John Locke is Dead(?)

It doesn't matter really what side of the healthcare debate you fell on, the recent passage of the monstrous Obamacare bill was bad for you and all of America. This is, by the way, more than the substance of the bill, which I don't think there's a person alive that knows everything in it's expansive 2,000+ pages. I speak mainly on the manner in which it was passed. Although our president, by his own admission in a recent interview with Brett Baier on Fox News, doesn't pay mind too much about the process used, the processes set up by our Constitution are there to ensure the protection and reflection of the will of the people. Our Founding Fathers all believed in this overarching principle: government is only legitimate inasmuch as their citizenry cede them the power and authority to rule over them. This was the entire basis behind the Declaration of Independence, the original founding document of our country:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed...

This is a principle of John Locke, an enlightenment philosopher whose ideas our Founding Fathers borrowed extensively. Our Congress and President have decided that what they think and what they believe is more important than what the majority of Americans think and believe. In their eyes, all of their actions are legitimate because they were elected. While they are correct in that we live in a republic and we gave them legitimacy and authority by electing them, they are also incorrect in that they subverted the legislative process in order to pass a law that a majority of Americans didn't like. In essence, they have said to the American people that "consent of the governed" is an outdated principle. I won't begin to pretend, either, that this is a partisan or recent issue. Both parties have been guilty for a while of "jamming through" legislation that was unpopular, but not necessarily at such a fiscal liability or in such a partisan way. How much longer will the "governed" consent to this?

American Education

I've been thinking about the education system in the US and why it has been turning out students that are less prepared for college compared to their foreign counterparts. There are of course those structural arguments that the way we set up our education system is completely different than the way they do in most countries. We try to educate everyone, even those who will have no hope of living independently and holding down a job. However, I've been concerned lately with cultural factors more lately.

I may be teaching in a school that represents the extreme for this, but it seems that students in the US don't take their educations seriously. Going to school is something they have to do, for most of them. If they weren't forced to be there, they wouldn't be. Contrast that with some other countries, where students take their educations very seriously, going early, coming home late, and going to a tutor in between. By the time they get to college, they have spent more time on scholastic achievement than the average American college graduate. It's no wonder there are far more students overseas that are interested in math and science, because they have lived and breathed it for the previous 12 years.

I heard the results of a troubling study recently. The study said that the rising generation will likely be the first generation in US history that is less educated, less successful, and poorer than the previous generation. I don't think this has much to do with the teachers being trained, but more with the students' willingness to learn.