(updated: beginning with ** to end of paragraph added.)
There are several reports today beginnning with ThinkProgress, of an Iowa speech given by Rick Santorum, where he decries early childhood education as a socialist plot to brainwash children.
It is a parent’s responsibility to educate their children. It is not the government’s job. We have sort of lost focus here a little bit. Of course, the government wants their hands on your children as fast as they can. That is why I opposed all these early starts and pre-early starts, and early-early starts. They want your children from the womb so they can indoctrinate your children as to what they want them to be. I am against that. (link above)
I am glad to see thinking people stand up for early childhood education. Multiple studies show the benefits of ECE programs, in terms of children's health, education, and future career success. To recite them here would be preaching to the choir.
I am disturbed that no one seems to have completed the deconstruction of Santorum's logic. It's convoluted, but it's important to pull this apart, because this sick, sad, dangerous man wants to be president.
Stay with me. This might get hairy.
Rick Santorum believes preschool is a program of government brainwashing. Get them while they're young. He ignores the fact that many (most?) children who attend preschool in the United States do so in a church basement. So without thinking, he is arguing that churches are performing government brainwashing. How would Christian Conservatives view this argument? How would they view Mr. Santorum if faced with this argument? Why have political journalists not discovered this argument? Rick Santorum says that church preschool programs, and thus by extension churches, are agents of government control.
Rick Santorum is not just opposed to early childhood education. He doesn't just hate preschool. He hates the concept of school. He believes that it is a parent's responsibility to educate their children, and that government interference is the problem, not the solution. This argument is directly contradicted by American history. Massachusetts Law of 1642 required "all masters of families" to educate the children in their households to read, write, and in matters of laws and catechism. Five years later, children still being illiterate, Massachusetts Law of 1647 required every town of 50 households to appoint a teacher, paid by the families or from the community at large, to educate the children. Towns of 100 households or more were required to establish a formal grammar school, with the intention of preparing children for university. Before there was a United States, Massachussets found that establishing formal schools was a better solution to public illiteracy than merely expecting parents and household masters to education children at home.
I am a designer for the handknitting market. I write knitting patterns for a living. In five minutes of Google research ("public education history") I learned more about public education than a presidential candidate knows. He spouts about the concept of school as an instrument of government indoctrination, when in fact, it was, and is, a public remedy to parental failure.
Why is this man in the Senate? And why is he running for president? And why has "the media" not deconstructed his delusion?
Rick Santorum is a greater threat to America than schools. And a press that lets him spout this nonsense unchallenged is a greater threat still. **No, I don’t think Santorum is anti-church. I think he hasn’t thought through his own arguments to their logical conclusion, nor does he have anyone on his staff or in his circle that has thought for him, nor is the press checking his logic, either. If as a candidate, Rick Santorum can get away with nonsensical statements like ‘early childhood education is government brainwashing’ unchallenged, what is he likely to think – and do – as President? Ignore reports that known terrorists are planning to fly planes into skyscrapers? Attack the wrong country in retaliation? Institute torture, mass public surveillance, unfunded corporate giveaways in the guise of healthcare reform, tax cuts to the very wealthy, gut social programs that succor the most needy among us? Is this what we need as a President?
Media Outlets: You are failing to see the arguments behind the arguments. Progressives, get to Iowa and ask Santorum if he is also against church preschool. Ask if he thinks church preschools are performing government brainwashing. Ask if that means churches are also agents of government indoctrination. Ask how he feels about the separation of church and state. Ask Conservative Christians how they feel about Sen. Rick Santorum calling their church basement preschool and agent of government brainwashing. Then ask them who they are voting for.
Then hire me, because I can see these logical flaws and you can't. You need me.
http://en.wikipedia.org/...