An Interesting Question on the Role of Government

New York Law School, in a perhaps not-so-surprising move, is protesting the law requiring Constitution Day, a law authorized by Congress and authored by none other than the so- called "conscience of the Senate" Robert Byrd, a normally very left-leaning Democrat. The law requires that schools that receive taxpayer funding must teach students about the US Constitution on or around the 17th of September, the day the document was signed in 1787.

NY Law School has decided to spend the day discussing if Constitution Day is Constitutional. Fascinating. More specifically, they plan this.

Panelists will consider the constitutionality of the requirement for schools to present programs or distribute materials relating to the United States Constitution on or about Sept. 17 each year, and they will discuss potentially more appropriate ways to teach Americans about the Constitution.

According to New York Law School, the requirement "resembles a federally mandated educational curriculum -- a mandate that many people would argue is not actually permitted by the Constitution."

I get the sneaking suspicion the Law School does not have any trouble with the feds funding other matters of dubious constitutionality, like Welfare, Social Security, and the endless stream of pork barrel projects that seem to flow like a river from Congress no matter who's in charge. But, who's to say? Certainly given the fact that the phrase "social justice" appears more than once in their Justice Action Center's pages, I doubt they're heavily conservative.

At the very least, I agree with them that the federal government mandating education requirements and even more so funding education requirements is not only ridiculous, but in fact unconstitutional. Nowhere in the Constitution does it speak of Congress funding education, and yet the US Department of Education has a budget of $71.5 billion this year alone.

Allow me to retort to the NYLS. Would you be amenable to providing that $71.5 billion back to the states to use as they saw fit in restoring their schools and educating the young? Is it better, in fact, for a bureaucracy isolated in Washington D.C. to determine how best to spend the citizens' money on education, or for state or local agencies on the front line? Not that they're perfect mind you, but they would likely be better.

Also, one wonders of course why they chose this piece of legislation over the mountain of others that deals with what the federal government mandates in terms of education. It almost seems a little of the case of fixing the barn door after the horses got out, raises another 3 generations and died. Of course, that they would choose to ignore social engineering programs to attack a mandate to study the founding document of our currrent system of government is amusing in and of itself. The irony simply drips from that premise.

Me, I wish they would just teach about the Constitution like they did when I was in school, or the umpteen generations before me. The only thing seemingly taught in public schools these days about it is how it was written by slave-owning dead white men. Seems as if such dialog is more meant to belittle it and reduce its significance, but as one might be aware, such are the tools of autocrats and despots throughout history. When you reduce the significance of such an impediment to social engineering, you can better shape and evolve society as you wish, and the Left certainly has learned the lessons of Lenin well.