didn’t teach her because of poor student response.
The furor over his words was predictable, and right on cue. Various outraged students and faculty members… came forward to denounce Gilmour’s putative bigotry (in the world of the politically correct, “not loving” is little different from “hating”).
….What the fracas does clearly reveal—through the uniformity of response to Prof. Gilmour and the intellectual shallowness of reactions—are the dying gasps of a once magnificent, now morally bankrupt and pusillanimous, academic enterprise.
The study of literature—which was, let it be said right away, largely the study of literature by white male authors—once saw itself as part of the search for universal truths through reflection on the masterworks of great authors. …..>> Read entire story here:
http://frontpagemag.com/2013/janice-fiamengo/the-death-of-english-studies/
Amy (and Bosch): Just listened to this week’s program and wanted to thank you both so much for highlighting the dangers that Common Core pose. Bosch mentioned how so many on the Right – particularly pundits on the Right – are flat footed on this issue. Unfortunately, I think that many on our Objectivist community are also flat footed on this issue as well. Too many Objectivists with whom I speak seem to think that by acknowledging and speaking out against the evils of government schooling in general, they have done all that needs to be done (or all that can be done) on the issue of Common Core. IMO, I think that is misguided. Common Core is the final culmination of what government schooling means. To use an analogy that Leonard Peikoff used in The Ominous Parallels, it represents the shift from the de facto freedom that exists under authoritarianism to the complete obliteration of freedom and independent thought that prevails under totalitarianism.
While Objectivists are trying to “change the culture” one or ten or one hundred minds at a time, Common Core will brainwash children by the tens of millions – children who will eventually be the future voters of this country. The Left is also seeking to change the culture, and to make future citizens completely impervious to books like Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead. A citizenry educated under a Common Core curriculum will not “get” Ayn Rand’s works even if ARI puts the books directly into their hands. We will be trying to persuade people who are beyond our reach, effectively, because their minds will have been fully hollowed out by Common Core.
And as you so well underscored, because Common Core integrates curriculum standards with standardized testing (and has the College Board as an ally), future escape will be extremely difficult for even homeschoolers. This too is a very unappreciated danger of Common Core.
ARI should be as vocal, if not more, in its opposition to Common Core as it has been in its opposition to Obamacare – because the end result of Common Core if it gets implemented will be that future generations will smile like imbeciles while gladly voting their stamp of approval for future Obamacare programs and other statist legislation.
Thank you again for highlighting this very, very important issue.
‘I Don’t Care What John McCain Thinks’
This seems like a real confrontation between good (Jason Chaffetz) and evil (in the form of Andrea Mitchell, Alan Greenspan’s wife).
RT interviews Ladar Levison.
Democracy Now Interview witn Ladar Levison
Lavabit: How One Company Refused to
Give FBI “Unrestricted” Access to Emails of 400,000 Customers
http://www.democracynow.org/2013/10/7/lavabit_how_one_company_refused_to
Little by little more information is coming out.
Mike Lee Opens Up
About ‘Demeaning,’ ‘Unfair,’ ‘All Out Attack’ On Him And Ted Cruz By GOP