Re: The value of shopping local

[3D Peruna]

Personally, I don't think I'd like that. But, whatever you like. Remember, right is not to be infringed...

[Warm Worm]

Perhaps your apparent attitudes and values you've expressed over the years-- unstandardized education, child "neglect", uncontrolled private weaponry, land-ownership and markets-- speaks closer to the dialect than you realize of a government you apparently love to hate.

If you want to be flippant, disingenuous or cryptic, that's your prerogative, and, again, seems along the lines of some of the values or modus operandi of your very own pet-peeve of a government.

Dictatorships and the like come and go, but their core values, attitudes and styles remain.

[Warm Worm]

Assuming that's an adequate defense. Thermonuclear bombs seem a little paradoxical in nature in that they'll kill everything, including the owner. :D

[3D Peruna]

It all depends on the delivery method...

[Warm Worm]

Which would be?

[Amy Blankenship]

Yes, the framers were uniquely priveleged men. If you look at all peopl, you had children dying before reaching adulthood, women dying in childbirth, slaves dying in the field, etc. However, you've asked for proof. So lets assume that public education started in 1850.

Let's look at life expectancy for 1850: can see that if you were a white male and you lived to be 40, you had a pretty good shot at living to be 70. This is a surprise to me: if white women lived to be 40, they were also quite likely to live to 70. But the average lifespan for all whites in 1850 was around 40. Lifespans for people of other races were quite a bit shorter.

Yeah, and you're a brainchild, obviously.

Obviously, whatever education you got wasn't adequate to teach you about history. You've consistently refused to answer whether your education was public or not. I can only assume you'd be proud to stand up and say it wasn't if that is the case, so apparently it was.

No one is denying the current system is not the most efficient. But we as Americans tend to be very inefficient, because we have a lot of resources and because we're not much on looking to places that ARE working and borrowing their ideas.

Er, we haven't developed throughout history, but only throughout the past

350 years or so, about half of which has had public education.

I am trying to figure out where you see a decline. The vast majority of our population has enough to eat every day. People are healthy and living longer. Most people are gainfully employed. Crime rates are relatively low. What decline are you talking about?

It's 36% in Community Colleges

which is where the remedial type people tend to go, more so than full-fledged Colleges and Universities. I suspect it is lower there, but really I'm tired of doing web searches because you're ignorant.

I couldn't find any hard data supporting your claim. I found one guy who listed a lot of successful people who never went to college and succeeded, but nothing on whether or not there was a correlation between attending college and a productive work life. I guess it is your turn to provide a cite.

-Amy

[Amy Blankenship]

I have to say that learning to follow orders is an important skill. In probably 70% of all jobs, that is at least as important as reading, math, etc. For life outside work, one also needs to be able to think critically. However, the main purpose of the educational system is to create good workers, so training students to take order is a good thing. I think the educational system is not perfect by any means, but I think it's a good idea to have the school system at least expose children with the ideas of good manners and respect for authority.

It's up to parents to teach children when and how to question authority. The educational system at its root is to allow the student to become employable (and so not starve).

If you look historically, though, few people could read or do math AT ALL, and thinking was a luxury for the rich. Is our educational system as good as it could or should be? Of course not! But completely eliminating it, as Don suggests, is not the answer. Unless of course it died a natural death due to people finding better ways to ensure all children get educated.

-Amy

[3D Peruna]

High Altitude at High Speed...

[Warm Worm]

How about casually sprinkled as a kind of pixie femtonuke-bomb-dust over the military compounds?

"...It has been suggested that the materials might be constructed to allow all of the stored energy to be released very quickly in a 'burst'. The density of gammas produced in this reaction would be high enough that it might allow them to be used to compress the fusion fuel of a fusion bomb. If this turns out to be the case, it might allow a fusion bomb to be constructed with no fissile material inside (eg. a pure fusion weapon), and it is the control of the fissile material and the means for making it that underlies most attempts to stop nuclear proliferation. In fact, the possible energy release of the gammas alone would make IGE a potential high power 'explosive' on its own, or a potential radiological weapon. Basic research remains in early stages but that has not deterred the worrying about these possibilities."

