According to the ruling of a federal judge in Detroit, children in the United States have absolutely no right to learn how to read and they shouldn’t expect schools to be responsible for teaching them. Not only is this morally wrong, but the ruling by the judge actually goes against the very laws of this country. Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins explains.

Transcript:

In a recent court decision, in Detroit, a federal judge, by the name of Steven Murphy III, ruled that kids in the United States actually have no right whatsoever to be taught how to read at school. This was the official ruling by a federal judge. You do not have a right to be literate, here, in the United States.

Now, the lawsuit was brought on behalf of the children who’d been arguing that they were receiving a substandard education at public schools. Children were not being taught how to read, therefore, they could not pass the standardized tests that we’ve put in place. They couldn’t graduate onto the next level. They had no future, because the schools were doing such a poor job of teaching them. Most of that, obviously, is because we’re underfunding our schools. Nonetheless, this judge said, “Hey. I understand, on a moral thing, yeah, being able to read is certainly important I life and you’ll never be anything if you don’t know how to read, but we, as a country, don’t have an obligation to make sure that you can read.”

Okay, so, Judge Steven Murphy III says that we don’t have a fundamental right to teach kids how to read, or to learn to read, in this country. He admitted that it’s morally wrong, so we don’t need to talk about that. Let me go ahead and argue with the legality of that, Murphy III, because we when you really start to think about it, if you understand the law, which you should but clearly don’t, then, yeah, we do have an obligation to teach kids how to read. After all, these are kids that go to public school. Where does public school funding come from? It comes from taxpayers. It comes, whether we want it to or not, out of our paychecks, the money to fund schools. We pay it in other taxes as well. We don’t have a choice in that. Therefore, because we are forced to pay for this, and because our children are legally forced to go to school, you do have a legal obligation to teach them how to read. That’s actually a quite simple argument to make there.

I don’t know who the lawyer was for the kids, but they absolutely failed them, because this should’ve been a slam dunk argument that any first year law student could’ve made. Instead, we find out the sad, sick, truth about the United States of America. They don’t want to teach you write. They don’t want to teach you how to read. They don’t want to teach you how to do anything other than be a subservient, good, little, factory worker, if you even manage to get that job.

They don’t want intelligent people, in this country. That’s what’s even more disturbing. This judge’s ruling proves that. Let’s keep them dumb. Keep them out of the loop. Make it to where they can’t even read newspapers, here, in the United States, because dumb people make the best Republicans. They make the best people to step all over, while the powerful elite destroy this country, poison us with their toxic chemicals, and they make all the money. This judge’s ruling just exasperated that problem like we’ve never seen in this country.

Farron Cousins is the executive editor of The Trial Lawyer magazine and a contributing writer at DeSmogBlog.com. He is the co-host / guest host for Ring of Fire Radio. His writings have appeared on Alternet, Truthout, and The Huffington Post. Farron received his bachelor's degree in Political Science from the University of West Florida in 2005 and became a member of American MENSA in 2009. Follow him on Twitter @farronbalanced