Editing 77-24-B5 (section)

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Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could give the national planners, those social engineers who tinker with our social structure, a year's sabbatical? I'll be right back.

Sometimes it seems as if we're walking down a long corridor flanked by closed doors. Then occasionally a voice is raised behind one of those doors, a voice just barely loud enough for us to hear, or a door opens momentarily and we get a glimpse of people, huddled deep in discussion. Uneasily we realize from these flashes of sight and sound that we're the subject of the discussions going on behind those closed doors.

The corridor is the society we live in, the America in which we work and play. Behind those doors is government, with its camp followers, the pleaders for special interests and causes, and we definitely are the subject of their every utterance. Fortunately, a few columnists and publications walk closer to the doors, pause to listen and relay to the rest of us what is being planned.

One of our truly great scholars, Russell Kirk, opened one of those doors for us in the November 11 issue of National Review, a magazine devoted to quoting the planners and exposing their plans. Professor Kirk's revelation concerns the lobbying of the National Education Association, which now rivals C.O.P.E. as a job action force capable of electing to office or rejecting from office Congressmen, Senators and even Presidents.

Right now N.E.A. is promoting a separate Department, cabinet level of course, of Education. The administration's response, it has suggested, will determine whether N.E.A. supports the administration in the 1980 election. Russell Kirk, with sufficient documentation, reveals the dream N.E.A. has which requires the separate department. If it is to be realized, it is to imitate the collectivist schools of Eastern Eeurope, to take over functions now traditionally believed to belong to the family.

From an article published in the N.E.A. newsletter, Kirk gives us this quote. “The day is fast approaching when the schools will be acknowledged as society's agreed upon vehicle for social change. In the school system of the future our children will be automatically enrolled at birth in an infant and child health program. At age two, they will become eligible to attend standard day care programs. School age children will attend from nine to five daily, plus optional custodial care curriculum and programs in schools will come more and more to reflect long-range planning goals. Thus if the nation adopts energy conservation as a national goal, there may well be a federally mandated educational program in every public school in the nation.” Unquote, and believe me, by that time N.E.A. will have done its best to see that there are only public schools in the nation.

The telling line is the schools, quote, “will become part of a comprehensive human services system which fulfills many of the functions traditionally assumed by the family.” Unquote. We've been warned, and make no mistake about it, the National Education Aassociation has more lobbying muscle than any of the so-called industrial empires or big business tycoons we usually think of when we hear the term special interest and lobbyist.

This is Ronald Reagan.

Thanks for listening.
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=== Details ===
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<TR><TD WIDTH="150">Batch Number</TD><TD WIDTH="150">{{PAGENAME}}</TD></TR>
<TD>Production Date</TD><TD>11/29/[[Radio1977|1977]]</TD></TR>
<TD>Book/Page</TD><TD>[[Radio_Commentary_Books#Reagan:_In_His_Own_Hand|RihoH-351]]</TD></TR>
<TD>Audio</TD><TD>Yes</TD></TR>
<TD>Youtube?</TD><TD>No</TD></TR>
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