A Chat with Friend of Obama — and Unrepentant Terrorist — Bill Ayers (Part 1 of 2)
Unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers spoke at Montclair State University in Montclair, New Jersey this past March 24th. I attended Ayers’ talk. Despite his colorful past, Ayers came across as just another run-of-the-mill, reality-challenged, dopey leftist. Also disappointing were the dozens of teachers in training who attended – their behavior disgraced themselves, and as such provided a very good argument in favor of keeping one’s children as far away from so-called “public schools” (a more accurate term for which may be “government indoctrination centers”) – as possible.
For those of you unfamiliar with Bill Ayers, he engaged in numerous terrorist activities when he was younger, such as bombing the New York City Police Headquarters in 1970, the U.S. Capitol building in 1971, and the U.S. Pentagon in 1972. For more information on another bombing, check out the following video on YouTube, which shows a clip from Fox News in which one of Ayers’ victims is interviewed:
“Child Victim of William Ayers Nail Bomb Speaks Out”
While leftists dismiss this activity as having happened decades ago, up to the very second you read this, Ayers has never publicly apologized for his initiations of these violent acts. In fact, in an infamous interview published on – I am not making this up! — September 11, 2001 by the New York Times, Ayers defiantly defends his terrorism: “I don’t regret setting bombs. I feel we didn’t do enough.” Ayers also calls himself a “small ‘c’ communist,” and chortles that “maybe I am the last communist willing to admit it.” Also of relevance to today’s politics is that Ayers was one of Obama’s mentors – in fact, Obama launched his first campaign for the Illinois Senate in Bill Ayers’ living room.
Ayers showed up flaunting his communist beliefs by wearing a black t-shirt that prominently featured a large red star in the middle of it. As even left-leaning Wikipedia notes, “The five-pointed red star… is a symbol of socialism as well as communism…. It was one of the emblems, symbols, and signals representing the Soviet Union under the rule of the Communist Party, along with the hammer and sickle.” As a reminder, the Communist Party that ran the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was one of the largest mass murderers in history, killing an estimated 20-30 million of its own citizens, mostly under the terror-filled reigns of Lenin and Stalin. By wearing the communist red star, this is exactly what Ayers tacitly – and disgustingly — endorses.
Ayers was invited to campus by the Montclair State chapter of Students for a Democratic Society, which passed out fliers prior to the speech shamefully excusing Ayers’ past violence. For example, the flier reads in part, “It’s true that Professor Ayers participated passionately in the civil rights and antiwar movements of the 1960s, as did hundreds of thousands of Americans. His political activity 40 years ago is history…” This cowardly glosses over an activity in which Ayers engaged, that 99.9%-plus of Americans did not and do not engage in – the violent use of bombs against a major American city’s government and against the U.S. (federal) government. And, of course, while Ayers’ bombing activities are decades old, his refusal to apologize for this violence continues to this very day. Ayers’ supporters no doubt understand this, which is why they avoid bringing it up.
Within the first ten minutes of Ayers’ talk, he conveyed his viewpoint that “In a democracy [sic], we take as an article of faith that all human beings are of incalculable value. Every human being is valued. We also take it as an article of faith in a democracy that the fullest development of all is the condition for the fullest development of each, and conversely, the fullest development of each is the condition for the full development of all. That has huge implications for policy.”
This commentary does have huge implications – for revealing how wrong-headed Ayers is.
First, for somebody who claims to be pro-education, Ayers should recognize that the form of government of the United States of America is not a democracy, but rather a constitutional republic. Founder Benjamin Franklin famously remarked that our form of government is “a republic, if you can keep it.” Founder John Adams detested democracy: “Democracy… while it lasts is more bloody than either aristocracy or monarchy. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide.” One can easily Google numerous other quotes from our Founders that disfavor democracy – a fancy term meaning “mob rule” – because our Founders favored an inherently moral concept: individual rights. (That the Founders did not perfectly implement this principle in no way takes away from their rightful recognition of it. And besides, the Founders did a much better job of implementing it than most folks give them credit. The leftists who hate the Founders cite their inability to outlaw slavery at the federal level as the foremost example. Left unsaid by those who hate the Founders is that they successfully outlawed slavery in eight states over 1780-1804, including New Jersey in the last of those years. In addition, it was President George Washington that signed into law the bill – authored by signer of the Constitution Rufus King — that outlawed slavery in the territory now encompassing Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin. If you weren’t previously aware of these facts, and you attended public school as a child, “thank” a leftist government-union member for your prior ignorance.)
