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**I'm from Missouri¡ Show me!**

There are several levels on which things need to change. People are ignoring major factors in favor of arguing for bandaids.

1) Golden Rule — it’s something that almost all societies have figured out, but improperly acculturated people ignore to gain personal advanrages.

2) Social Contract — it’s something  the Chinese figured out explicitly around 200 BC. But even Obama didn’t explain it properly while campaigning. It implies responsibilities as well as “the government will take care of you.”

3) Refusing to invest in the development of all children throws away a valuable resource to society. Some societies throw away all the females. Some throw away all the blacks. I saw this too much as a teacher in disciplinary school. I had a 15 year old kid with IQ 140 who read at 4th grade level and had never learned his multiplication tables. I brought his reading level up to 8th grade level over the summer.

4) Failing to teach kids never to take anything  said on trust. If it’s important enough to matter, it’s important enough to check for evidence. Even if your parents said it, if it’s wrong it’s wrong, and you may pay for it. If you pass an untruth on, you damage others who trust you.

For instance, I heard a news story about a boy who took a pet garter snake to school for a show-and-tell. The snake bit him and would not let go of the first joint of his finger. He became very uncomfortable and soon died. My father told me that garter snakes generally don’t bite, and aren’t venomous. I’m guessing that the parents, the school, and the kid all believed that. If only they had checked! It turns out that garter snakes have venom they deliver through grooves in hook-shaped rear teeth. None of the people involved checked on the validity of “what everybody knows.”

Any population that learns this lesson will be protected against lying politicians. Illegal immigrants eating the dogs and cats of people whose community they have moved in on? Let's see your data, Mr. Politician. I just called the local newspaper there and they laughed at me. The police don't know anything about it either.

If, say, the African American community in West Philadelphia around 1970 knew how to vet information proactively, the politicions who make excuses for why their junior high students were given old English textbooks centered on a Dick and Jane world in the 1950s would have to come up with some real answers.


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