Posted 12:03 PM by Floyd

Joanne Jacobs blogged a quote from "Denise Morgan, a law and education policy professor:"

Public schools are one of the few institutions in the United States where people from different backgrounds come together to negotiate common values and to determine the course of our shared future. It is public spaces, such as those schools, that give meaning to citizenship -- because it is in those spaces that we are all equal. Indeed, it is hard to imagine a democracy in which the citizenry did not meet on equal terms for the purpose of community building, discussion, and debate. It would be terribly ironic if in our efforts to increase the freedoms of parents, we diminish the democracy that makes such freedoms possible.

When I first read this I posted a snarky comment about Morgan's pretentious and meaningless wording, and my soul was at peace. Later I got to thinking about how this one paragraph is offensive on so many levels:

• First, as I have noted, there is the flowery but meaningless language. "Negotiate common values" sounds nice but upon examination is ridiculous. No one negotiates their beliefs. "Determine the course of our shared future" is the sort of verbiage which causes people to mock politicians. "It would be terribly ironic" is beneath the dignity of a law professor; it is a phrase best used by earnest idiots when writing a letter to the editor.
  
  
• The idea that democracy makes freedoms possible would be a surprise to those applauded when the Supreme Court struck down legislative innovations such as the prohibition on flag-burning and the Computer Decency Act. Such a court action is an anti-democratic activity. The people who founded this country had no interest in democracy at all; that is why they created a republic. (Albert Jay Nock once wrote that "democrat" in the late eighteenth century was a term of opprobrium roughly equivalent to "fascist.")
  
  
• Then we have the following starry-eyed idiocy: "Indeed, it is hard to imagine a democracy in which the citizenry did not meet on equal terms for the purpose of community building, discussion, and debate."
  
  How about if we imagine an actual democracy that has three hundred million people, far too many to fit in a room comfortably, which elects representatives of said people? And we imagine that those representatives and the organizations which support them become an elite that are distant from the masses, and accorded special privileges and exemptions which the citizentry may not enjoy?
  
  
• Stripped of excess verbiage, and disregarding bizzare ideas on democracy, Morgan still has a reasonable argument: That when people are brought together in a public space they can build a community. But whatever the merits of this idea, it should not be allowed to trump the fundamental right of free association. People, including children, have a right to associate with those that they wish under their own terms. This right applies when receiving an education just as it applies to other activities. Imagine what it would sound like if apply Morgan's argument to other spheres of action -- while imagining an America where, say, eating or playing was a government-funded activity with mandatory attendance and assigned seating:
  
  

  
  Public canteens are one of the few institutions in the United States where people from different backgrounds come together to negotiate common values and to determine the course of our shared future... It would be terribly ironic if in our efforts to increase the freedoms of people to eat dinner with whom they choose, we diminish the democracy that makes such freedoms possible.
  

  
  
  

  
  Public play areas are one of the few institutions in the United States where people from different backgrounds come together to negotiate common values and to determine the course of our shared future... It would be terribly ironic if in our efforts to increase the freedoms of children to play with whom they choose, and to play the games they want, we diminish the democracy that makes such freedoms possible.