Public Education is a Terrible Idea!

[disturbo]

I think I will finally enter the discussion in earnest. I'm a middle school teacher in a public school. I love my job. I do everything that I can to teach my students how to learn and not what to learn. The restraints of my position are many and the largest of them is the constraints of the curriculum: I'm bound by state laws that force me to teach according to standards for a test. It sucks. I hate it. I do everything that I can to skirt the rules as much as possible while still upholding the rules I am bound by. I just want to make clear the idea that the system is the issue, not the teachers. No teacher that I know is ok with the current system. Every effort to reform has been thwarted by ridiculous bipartisan teams bolstered financially by the corporate backers they have. The real losers in this system are the children and I needed to make sure that those reading this understand that the teachers are yearning for change and need the votes to make it happen.

Agreed. The teachers have to adhere to the rules, and the students are always the ones who reap the good and bad of our educational system.

 

[Clete]

I think I will finally enter the discussion in earnest. I'm a middle school teacher in a public school. I love my job. I do everything that I can to teach my students how to learn and not what to learn. The restraints of my position are many and the largest of them is the constraints of the curriculum: I'm bound by state laws that force me to teach according to standards for a test. It sucks. I hate it. I do everything that I can to skirt the rules as much as possible while still upholding the rules I am bound by. I just want to make clear the idea that the system is the issue, not the teachers. No teacher that I know is ok with the current system. Every effort to reform has been thwarted by ridiculous bipartisan teams bolstered financially by the corporate backers they have. The real losers in this system are the children and I needed to make sure that those reading this understand that the teachers are yearning for change and need the votes to make it happen.

The system cannot be fixed. It if flawed fundamentally.
It isn't about educating kids and hasn't been for a very long time. It's about politics. The godless curriculum is only part of the problem. The real issue for politicians is the money they get donated by the teacher's unions. The politicians give money to the schools via taxes and get a kick back in the form of political donations from the unions. It amounts to a money laundering scheme that you, as a teacher, have absolutely no hope of changing whatsoever.

Attempting to fix government schools or to somehow make them better is like attempting to fix or improve Obama Care. It cannot be fixed or even improved upon. It must be gotten rid of entirely. We do not need it and never have needed it and would be so much better off without it.

 

[aikido7]

You argue against yourself, or else misunderstood my point.

Youtube and other things internet are not owned by the government. It is government schools that have proven incapable of teaching kids "how to learn" (i.e. "how to think") and have no incentive to fix the problem.

Parents no longer take a vested interest in raising up moral, curious children who are inveterate readers and start off as "good students" as toddlers.

I see a lot of good signs to the contrary around the world these days.

And I was a fairly good parent myself, judging by my daughter and grandchildren.

 

[aikido7]

I can't figure out which is worse; the idea that they do it on purpose or the idea that they don't do it on purpose.

I mean, adiko7, for example, almost certainly actually believes that "terrorism is the war of the poor and war is the terrorism of the rich" as he quotes in his signature.

It's bad enough to be smart and power hungry but the result of just pure plain and simple stupidity seems to have effectively the same result and you can't fix stupid. So which is worse?

You need to talk to me directly. Even many military generals and experts have talked about the way of violence is doing no good in the Middle East--from ISIS or from America.

Terrorism comes from poor education and municipal facilities.

The violence in Syria began because of global warming.The people suffered under severe drought conditions for over 10 years and the government did not lift a finger to help.

There happened to be a small demonstration against Assad's inaction by some students about 5 years ago. In some small out-of-the-way town, some anti-government graffiti was scrawled on a public wall and the government crackdown began in earnest.

And we see the result of that today.

Yes, terrorism IS the only type of war that poor people can wage.
They do not have the LASERS and the big guns. They do have numbers and small weapons. They actually DO make war, Clete.

And since the powers and principalities are subject to the same scapegoating and revenge fantasies of their opponents, their "Shock and Awe" campaigns and their drone attacks are the terror from the skies to their opponents.

 

[Clete]

You need to talk to me directly.

No I don't. Every one of your posts has that quote for everyone to read and it made for an excellent example of the sort of idiotic things the left says all the time.

The question is whether they actually believe it or not. My bet is that you'd not put it on your signature unless you believed it.

Even many military generals and experts have talked about the way of violence is doing no good in the Middle East--from ISIS or from America.

Terrorism comes from poor education and municipal facilities.

Stupidity.

The violence in Syria began because of global warming.

