Opus 2011-77, New Terms: Scapegoat

I would like to recommend that the people of this country stop trying to make teachers the scapegoat for all that is wrong in our country.  Certain people can ignore what I have to say because they have the right to gripe.  If you have participated in a Tea Party rally, written your congressman in the past year, voted in all elections after carefully considering the issues involved and the records of the candidates, if you live within your means and didn’t try to buy a house you could not afford, in short, if you are a thinking, responsible, informed adult then this does not apply to you.  I often tell people, if they don’t vote, then don’t complain.

This should not be a new term but I find that many people don’t get out much.  The term comes from the Old Testament.  The first mention is in Leviticus 16:8.  Two goats were picked to be used in a ritual of atonement.  One goat was sacrificed on the altar.  The other had the sins of the people dumped on it and it was released into the wilderness.  It was the one that received the blame for the sins of others.  Thus a scapegoat is blamed for the failure of others.  Teachers make convenient scapegoats for the problems of society.

But let me share something with you, teachers did not appoint the federal judges that keep making a joke of our laws.  Teachers have never passed a federal budget.  Teachers have never set free criminals.  Teachers have never written EPA regulations.  Do you get the point?  Teachers are too incompetent to have done these things.  They are also too busy being nice.

Teachers as a whole are helpers, not radicals.  They are healers not warriors.  They are warm and fuzzy and just as uninformed as the general population.  Because they have been to college people expect them to be above the pack, but they are not.  That is why the union organizers have been so effective at organizing them.  Like their students, if it doesn’t hurt them right now, it is not a pain.  I was a union rep for our school for a few years.  Usually I was the only dissenting voice.  I finally gave up because the deck was so stacked and I was losing my hair because my head was being patted so much.  We had an issue that we voted on once.  I don’t remember what it was specifically but I was against it.  Our school voted against it in a simple majority type of way.  The elementary school across the street voted for it unanimously.  The worm in the apple is that the school across the street never sent a single rep to any meeting I was at.  They were simply a bunch of nice people doing what they were told.  They are typical of teachers.

Does this excuse teachers for their lack of leadership.  No.  It simply puts them in the same category as the rest of you.  The country has major issues.  We need to deal with them.  It will mean that every individual will need to bite the bullet.  It will require being responsible for our own lives and refusing to expect others to pay for our joy ride.  It means growing up.

homo unius libri