Esrati report, episode 6

Welcome to the Esrati Report, I’m David Esrati and you don’t want to be me.

Apparently a few of you are enjoying this form of haphazard entertainment and are goading me to continue.

Just to be clear, it takes a whole team of people to produce a news show- or a comedy show, and this is being done by me, with a little help from one of my employees.

We’re still learning, experimenting and fighting with technology in order to get this the way we want it.

Today, I want to talk about a lawsuit in Rhode Island, where a 17 year old student is suing for civics lessons as a constitutional right.

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to know”

She’s never taken a class in government- or civics as it used to be called, and has no clue about what the point of taxes are or the differences between democrats, republicans and independents- to which I say, not that much.

Yet, someone has helped her file a lawsuit in federal court against the entire State of Rhode Island saying that their failures in preparing students for citizenship is violating their constitutional rights.

To which I say right on.

You don’t want dummies in the voting booth.

That’s how you end up with dummies in power.

One of the quotes in the New York Times story talked about a Dayton Public School’s namesake: Horace Mann. Mann was an early advocate of compulsory public schooling, wrote in 1847 that education’s purpose was to foster “conscientious jurors, true witnesses, incorruptible voters.”

Think about it, as we have one associate after another associate of “individual number one,” being sent to prison for their roles in debasing our democratic system.

If you don’t think better informed voters is an absolute- just go look at the video where Jimmy Kimmel asks people which is better- Obamacare or the Affordable care act- and listen to the fools who don’t know they are the same thing.

Or, ask the average voter who all their elected representatives are- and what their jobs are.

Most can’t even get half of them right.

But, let’s go back to schools teaching civics. I was lucky – I had a year of civics- called “Political philosophy” and “Comparative Government” in high school, taught by one of the best teachers I’ve ever had- The Football coach at Cleveland Heights High School. You can blame David DiCarlo and my father for my interest in politics –   and this broadcast.

DiCarlo didn’t have textbooks. He lectured. We took notes. He gave quizzes and tests and it was hard. Intellectual rigor, the Socratic method, he lived it. You walked out of his class with a sore hand and a spinning head. It was the only class that prepared me for college- the rest was done by Uncle Sam in the United States Army.

There is a tendency to confuse teaching history with civics and the two are very different. Although you can infuse history with civics, mostly we teach history as a recounting of conflicts. War is the failure of civics and statesmanship. It’s a crappy way to approach the art of organizing civilization.

The sad thing is that teaching civics may be too little too late at this point. We should have seen the writing on the wall long ago, and started this curriculum change much earlier. Like back in Horace Mann’s day.

I’ve been working on a book for the last three years on how we can change politics in this country- by better informing voters of their choices.

But, without the ability to understand the information- what good would it do?

This is a case that I’ll be following and you should too.

If you liked this form of haphazard entertainment via the intertubes- please like and share on YouTube. If you don’t like it- feel free to give it a thumbs down all you want. In fact, please subscribe so you can smash every single video I produce.

We’ll try to do this everyday- around the same time- to tell you all the news that’s news to the Dayton Daily news and the local tv stations.

For now, signing off and sayonara- this is David Esrati, the most dangerous man in Dayton.

Reminding you that a little knowledge can get you in a whole heap of trouble.

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