Idiotic.

The people suffered under severe drought conditions for over 10 years and the government did not lift a finger to help.

And you believe this is America's fault?

Your mind doesn't work.

There happened to be a small demonstration against Assad's inaction by some students about 5 years ago. In some small out-of-the-way town, some anti-government graffiti was scrawled on a public wall and the government crackdown began in earnest.

Tyrants often crack down on their citizens for any number of unjust reasons, with or without droughts.

And we see the result of that today.

So let me get this straight...

The middle eastern wars were caused because America invented cars and uses them which caused a drought in Syria that Assad did nothing about, which motivated a hand full of educated kids to paint something on a wall which then made Assad mad and he went nuts and here we are.

Please keep going! You're a better example that I thought!

Yes, terrorism IS the only type of war that poor people can wage.

Poor by what standard?

It is nations and drug cartels that are financing terrorism not poor people.

They do not have the LASERS and the big guns. They do have numbers and small weapons. They actually DO make war, Clete.

They are not poor and it has nothing at all to do with global warming you idiot!

And since the powers and principalities are subject to the same scapegoating and revenge fantasies of their opponents, their "Shock and Awe" campaigns and their drone attacks are the terror from the skies to their opponents.

Yes, it is just so terrible that we Americans have a strong military and decide to use it AFTER being attacked. Boo Hoo! I guess Iraq should have chosen their enemies more carefully.

 

[The Horn]

Patrick Jane, I'm a non-observant, secular, agnostic Jew, and I'm 100 % heterosexual. Like so many other religious conservatives, you automatically assume I'm gay just because I'm for gay rights .
I'm also for animal rights, so I guess this makes me a cow.

 

[Clete]

In case you missed it...

This is basically correct. If there's no such thing as a common good, but only a private good, then the notion of public education is right out.



As a private individual, you have no right to tell me what to do, much less to coerce me into doing it. The very nature of law, however, is coercive. This is what distinguishes law from mere counsels. When I counsel you to do x, you can either do it or not. I have no power to make you do it. I can lead the horse to water, but I can't make him drink.

A law, however, is coercive. It says: "Do x or else." If there's no such thing as a common good, what gives anyone else the right to prescribe laws to me, much less to coerce me into following them?

Again, consider the Romans passage. The ruler does not wield the sword in vain. He is empowered to preserve order and punish evildoers. What gives him the right?

Again, in the Bible we are commanded to be obedient to the rulers. Conversely, to disobey the rulers is to offend God, at least in some small way. In the Scholastic formulation, what is it about the ruler which empowers them to bind me in conscience?

This is not, pay careful note, a modern question of the left. This is the question of St. Thomas Aquinas and of the Thomists and, I am sure, of other scholastics.

Again, I ask the question in a different way: what is it about the ruler which gives him authority over me such that he can command me to do x, forbid me to do y, permit me to do z, and punish me if I disobey?

The only way to explain this is as follows: as a private individual, I am part of a greater whole, i.e., of a political society. Just as I have my own good, so too, there is a good of the greater whole of which I am a part. Since my good is the good of a part, it is ordered to and subordinate to the good of the whole. He who has care over the whole has the authority to order the parts in relationship to the whole and to each other. This he does by means of law.

If there is no common good, and there is no whole which subsumes the parts, then the ruler has no authority, no entitlement to issue laws, and most certainly no right to punish people who disobey.



I vehemently disagree with this. If you start with a notion of rights in the modern sense, then you cannot derive thereby a notion of law. To the extent that the ruler says "Do what I say, or else," he violates my rights, if there are such rights in the modern sense (in fact, I deny that there are such rights; there are only commands, permissions and prohibitions of law). This is where the modern notion of a "social contract" just falls apart. If you loan me money and I refuse to pay up, you don't have the right to bust my kneecaps. If there is no common good, why should the ruler have the authority to imprison me, impose fines or otherwise punish me for the very same thing?

But I do agree with you in this sense. There are two and precisely two alternatives: common good or anarchy.

Either there is a common good, and so a greater whole to which we are subordinate, and the ruler is entitled to bind us to follow laws, or else, there is no such common good, no such greater good, and the ruler has no such entitlement, and nobody is bound to follow any human law.



No, it isn't. You can find it in Plato, Aristotle, St. Thomas Aquinas, etc. The idea of a common good isn't new. It's a concept of ancient and medieval political thought.

