Bill Maher’s show is one that I try not to miss. Lots of folks appear on the show. Below is a clip from one episode that I saw when it aired and thought was very powerful. As the description on YouTube says, “Richard Dreyfuss suggests that the current inattentive, apathetic and uninterested nature of our citizenry will eventually doom U.S. republican democracy. He discusses Jeffersonian views and how the future survival of our freedom and democracy is dependent upon an educated and inquisitive citizenry.” Spend 4 minutes to listen. You’ll be glad you did. (h/t BD)
32 thoughts on “Dreyfuss on Democracy”
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VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 
Tom, I agree with you that we should seek to keep government as small as it can be.
As to this:
. . . At the same time, people want religious freedom, and they want prayer in the public schools. Without paying much attention to it, they also want an innovative public school system, one that does a good job and make EVERYBODY happy.
It seems to me that we have rights. One of them is the free exercise of our religion. That means that if we wish to pray anywhere, that is our right.
The same amendment states that Congress shall pass no laws forcing us to respect any specific religion. So we cannot be forced to pray.
Allowing students to pray is not a huge barrier to innovative public school system, one that does a good job.
As to the “make EVERYBODY happy” aspect, I don’t believe that is a legitimate objective. Teaching the student body the approved curriculum is the educator’s task at hand, is it not?
Politicians, salesmen, and PR firms worry about keeping everyone happy. I don’t lump teachers in with that crowd.
Preventing students from praying – or from displaying the symbols of their faith, that is violating their Constitutional rights. The school board, nor the school administration, not even Congress, has the authority to prohibit the free exercise of our religion.
Reid Greenmun — The reason we have a government owned and operated school system is because the majority is trying to make the minority conform. There is no other reason for the government to run the system.
With respect to the public school system, politicians, not teachers run the show. The public school system is a hierarchical system. Politicians at the Federal, State, and Local level (What a confusion of responsibility!) control funding and set the rules. The School Board (another elected group) hires the Superintendent and approves subordinates. Teachers, nice people though they may be, have to work within this system. Teachers have to teach according to lesson plans and use books provided by the overlying bureaucracy. The performance of teachers is measured by standards set by the politician-led bureaucracy.
Bureaucracies are what they are. You can wish they were otherwise, but changing a bureaucracy requires an understanding of its culture, the players, and the basis for funding decisions. As a voter, I do not want that job. When there is a private alternative, there is no reason I should have to do it.
As a voter, I have too little leverage to influence the system. As a parent, I have found our education quite frustrating. As a parent with children, the suppose customer of this system, the only practical choices I had were to live in a good school district, homeschool, or to shell out money for private school.
I would rather leave it to parents to choose whatever school they want to send their child to. As a purely practical problem, it is far easier for government to regulate private schools than it is for it to own and operate its own school system. Other parents may not make the same choices I would make, but we all don’t buy the same food, houses, cars, etc…, and somehow each of us gets by anyway.