Not Just Another Survey

(More on how we are being had in our day and age, by people with an agenda...)

Recently I have taken to be more discriminating in the envelopes that I open in my daily mail.1  I have, since returning to the States just over a year ago, been contributing, out of my meager Social Security 'income', to a number of worthy causes - many of them conservative in political orientation - and the 'practice' has opened me up to receiving a ton of letters from both the primary sources and mailing-list sharers asking for donations.  And worse, all of them asking for them repeatedly.  I have grown wary of the 'surveys' and petitions (and 'Annual Drive in (my Area)') and such that they invariably contain; realizing that the intended receivers of said missives from the public couldn't possibly have the time to view, or be interested in viewing, them all.  And I have just started another 'practice', in trying to stem the tide, by returning the envelopes, unopened and my address crossed out, with the notation 'Return to Sender' written boldly on them.2

And so it was that I started to do the same thing with a particular envelope I received in the mail yesterday, and got around to dealing with this evening, which announced, showing in the large-windowed envelope it was encased in, the information that it was a 'Survey of 1,000,000 U.S. Citizens on whether the U.S. Government should follow our Constitution.' and furthermore showed the Survey Due date and, helpfully, the names of my US. Representative and two U.S. Senators; none of whom are in the least bit interested in the conservative point of political view.  So I had a lot going for me to treat it with the same indiscriminate attention to detail that I have been giving other such mailings recently.  But something prevailed in me, to take a look inside; and thereby ruin the chance for a quick return…

And I am glad that I did.  It was from the president of Hillsdale College, a very conservative liberal arts college in Michigan.  I have heard of it before, vaguely; but this time I took a closer look, when one of the pieces of bumf in the mailing 3 was headed, rather proudly, 'The future of America begins at…Hillsdale College!'   Well!  Tell me more!!…What the flyer told me was that "A liberal arts education at Hillsdale College entails the study of the good, the true, and the beautiful.  As stated in the College Honor Code, this study ' develops the minds and improves the hearts' to help students rise to the challenge of self-government in a free republic.  Students refine their intelligence, improve their understanding and acquire the abilities and wisdom to become trustees of 'modern man's intellectual and spiritual inheritance from the Judeo-Christian faith and Greco-Roman culture'.  "

Ah, memories of my own undergraduate experience, floating back…learning how Western Civ enshrined the individual as the spearhead of our civilization, while 'the East' - personified, against Athens, by the Persians - emphasized the collective.  Beginning as a staunch individualist - he who works hard, and is innovative, deserves the fruits of his labors, and intellectual contribution to society - I have become an advocate of both; but if push comes to shove, I support the former more than the latter; capitalism more than socialism.  And what about 'the environment'?  Good question…4

The flyer went on its merry way:

"The College maintains a traditional liberal arts curriculum because it is the best preparation for meeting the challenges of modern life  The liberal arts stimulate intellectual curiosity and a critical, well-disciplined mind.  They are a window to the past and a gateway to the future…"

Ah.  This jibed with something that I read about in an article on the e-newsletter site News With Views last night, by one Charlotte Iserbyt, regarding what is really behind the likes of charter schools, and other such Education innovations.  I have come across this subject before, in particular as discussed in the pages of The New American (the bi-monthly publication of the John Birch Society.  A good read.  Also highly recommended); but I have never fully understood what is behind them all.   What that is, it would appear - from the very clear way that Charlotte described the matter; and is, from both sides of the political aisle (remembering that it is the same nest of vipers at the top of the pyramid of power running things in the world in our day, and from time immemorial) - is the preparation of the public to be good little workers and consumers.  The deliberate dumbing-down of our children going on - that has being going on for a long time; particularly  since socialist ideologues came to power in that arena in the '30s.  The education to be job-oriented, and unquestioning of authority.  Raising up good little worker bees, for the collective; whether that collective be of the left-wing socialist variety or the right-wing fascist variety.5        

And little Hillsdale College is standing athwart of history, saying, Not here you don't.  Not in this country.  This especial country.  Endowed by its founders with particular traits and virtues that will stand the test - the myriad of tests - of time...

Dr. Arnn, I  will be glad to fill in your Survey, and make a donation to your Annual Fund Appeal.  You are doing a fine job.  Keep up the good work.

Trite.  But true.          

   

---

footnotes:

1 This word 'discriminating' is an interesting one.  Just yesterday I came across a poster on the Comments section of a politically oriented blog who took the blogger to task for using the word, when the poster said that she meant, rather, the word 'discerning'.  And just so, has it all come this far…when I find the time to scroll back through the many posts from this blogger that she sends out (she comes up with good stuff; a real education in what's going on in our world today.  I can highly recommend it.  It's called '2012: What's the 'Real' Truth?' by a Jean Haines), to locate that comment, I plan to say to the person, in Reply:

"Jean was right.  To be indiscriminating is to be lacking in discernment.  Don't let the PC 'anti-discriminators' rob you of your language.  To be 'discriminating' is not a bad way of being; 'discrimination' is not a dirty word, except as thinking makes it so.  'Discriminating' means to be able to draw fine distinctions; to be perceptive.

"We have certainly lost that trait, to a considerable extent, in such matters as this one..."      

2 I have been told that in this country you don't just write 'RTS' on the envelope.  A shame.  A very user friendly way of dealing with such matters.

3 Having been living abroad for many years, I'm not sure if my vocabulary is studded with words or expressions that are not used in this country; my beloved country of origin.  Bumf, as in bum fodder??  Perhaps aka junk mail; or miscellaneous low-prioritized reading material???… 

4 Answer: Neither capitalism nor socialism is the answer to the future of life on Earth.  The Synthesis stage of the historical process is coming up.  But to continue with this particular blog... 

5 Charlotte, in part: "Under the proposed school choice proposals…education is being surreptitiously converted from academics to socialist work force training, necessary for the United States imminent merging into a global, collectivized economy…"  ('School Choice Is America's Trojan Horse', Part 1 of 2; June 12, NewsWithViews.com.  In the article she gives some of the background "explaining the history of this conversion to a 'womb to tomb' totalitarian society". )