--

[Amy Blankenship]

Therein lies the problem.

[Amy Blankenship]

Which coincides nicely with the introduction of widespread free public education.

Well, certainly we consume excessively, pollute excessively, and have no idea how to use our resources effectively. However, that is all symptomatic of a robust economy and little social consciense, two things you approve of heartily.

Well, clearly you can't list any areas where the country has actually declined, so I guess this discussion is over.

[George Conklin]

message

You sure like making a fool out of yourself.

[Amy Blankenship]

Since you can't (obviously can't since you have had two opportunities so far and haven't) point to any area the country has declined, I think we can consider this discussion over.

[Kris Krieger]

"Don" wrote in news: [e-mail]:

[ ... ]

I think the point is that, if education is the right of all children, how do the People, through the gov.t, see to it that all children have access to education?

So, for example, if you are home-schooling your children, then IMO you should receive a tax reduction, because you are not using the public schools, but not an exemption because it can be well-argued that education benefits everyone.

I do not think that "education for every child" should be at all *equated* with "the current public school system and its accompanying over-bloated bureaucracy".

I do think that education is the right of every child, because I see education as an intrinsic part of both maintaining liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

I therefore do think that education should be a shared responsibility by a People concerned with liberty, and individual fulfillment.

I do not think that what occurs in public schools is education, and therefore do not beleive that it is right or fair that huge amounts of taxes are collected in order to support what is, for the most part, a self- perpetuating bureaucracy which not only does not, but by its very nature (as a bureaucy) cannot focus upon it purpoted role.

[Kris Krieger]

Warm Worm wrote in news:fh7s0h$i3q$ [e-mail]:

[ ... ]

I actualy think that is not such a bad idea. Sometimes I think I owuld love to teach (I'm sure none of you has ever suspected that I have a bit of apedantic nature ), but the whole "classroom" thing puts me off, because what I would like to pass on is my love of, and excitement about, the natural world, and how Science helps us uncover and understand it. The problem is that this is extremely difficult, excpet for very talented "natural-born" teachers, to communicate withing th econfines of a concrete room.

The other problem is the strictures - I have a friend who is a teacher, and it seems that the *vast* majority of time is wasted upon adhering to this or that bureaucrat's pet dumbass "theory of education", and on teaching the kids to memorize the andwers of the dumbass "no child left behind" (talk about lack of truth in advertising...) Federal money acquisition forms.

IMO, Nature is the best classroom, because it is constantly stimulating, and is the wellspring of a child's curiosity - which, in turn, is the cornerstone of a continuing desire to learn.

Hence, I do not teach, and have never sought to little piece of paper taht grants me permission to do so.

[Kris Krieger]

"Michael Bulatovich" wrote in news: [e-mail]:

Which is why education is important.

[Kris Krieger]

3D Peruna wrote in news:ATi%i.396$ [e-mail]:

Hmmm, I never thought of it quite that way ;)

[Kris Krieger]

"Don" wrote in news: [e-mail]:

That is thesis material - one could write hundreds of pages about it. Any method, however, woudl requir that poeple agree that (1) education will be provided to all children, and (2) critical thinking skills are as important as basics like reading comprehension, also arithmetical skills so that people can create and balance budgets for themselves.

Yes, taxes would probably be involved, but the taxes needed for a low-to- zero-bureaucracy "old style" school would be *much* lower than the taxes taken for mega-bureauracies and mega-campuses and mega-stadiums.

[Kris Krieger]

3D Peruna wrote in news:M_i%i.430$ [e-mail]:

You know what, in the end, all of this starts to sound to me like justifications of selfishness.

You want all the liberty, all the freedom - and to hell with anyone or anything that isn't part of your personal nuclear family/property.

Part of living in even a minimally-civilized society is sharing certain burdens, one of which is paying at least some *minimal* attention to the well-being and education of children. So what if their parents are f*ckheads - that isn't the *kids'* fault, and I don't mind paying to help kids *as long as that's what's being done*.

