Liberty Just Took a Huge Step Forward
Almost nothing I learned during my formal schooling, all the way through twelfth grade, gave the slightest impression that liberty and free markets might be desirable. Like most students, I was taught that a free society means monopoly, low wages, appalling working conditions, environmental degradation, general impoverishment, and countless other forms of oppression.
I was among the lucky ones: I had a father who knew all the responses to the standard leftist claims. Had it not been for him, I can hardly bring myself to consider how I would have turned out.
But having knowledgeable or well-meaning parents is sometimes not enough. What chance do Mom and Dad have when, day in and day out, the alleged expert is implicitly telling the children that their parents are foolish and ignorant?
I've made something of a career out of challenging what kids are taught, especially about American history, in the ideological prison camps where they receive what is laughingly called an education. I am not supposed to do this, says the Establishment. When my book The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History hit the New York Times bestseller list, for example, the Times lectured me not for being wrong, but for saying things I just wasn't supposed to say.
But much better than running around correcting errors after the fact is steering people away from them in the first place, and that's what we're doing here.
In my regular column for this site I won't always speak about our curriculum directly, but in this inaugural essay I can hardly resist. What an opportunity lies before us. Can you imagine tens of thousands of students learning Austrian School economics, or the true history of the United States and Western civilization -- not to mention enjoying the great many other unique opportunities that Ron Paul's curriculum will make available to students?
I would give my right arm to have had a chance like this when I was a young student.
Instead of fighting with teachers, school boards, and textbooks, parents can take comfort in knowing that their children are learning precisely what they ought to be learning, and then some. I am proud and thrilled to be a part of it.