Howard Dean Quotes
The path to a better future goes directly through our public schools. I have nothing against private schools, parochial schools and home schooling, and I think that parents with the means and inclination should choose whatever they believe is best for their children. But those choices cannot compete, and cannot come at the expense of what has been -- and what must always be -- the great equalizer in our society, a free and equal public education.
Dean, Howard. Presidential Campaign Speech. 2003.
It did not pass. Smalls had a hand in re-writing the Constitution of the State into which he had been born into slavery.
Ironically, as important as education was to the early Americans, the words “education” and “school” never appeared in the Constitution nor is education even alluded to.
This plank if ever actually implemented would clearly destroy the American educational system. Extreme radical ideas such as this are not typical of Libertarian Party positions before or afterwards. The quotation illustrates that there are people in America who would end public education if they could. The quotation also illustrates how a small cadre of people can capture control of a political party and create a platform that is their own personal views which may be different from most of the party members or the historical position that the party has taken. In 1980 the Libertarian Party Vice Presidential Candidate was David Koch, one half of the billionaire conservative Koch brothers. Their money financed the Libertarian Party in that year and David Koch’s views then prevailed in the party platform. Historically, the Koch brothers moved from a minor third party to the Republican party at the beginning of the 21st century when their money was able to help drive the party very far to the right from the traditions of Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt.
Liberia had been founded by American Free Negroes. American religious missionary organizations were very helpful in building the new nation, but they also created their own parochial, religious day schools. And behind the scenes they blocked efforts to establish a public school system. Walker, in America, was trying to get public support for allowing there to be public schools in Liberia.
Howard Brush Dean III is an American physician, author, lobbyist, and retired politician who served as Governor of Vermont from 1991 to 2003 and Chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) from 2005 to 2009. Dean was a candidate for the Democratic nomination in the 2004 presidential election. His implementation of the fifty-state strategy as head of the DNC is credited with the Democratic victories in the 2006 and 2008 elections. Afterward, he became a political commentator and consultant to McKenna Long & Aldridge, a law and lobbying firm.
