The Best Kept Open Secret of Our Time

“…Preserve what little independence, strength, and originality is left to the individual… raise him up vis-a-vis society: these seem to me the the primary goals of lawmakers in the age upon which we are just now embarking.” – Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 1835

“If you’ve got a business—you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.” – President Barack Obama, July 13, 2012

The age in which we live is an age of ever increasing tyranny over the mind, body and spirit of humanity. The individual human being is not to be trusted. The schools in which he is raised denies his parents the ability to decide what he eats while conditional self esteem is instilled until satisfaction and fulfillment only come with the praise of authority.

At its very beginning America was filled with individuals who sought to escape this grip of despotism. Hereditary titles and tyranny no longer held individuals in artificial societal cages, and people seeking a new life were bound only by limits to endurance and willpower. Intelligence, self respect and character were qualities that anyone could acquire, rising in the ranks of society.

“When hereditary wealth, class privilege  and prerogatives of birth no longer exist and each person draws his strength only from himself, it becomes clear that… anything that serves to fortify, expand, or adorn the intellect immediately takes on great value.” – Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 1835

Elites recognized this new reality in America and actively sought to regulate the power and potential of individuals. Tools of control that worked under tyrannical forms of government were rendered useless. New, perhaps more subtle means of control needed to be devised. The state’s war against the individual expanded across all spectrum’s of society as the growing web of governmental rules and regulation made individuals timid and dependent.

“As Americans we are justly proud that we have no hereditary titles, but each man is measured by his own personal worth… yet we would not have you imagine that we underestimate the value of a respectable lineage, but it is better to be the originator of a great family than to be the degenerate descendant of one.” - How to get on in the World, 1895

The schooling system in particular has been formed with the specific purpose of reducing the individual’s willpower and self respect, producing willing servants of the state. Charlotte Iserbyt, former head of policy at the Department of Education, documents this fact in her book ”Deliberate Dumbing Down of America.” The Rockefeller’s General Education Board proudly announced in its 1906 “Occasional letter number 1″ that,

“In our dreams…people yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hands. The present educational conventions [intellectual and character education]… We shall not try to make these people or any of their children into philosophers or men of learning or men of science. We have not to raise up from among them authors, educators, poets or men of letters. We shall not search for embryo great artists, painters, musicians, nor lawyers, doctors, preachers, politicians, statesmen, of whom we have ample supply.”

An 1895 book titled “How to Get on in the World” reflects the once common knowledge that excessive intervention and regulation in young people’s development will hinder growth. Self-respect, one of the foundations for intellectual growth, cannot be cultivated in this environment.

“The growth of these qualities may be encouraged by accustoming young people to rely upon their own resources, leaving them to enjoy as much freedom of action in early life as is practicable. Too much guidance and restraint hinder the formation of habits of self-help.”

This type of education is completely alien to a society grown accustom to modern schooling; Especially when mothers are questioned by social services and even jailed for allowing their children to play in their own yard unsupervised.

Read more here: http://www.oldthinkernews.com/2012/11/secret-ages-individuals-power/