Ya think it's easy?

“Heres what’s wrong with TV: 1. Not enough dogs. 2. Not enough barking. 3. Never enough doorbells.”

I’m an atheist, but I really like the idea of church, and I wish we had better ways of doing church. In the same kind of seemingly schizoid way, I hate the public schools, not alone because they are tax-funded, but I love charter schools, even though they are tax-funded.

Here’s the why for both: Ds civilization is a friendly competition among fathers to do everything better – especially fatherhood.

When a lot of Ds and Cs dads live near each other – in what we used to call a neighborhood – their awareness of each other leads each of them to better and better performances as fathers: Better providers, better homesteaders, better handymen, better coaches – better at everything at home and therefore better for everyone at home and in the world at large.

Better for their wives and children, too, it should go without saying. Moms compete with other moms when they can – meaning when dad has provided so well that mom can stay at home for kith and kin. And dance lessons and little league and summer camps and soap-box derbies are all made possible by Ds and Cs dads – prosperous enough to pay for it, loving enough to stay for it.

Churches and charter schools recreate that good-neighbors environment without the neighborhoods. By their being, they engender communities of like minds in which dads, moms and kids can all strive to do better together.

Churches are families of families, the fallback for failing families, much as the family is the fallback for failing individuals. Plus which, your church is the ideal place for your kids to meet their lifelong mates: Opposites might attract, but it’s shared values and expectations that go the distance.

And shared values and expectations are what unite kids from charter schools: All of the parents are serious about education, the curriculum itself is sound, and results matter, since the stock-in-trade – the children – is fungible. Good charter schools have branch locations all over. Bad charter schools get bought out by good charter schools.

All of this is to the good, even despite my qualms. Everyone working to get better at being good is my friend – and the better they get at being good, the fewer my qualms, anyway.

In other news:

Clarice Feldman: Biden’s Botched Bug Out.

Andrea Widburg: The military brass may regret firing Lieutenant Colonel Stuart Scheller.

American Thinker: Has there ever been a President as cold-hearted as Joe Biden?

Roger Kimball: A Lesson for Joe Biden.

PJMedia.com: A Deserved ‘Moment of Truth’ for Public Schools as a Record Number of Parents Opt Out.