The State’s Newest Problem: Ron Paul Curriculum

by C. Jay Engel on April 17, 2013

The State would be wise to ask: Uh oh, what is the Ron Paul Revolution up to this time? Answer: Educating the youth. From how young? From Kindergarten.

It is finally here! For years Gary North has been talking about the need for a liberty-minded education that should aim to compete with the State’s compulsory and propaganda-ridden education system. Since the Progressive era, the children have been harmed by the lies and manipulation of teacher’s unions, bureaucracy, and curriculum that has one goal in mind: make sure the children praise the State and its efforts forevermore. The State says that it needs to invest in the children. They are right. And oh what a great investment it has been. The more that the children can be controlled, the more money in the form of taxation they will be willing to fork over when the time comes. Would the citizens of American been so willing to give so much of their income to a government without the State’s Progressive era investment? Not at all. The investment was a necessity. Children learn and then they grow. And then they work hard for the things that they learn. The State has benefited marvelously.

But now the liberty and conservative oriented visionaries are speaking: How dare the State make an investment in the children! It is the parents and the churches and market that should invest, not the government. What happens when the State invests? It creates statists. What happens when the Christians and the libertarians and the Austrian economists and the conservatives invest? This is the brilliance of the Ron Paul Curriculum. It will take away from the infectious investment power of the State and redirect the youth, the precious youth, in a direction that refuses to make the State the god of the land.

It has long been held that it is outside the role of government to build an education system and to be involved in schooling. But since the government has never backed off and indeed has only grown in education (especially under Statist liberals like Bill Clinton and George W. Bush) the libertarians and conservatives have decided to compete. This is something that could not have taken place without the internet. The government made a strategic mistake: it neglected to calculate the impact that free and accessible information via the world wide web would have on liberty. The State-driven education costs billions per year. All the books and resources at the Mises Institute are free. Economics 101: at a lesser price, more is demanded.

So what is the Ron Paul Curriculum (RPC)? It is, as the website informs, Ron Paul’s second phase of his revolution. ”Politics was phase 1. Education is phase 2.” What is phase three? I don’t know. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

The RPC is a homeschooling based curriculum that seeks to educate (or perhaps reeducate) every student from K-12th grade. The site’s masthead reads

Here, students learn the following:

  1. Liberty vs. coercion in Western history
  2. How to defend the freedom philosophy
  3. What it takes for success in college
  4. How to start a home business


The liberty movement lives on and presses hard. Among the several instructors are two that, for me, verify both the rigor of this curriculum and the seriousness of its implications. The first is historian and Protestant economist Dr. Gary North (here is Gary North’s video regarding this new curriculum). The second is Dr. Tom Woods, author of Meltdown and Who Killed the Constitution?

With rigorous courses (Austrian economics, two years of Western Civilization [with both a protestant track from North and a Catholic track from Woods], public speaking, entrepreneurship, biology, mathematics, theology, and Constitutional history), practical application (how to start a business, how to start a blog, how to master the art of public speaking, and self-discipline, manners, life standards), and even forums for students and parents to connect, this new curriculum is everything one would expect from Ron Paul and his most loyal supporters.

But free markets leave out the poor! Years K through 5 will be available for free. That is six years of free education at a higher quality than most my age received from K through 12. (This doesn’t include me [or my siblings, or my wife and her siblings for that matter]; after all, we were homeschooled). And after that? ”Dirt cheap.” (Tom Woods). Roughly $20 per month. Give up a couple movie tickets and give your family a real education!

There are no textbooks. Textbooks, according to Gary North,

“have been screened by committees. Worse than this, they have been screened by committees of educrats. Textbooks are not subject to rapid revision. They are not tied to other courses in the curriculum: history, literature, economics, and government. They are dumbed down. The[y] appeal to the lowest common denominator. The Ron Paul Curriculum does not target that low a denominator.

Here is Tom Woods on textbooks:

[Textbooks] are awful. They have terrible biases, they’re boring, kids hate them. We are going to use original documents and downloadable PDFs.

The curriculum is going to be released on September 2, 2013. What else happens that month? Ron Paul’s The School Revolution will be released. This is a planned, blueprinted, and excellently marketed revolution.

The entire pre-college experience will be completed by the end of 2015. This is only the beginning.

It is very important to bring to light the fact that this is a curriculum NOT a school. Why? Because parents are the responsible party! This is a great and glorious reality of this new project. Parents are in charge of their student’s efforts and progress. Ol’ Gary North won’t be sending a letter to you to inform you that your child needs to adapt himself to Gary North’s goals. The parents shall, as per the institution of family government, oversee the child, decide when to utilize the curriculum and when to supplement it with something else. And who decides when the child can skip ahead, slow down, or change the education patterns? The parents. It is at their discretion to further the education of the child. The parents act as the principle and the mediator. The parents are empowered to say “no” to the State and its despicable ways. The parents can even say “no” to Ron Paul, Gary North, and Tom Woods. This is the point. This is what Paul, North, and Woods are aiming for. They are not greedy for your children like the Government.

The irony is this: here was Ron Paul advocating for liberty for decades in congress while so-called Christians who were also statists (ie, wolves in sheep’s clothing) like Newt “FDR is my hero” Gingrich and Rick “crusader against libertarianism” Santorum, were busy voting for and/or endorsing No Child Left Behind. Not only is Paul the only consistent conservative, he is also the most consistent morally, whether in his strong marriage to one woman or his personal views on Church and self-discipline. This curriculum will reflect that old-fashioned lifestyle.

The liberty movement continues strongly and boldly. While the conservative, as Murray Rothbard once noted, is sometimes seemingly doomed to long-run pessimism, it seems that both the market, and the roots of the American culture are awakening to battle, like they did in 1776, against tyranny in society and economy. It seems that the principles of self-government are arising from the grave and coming back with a vengeance.

Liberty vs. the State. Education vs. indoctrination. Let’s roll.

Tagged as: c jay engel, education, gary north, homeschooling, liberty, ron paul, ron paul curriculum, self-taught, tom woods

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