Frankly, after a while, all of the "rights don't mean responsibilities to anyone" arguments strike me as being ethically hollow. All that's done is a continual harping upon the current system, and even when someone tries to suggest other ways, it always comes back to that same string.

I don;t know how many times a person can say "the current system needs to be replaced". Of course, it never will be, because most people can't get their minds up above the morass to even *consider* alternate ideas. It's just harp, harp, harp.

Blame the parents, fine, f*ck 'em, right? And even though it's not a child's fault that a couple of sh*theads refused to use birth contriol, well f*ck the kids, too, right? F*ck any ideas, f*ck *anything* and

*everything* that might require a few sheckels from your pocket, right?

Basically, you want to have your cake, and eat it, too. Except that a just society concerned with liberty does not simply appear out of nowhere

- if you let sh*theads and a-holes bring kids into the world and do nothing to even *try* to help those kids learn a better way, don't whine when the kids grow up to be theives and beggers because "it was their parents' responsibility to educate them", even tho' the parents weren't even capable of managing their own lives, never mind adequately rear (and educate) a child.

You talk and talk about "teaching people better" - well, where is that supposed to begin? If the parents don't know any better, or don't give a damn, *how* the hell are the kids supposed to learn when they're being forced to scratch out a living in the gutter so to speak, because Gawd Forbid anyone actually PAY for teachers or anything.

And no, don't start in on that same old fraying string about teh current system - I must have said a hundred times that it needs to be replaced. But you refuse to even consider that - all you do is harp on how your property is your property and tough nuts if some kids have shitheads for parents because it sin't your business, ain't your responsibility, and you don't give a flying fart. Sorry but that is exactly how it comes across. It sounds exactly like the "justifications" of tyrants who run child-labor sweatshops.

Sorry, but I don't accept that "to hell with the kids if their parents can't be bothered educating them" is part of the ideals or philosophies that formed the basis for trying to form a nation which valued the individual. And that's another thing - you all yammer and blither about valuing the individual - but that bus stops short, tires screaming in a cloud of black smoke, the *instant* that a few coins might have to come out of your pocket so as to educate kids so that they can learn there is a wide world out there and they have a right to claim their place in it.

And for the 110th time at least, no I am not an apologist for the current bureaucracy, but I *am* a proponent of education.

[Kris Krieger]

"Amy Blankenship" wrote in news:qGn%i.428$ [e-mail]:

Foloowing directions is not the same thing as following orders. Directions exist for a reason. Orders fome from an assumption of authority which demands unquestioning obedience.

Education should be about much more than training good workers - it should help establish a framework one can use to achieve self- fulfillment, self-actualization. If all you want to do is train workers, don't bother with education, jsut send the kids to work as soon as they can do something, like knot carpets.

Oh, but wait, that'd be child labor. Well, if all that matters is "good workers", why is child labor a bad thing?

I think it is a disaster for a great many kids.

A lot of "authority" is false; most people "in authority" are idiots. What one needs to learn, in the current culture, which I never did BTW since I lack sufficient social instincts, is how to *suck up to* authority. Following "authority" blindly is not a good habit - liberty, freedom, and democracy demand far more than that.

Good manners...? Good manners are rooted in civility, which in turn is rooted in at least some minimal level of empathy for others. Good manners are, in essence, not a set of rules, but rather, a way of giving consideration to, being considerate of, others. Rules change from place to place, so the rules of one place are irrelevant to the rules of another - but civility, consideration, allow one to *adapt*, as opposed to merely memorizing sets of rules.

And *adapting* is the important thing. Obedience does not teach one to adapt, nor do rules, nor does blind obedience to those who claim authority.

Good little worker bees, unquestioning, comfortable in their assigned pidgeonholes...

Replace, not eliminate. For one thing, chuck the bureaucrats, and let teachers *teach*. And if soem cannot actually teach, can 'em and get people who *can* teach.