Second, in no way, shape, or form do I advocate faith as a means to acquire knowledge. I advocate reason. I take nothing on faith. My view that every human being as the inherent and unalienable moral rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness does not depend on faith at all. So Ayers can talk of “we” all he wants, but in reality regarding this matter, I quote Ronald Reagan: “What do you mean, ‘we’?!?”
Third, Ayers goes on the explain the “huge implications for policy” of his views: “What are the implications of this notion that every human being, including every child, is of incalculable value? Well, the policy implications include that we can’t tolerate in a democracy a school system in which some kids go to schools where the basic situation is that the system spends $40,000 per kid per year to education them, and other kids – just four to five miles down the road – go to schools that spend $5,000 per kid per year to educate them. That makes a huge difference in terms of the outcomes that those kids are likely to have. It makes a huge difference. And we should be intolerant of that kind of disparity.”
In other words, Ayers takes the predictable leftist position: more money (read: a meaningful part of your hard-earned income) should be confiscated through the initiation of force by government, and spent on public schools (read: government indoctrination centers) that are attended by millions of children for whom you have absolutely no responsibility whatsoever.
I could not disagree more with Ayers’ collectivism. As it so happens, I am the proud parent of two wonderful children, and I have worked hard for decades (including many years before my children were born) to ensure that I will be able to spend the time and resources (including but not limited to money) necessary for them to receive the best education I can possibly provide. I enthusiastically take on this responsibility — in part because it was my choice to become a parent. I do not want, and I do not expect, other Americans to pay as much as one cent for my children’s education. My children’s education is the sole responsibility of my wife and me.
Likewise, I absolutely reject the notion that I am responsible for anybody else’s children. It is an infringement of my unalienable rights to liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness to be forced to provide schooling for children not my own. (And to be clear, my rights are not unique; they are the same as all other individuals’ rights. No individual should be forced to pay for another person’s child.)
To put it another way: Ayers’ use of the phrase “incalculable value” implies a valuer. And it would be exceedingly cruel and irrational for me to value my children to no greater degree than I value millions of children I’ve never met – and never will meet. Similarly, the parents of those millions of children most definitely should value their own children more than they value my children. To act otherwise would be a monstrous injustice against their own children.
Folks who greatly value education – including myself – should be left free to spend as much money as we want on our own children’s education. We should not have our liberties infringed upon by the entity entrusted to protect them, simply because there exist some parents out there who do not value education, or who value it far less than I (and many others) do. But of course, the leftist Ayers excuses parents who value education a lot less than I (and many others) do, to the point where he wants to punish us — via government confiscation of even more of our hard-earned income — for having the audacity to peacefully plan ahead for our childrens’ educations.
Ayers was not above engaging in blatant contradictions, either. For example, he regularly bashed the American education system, with comments such as “Americans – as you may know – are known the world around as being both geographically challenged and historically [below average].” (One wag in the audience responded, “Speak for yourself.”) Another of Ayers’ remarks bashing the American education system was “National Geographic did a survey of 18-to-25 year-old American kids… 80% of American kids couldn’t find Iraq on a map, 80% couldn’t find Israel/Palestine, 40% couldn’t find Great Britain, and an astonishing 10% couldn’t find the United States.” (18-to-25 year-old… kids? Funny, but I’ve always used another term to describe 18-to-25 year-olds: adults.) Another Ayers comment: “It’s absolutely a criticism of the schools to say we stopped teaching geography 40 years ago. We stopped teaching history 20 years ago…. social studies; even that has become wondering and strange.”
I have no problem with folks who point out the gigantic flaws in the American system of education. But one must recognize what this system is: a largely government-run system, in which a clear majority of American children attend government schools – a statement which holds true today just as it did 20, 30, 40 years ago.
To be concluded in part two…
Mark Kalinowski
North New Jersey Tea Party Group
Liberty, Free Markets, and Individual Rights
By the way, I encourage ALL liberty-minded folks — no matter where you live — to to join the official Facebook page for the North Jersey Tea Party Group.