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Building Civic Virtue 2010/01/25 (11)
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Jun 5, 2025
Jon Roland explains how civic virtue is built and how it declines. With Lela Pittenger. Austin Constitution Meetup Jan. 25, 2010.
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and uh that was very telling because it
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corresponded of course also to people
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knowing their
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neighbors now when I was a kid in the
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early 50s everybody knew everybody yeah
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we all visited each other everybody took
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care of everybody else's kids MH you
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know I could wander around all over my
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town yeah and I did you it's a hi of
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people you know and all that and your
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mama would know about anything you did
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before you got home well I said I didn't
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do
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anything and really none almost none of
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us did because we knew that everybody
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was watching us
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right
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we the the expression was revived some
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years ago as you may call it takes a
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village ah yes well in those days we had
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a village right it wasn't a village of
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government though it was a village of
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neighbors right well I also observed the
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tendency again in the
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50s for that to break
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down a lot of new people moving into
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town and not knowing each other with
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cocooning into their
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houses uh not going out on
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socializing and
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uh you know I could watch it happen you
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know play out in front of my eyes and
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one of the things I did when I was still
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a little
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kid you know I spoke to my grandparents
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and my parents and other
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people and I you know I noted the
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historical changes that had taken place
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in their
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lives I said I'm going to be living
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through an interesting period of History
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I need to pay attention to what's going
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on around me because I some of my
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grandparents and parents weren't really
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paying that much attention they were
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just living they weren't really
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observing right so I said I'm going to
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be an observer I'm going to pay
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attention to what's going on around me
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so that later on I can understand it
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right so I have tried to do
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that that's my cell phone sorry okay I
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forgot to turn it on silent all right
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sounded like the ice cream truck it it's
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nice it's better than the piercing
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sounds yes anyway
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uh so I found that uh
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by paying
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attention was on was going on around
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me not just to news reports or
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historical events but to the ordinary
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daily life of ordinary
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people and tri and how historical events
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were not only taking place and being
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reported but affecting Ordinary People
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right to try to understand the changes
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that are taking
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place um I think I've been moderately
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successful at
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that particularly when I speak to some
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of my social conservative friends most
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of whom are upset about this or that
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change they've seen in
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society and most of them are really not
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very good at attributing correct causes
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for those
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changes they they see one change that
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they don't like they see another change
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that occurred at the same time and they
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think that this caused
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that well in most cases this didn't
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cause that right it just happened to
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occur at the same time right sometimes
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they had common causes sometimes it's
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just a
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coincidence but if you don't understand
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the real causes of things you won't have
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you won't come up with the right
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solutions for
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them so I have W up engaging in a lot of
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arguments with uh not only social
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conservative friends I have liberal
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friends that you know have their own uh
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uh
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concerns and there's a
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general tendency not to understand what
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really caused the changes the the things
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that they're concerned about or what to
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do about them
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uh I'm not one of those who says that
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the good old days were so all that much
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better than they are today every decade
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has its own challenges right there are a
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lot of things that have gotten worse a
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lot of things have gotten better I
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wouldn't trade the internet for
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anything but uh yeah coming out of World
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War II then the Korean
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War we had a level of civic virtue that
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we didn't have before our
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sins William James wrote about this in
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his famous essay the moral equivalent of
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War he was concerned about civic virtue
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and observed that with every war it
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increased and then declined between
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Wars of course he was not in favor of
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War he didn't want to have a war just to
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get Civic
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virtu so he he he tried to come up with
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some alternative ative to war that would
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generate civic virtue and is this an
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essay you have on your website yeah
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yeah uh I'm not very satisfied with his
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what he came up with and really probably
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neither was
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he but uh it does illustrate the
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problem
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uh civic virtue is very difficult to
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achieve and
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maintain especially when times are
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good uh this country was founded during
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a rough period the American Revolution
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was hard on
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everybody but it was a
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wonderful uh
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incubator of the ideas that have made
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this country
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great however once the Revolution was
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won the Constitution was adopted things
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started going downhill
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and of course one of the reasons why
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they went downhill is because times
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we're good Rel bu his store standards
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anyway lots of opportunities a lot of
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free land you know plenty of people
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moving in and getting jobs and building
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Industries and planting farms and
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cutting down the trees and just having a
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good old time right not that we weren't
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plenty of problems we had a civil
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war but uh
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uh which could have easily been
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avoided but it was a
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u exciting time but not one that
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cultivated the kind of civic
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virtue that makes for constitutional
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government so the question is then how
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do we somehow
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recapture that kind of civic virtue well
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it's not easy it's not
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obvious I of course devote a lot of my
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time and effort to doing that this
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proposal this nullification proposal is
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in part a way to try to do that what
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would you say to people who think that
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doing something like mandatory Civil
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Service would increase civic virtue
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among particularly young people usually
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they want the kids who graduate high
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school they don't talk about the guys in
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their 50s and 60s having to do this what
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do you say to people who think well
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that's a good idea because I know that
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was a small discussion a tiny short
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period in the 08 elections was given to
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that discussion what do you think of
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that well actually I'm in favor of that
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if Done Right
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mhm the key concept is militia mhm uh
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the militia were supposed to be that
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right when this country was founded it
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was run by militia and
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juries in other words
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volunteers they didn't need to pay you
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know to raise taxes or pay public
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service to do things because the
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citizens did it on their own
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right
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um what we would need to do in today's
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terms would be to Mo uh train young
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people
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especially in the Arts of defense law
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enforcement Disaster Response and so
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forth at a
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minimum and of course the skills needed
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by militia today are the same skills we
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teach in public
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schools so the question was asked you
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may recall it at the State Board of
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Education uh uh session you know one of
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the members say you know sort of asked
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rhetorically do you know of any
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provision of the Constitution that
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authorizes the federal uh funding of
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public
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education and I don't think he said
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Federal funding but anyway Federal
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activity in this
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area uh actually there is such a
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provision it's the militia clause on
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training training the
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militia and today training the militia
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means not just in defense uh law
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enforcement and uh Disaster Response it
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also means Reading Writing arithmetic
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you know math reading you know all all
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the stuff that's taught in the military
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cies
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right um
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what is missing from
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that is it needs to be not just
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academic it needs to be practical too
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right
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