Talkin' 'bout politics and stuff

I went exclusively to state schools during high school because they were affordable. They would've had done the trick just fine too if it weren't for this small gripe: they exclusively taught me what to think, never how to think.

As a result, when I graduated and was on my way to college I basically still had the same world view as before I entered the schooling system, which can perhaps be described as naive bewilderment as to the workings of the world.

What drives the economy? What is the economy? How do people run these big multinational companies? Why do the ads I see in magazines look the way they do? Newspapers have political leanings? Left is hip, right is not? What makes the world tick?

I was left to my own means to figuring out the world. The stuff I learned at school was of little use and to be forgotten as soon as the exam period was over. The emphasis was after all on memorizing, never on analyzing and understanding.

Take for example politics. Politics is a sphere that permeates the very fabric of society, yet its mechanics were never instructed on in the classroom and as a result it remained as this fuzzy and complicated subject. It need not be. Not, for instance, if teachers taught their classrooms this:

Left being progressive and right being conservative are misconceptions. What they actually mean is that the further left you go on the political spectrum, the more power the government will have (100 percent power [total government] on the far left), and vice versa if you reverse direction (zero power [no government] on the far right).

Best to stay in the middle, where the government is limited to its proper role of protecting the rights of the people as mandated by the constitution. Supporters of this are called constitutional moderates. Pay attention if come election time a candidate promises to uphold the constitution (i.e. to protect the rights of the people): you may have a winner.

Furthermore, there are five forms of government: (i) monarchy, (ii) oligarchy, (iii) democracy, (iv) republic, and (v) anarchy. In today's world, however, there are only two forms of government: oligarchy and republic. When you hear somebody say monarchy or dictatorship, what he actually means to say is oligarchy. Oligarchy means ruled by a few and is the most common form of government in history and in today's world: not one country is ruled by a single person, as a monarchy or dictatorship suggests; there's always a group of people behind that one leader who pull the strings.

If there are only oligarchies and republics, this means that there are no democracies either. The reason being is that a democracy is not a stable government: it's the gradual transition from limited government to the unlimited rule of an oligarchy. The flaw of a democracy is that the majority isn't restrained; in a democracy, if half the people can be persuaded to want something, they rule.

The most desired form of government is a republic. A true republic is one where the government is limited by law, leaving the people alone. This equates to freedom, as the essence of freedom is the proper limitation of government. This also means that law is everything in a republic.

Then there is an anarchy. Like a democracy, an anarchy is not a stable form of government. It's a quick transition from something that exists to something desired by the power hungry.

Those advocating an anarchy don't like the government that they have. They turn to anarchy to bring about revolutionary change. During the chaos, the people turn to those who are best able to put an end to it and beg them to restore order, and, tragically, those who are best able to end the chaos are those who started it.

Schools should prepare you for the real world and equip you with a working knowledge of how the world works. They should instruct you how to think for yourself and to question everything. Call the course Real World Workings 101, if you like. Doing otherwise would be both a waste and a crime.

Marco van Basten best of

I just thought that the time is right to finally place Marco van Basten's two best goals on a single page.

The first one, and his all-time best, is the bicycle kick goal he made in 1986 as an Ajax player against FC Den Bosch. As a kid I watched the goal live on television and was blown away. Other kids were too because at soccer training in the week after everybody was just begging our trainers to teach us how to do the bicycle kick. The trainers just laughed it off and grumbled something in the vein of, no, they won't teach us how to do the bicycle kick, that's not what you and I are here for, that's just something you have to figure out for yourself. In my mind, the response only made Marco van Basten even more awesome and even more of an enigma.

The second goal is the volley against the USSR that won the Dutch its first and so far its only European Championship title. That was in 1988 and I missed the entire event as I'd just moved to a new country and was trying to adjust and settle. As such, its impact and importance was lost on me. To me, the assist is equally as impressive as the volley itself, actually.