This story about a course on “how to be gay” being taught at the University of Michigan demonstrates the contradiction between public education and individual rights.
A course called “How to be Gay: Male Homosexuality and Initiation,” scheduled this fall, has reignited a culture war at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
A family-values lobbyist is leading public opposition to the self-proclaimed “uncompromising political militancy” of the professor who teaches “lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgender.”
The lobbyist, Gary Glenn, says professor David M. Halperin and the university “are guilty of perpetrating a fraud against UM students and the people of Michigan [with] propaganda statements about so-called cultural studies and academic freedom” as they promote “queer studies” at taxpayer expense.
According to the concept of individual rights, every individual, regardless of sex, race, religion, class, sexual orientation, ideology, etc., has the inalienable right to their own life, which means, the right to take whatever actions they deem necessary to the benefit of their own life, as long as they do not violate that right of others. Based on this concept, the purpose of government is to protect this right to life of every individual.
A corollary of the right to life is the right to property, which says that every individual has “the right to gain, to keep, to use and to dispose of material values.” Every individual has the right to do whatever they want with their own property, and thus, has the right to do whatever they want with their own money. Therefore, every individual has the right to choose to monetarily support a given institution or not to. In the case of education, every individual has the right to choose whether or not to support a given educational facility (and consequently, the ideas which are being taught at that institution) or not to.
According to the idea of public education, every individual has the “right” to an education, and it is the obligation of other individuals to provide for that education (at least in part). Based on this idea, it is the purpose of the government to forcibly take money from certain individuals under their control (through taxes) and give that stolen money to those who have the “right” to an education. Thus, certain individuals in our society are forced by the government to support ideas and institutions which they may not agree with. In fact, it is very possible in many cases that the stolen money taken from these individuals is used to propogate ideas which are the opposite to their own.
Public education clearly violates the right of every individual to their own lives, and consequently, their right to property, which means, the right to use their own material values in any way that they decide to. Those taxpayers in Michigan, such as this lobbyist, Gary Glenn, are being forced by the government to monetarily support ideas which they consider to be evil and detrimental to their own lives. As a result, taxpayers such as Gary Glenn are justifiably outraged that their money is being used to support ideas which they do not believe in.
However, these people do not go far enough. The majority of such people only speak out for the teaching of THEIR ideas, at the expense of the taxpayers, as opposed to another set of ideas. They do not consistently advocate that no individual should be forced to support anything that they do not want to.
Our government says that you do not have the right to use your own mind. You do not have the right to determine what is best for you, you do not have the right to choose who to support and who not to, YOU DO NOT HAVE THE RIGHT TO LIVE YOUR OWN LIFE AS YOU SEE FIT. YOU DO NOT HAVE THE RIGHT TO LIVE. You, according to the government, only have the right to do what they tell you to do. Or you, only have the right to do what the majority of people leaving in a society tell you to do, whose wishes are enforced by the government.
Fortunately, our government does not practice this principle consistently at present. However, the government IS becoming more and more consistent at it, and will continue to do so unless this principle is challenged. The inevitable result of this principle being practiced fully is dictatorship.
By upholding the concept of individual rights, that every individual has the right to their own life, a dictatorship can be prevented from coming to this country. The end of public education is one step in that direction.
