“There’s nothing that does so much harm as good intentions” – Milton Friedman
“There’s nothing that does so much harm as good intentions.”
Milton Friedman
Author Archive for: Jan
Entries by Jan
John Taylor Gatto on Schooling and Exceptional Talent
“As a writer, politician, scientist, and businessman, [Ben] Franklin had few equals among the educated of his day-though he left school at ten. (…)Boys like Andrew Carnegie who begged his mother not to send him to school and was well on his way to immortality and fortune at the age of thirteen, would be referred today for psychological counseling; Thomas Edison would find himself in Special Ed until his peculiar genius had been sufficiently tamed.”
John Taylor Gatto
Ayn Rand on Socialism and Fascism
“The difference between [socialism and fascism] is superficial and purely formal, but it is significant psychologically: it brings the authoritarian nature of a planned economy crudely into the open. The main characteristic of socialism (and of communism) is public ownership of the means of production, and, therefore, the abolition of private property. The right to property is the right of use and disposal. Under fascism, men retain the semblance or pretense of private property, but the government holds total power over its use and disposal.”
Ayn Rand
“The Great Advances of Civilization” – Quote by Milton Friedman
“The great advances of civilization, whether in architecture or painting, in science or literature, in industry or agriculture, have never come from centralized government.”
Milton Friedman
John Taylor Gatto Quote on Compulsory Schooling
“This was once a land where every sane person knew how to build a shelter, grow food, and entertain one another. Now we have been rendered permanent children. It’s the architects of forced schooling who are responsible for that.”
John Taylor Gatto
The Greatest Threat to Mankind – Ayn Rand on Totalitarianism
“The greatest threat to mankind and civilization is the spread of the totalitarian philosophy. Its best ally is not the devotion of its followers but the confusion of its enemies. To fight it, we must understand it.”
Ayn Rand
“The truth is…” – Quote by John Taylor Gatto
“The truth is that schools don’t really teach anything except how to obey orders.”
John Taylor Gatto
John Taylor Gatto: Education and Individuality
“Whatever an education is, it should make you a unique individual, not a conformist; it should furnish you with an original spirit with which to tackle the big challenges. It should allow you to find values which will be your road map through life; it should make you spiritually rich, a person who loves whatever you are doing, wherever you are, whomever you are with; it should teach you what is important, how to live and how to die.”
John Taylor Gatto
Neil Postman on Political Impotence and Media
“Voting, we might even say, is the next to last refuge of the politically impotent. The last refuge is, of course, giving your opinion to a pollster, who will get a version of it through a desiccated question, and then will submerge it in a Niagara of similar opinions, and convert them into–what else?–another piece of news. Thus we have here a great loop of impotence: The news elicits from you a variety of opinions about which you can do nothing except to offer them as more news, about which you can do nothing.”
Neil Postman
Neil Postman: The Ineffectiveness of Daily News
“[M]ost of our daily news is inert, consisting of information that gives us something to talk about but cannot lead to any meaningful action.”
Neil Postman