It's precisely in modern thought (in, e.g., Hobbes and Locke) that we see the common good die, at least, as a political concept. Hobbes and Locke make the foundation of political society a kind of "social contract." At that point, society becomes a mere aggregate of individuals. It's less like a house (to which the wood and the bricks are naturally subordinated and ordered) and more like a mere heap of bricks and wood.

It's only in ancient and medieval thought, wherein we follow Aristotle in saying that man is a political animal and has a natural ordering to the political society, that we are entitled to say that there is a common good.

Of course, leftists will appeal to "the common good," but it takes on a completely different meaning for them. It becomes Rousseau's so called "will of the people," as though such a thing has ever existed or even could exist in this state of life.

Leftists may appeal to the common good, but they do so illegitimately. They are not entitled to do so by their own principles. Proof of this may be seen in the fact that leftists are overwhelmingly moral relativists. If there's no such thing as an objective good or evil, then there's no such thing as an objective common good, i.e., what is objectively good for a well-ordered political society.

You cannot, in one and the same breath, think that morality is relative, and yet hold that there is such a thing as a good of the whole political society, i.e., independently of your good and my good as private individuals.



It's conceived analogously. Just as there is a good for the virtuous person, so too there is a good for the virtuous society. It simply requires that society be conceived as a single thing, a single whole with a determinate nature. If it is such a thing, then there is a good proper to it.

It is for this reason that we are able to differentiate between good and bad societies.



If that's true, then one private individual has no right to have authority over and punish another private individual.

Furthermore, if that's true, then the notion of a national or state border is completely groundless. The State has no authority to keep tabs on who is coming into and out of the country, much less to keep people out.



I simply disagree with the bolded. I conceive of political society as an organic whole of which the individual members are subordinate parts. Evidence of this may be seen in the fact that a political society pre-exists and outlasts its members.



Since the argument either for or against this point presupposes the notion of a common good, we'll have to bracket this discussion.

I do wish to note, however, that if your point is correct, then every act of war becomes a horrible injustice. What gives soldier A the right to shoot and kill soldier B? What gives military pilot C the right to drop a bomb on a munitions factory full of workers?

If you agree with me and say that soldiers A and C are, in a very real sense, public authorities acting on behalf of the State and in the person of the whole political society, then there is no injustice. Why? Because the political society, conceived as a single organic whole, has an objective right of self-defense, and soldiers A and C are acting on her behalf. They are acting, not on their own behalf, but as agents of the State, who has care over the whole political society.

If you disagree with me, then you must assert that they are committing acts of murder, vandalism, etc.



Both. The Nazis were acting as agents of a disordered political society. This is why things like war, sanctions, etc. on Germany as a whole were justified. Nonetheless, this doesn't absolve individual Nazis of guilt. They had a Natural Law duty to disobey (Acts 5:29).



Incommensurate; incomparable: You can't weigh and measure my life against yours, my rights against yours.



The bolded precisely is the point at issue. If there is no such thing as a common good, and if political society is not a single organic whole, then there is no basis for human law.

At that point, it becomes a mere matter of individual private contracts and agreements, into compliance with which you have no right to coerce me.



It's the good of the whole political society conceived as a single organic whole.



According to analogy. As the good of a virtuous individual is to that individual, so too is the good of a virtuous society to that society.



You just as easily could ask me what is the good of an individual human being, especially if, as I say, he is conceived as somehow superior to and independent of the individual parts of his body.

Traditio,

I'm still trying to get a firm grip on just what you're arguing here.

Let me ask you some rhetorical questions that might clarify things for me.

Do you agree that shoes benefit society? If not, why not?

If so, wouldn't everyone having shoes benefit society? If not, why not?

If so, would you support a government shoe program where private shoe providers are replaced with government sanctioned shoe providers that provide shoes for everyone? If not, why not?

Is it just, in your view, to steal your neighbor's shoes if you need them? Is it just to steal money from them in order to buy shoes? Is it just to steal anything of value from your neighbor so that you can then sell it and use the money to buy shoes?


If there where no government schools, would it be just for you to steal from your neighbor in order to finance your children's education?

If it is not just for you to do it, why, in your view, is it just for the government to do it for you?


Resting in Him,
Clete

 

[JonahofAkron]

The system cannot be fixed. It if flawed fundamentally.
It isn't about educating kids and hasn't been for a very long time. It's about politics. The godless curriculum is only part of the problem. The real issue for politicians is the money they get donated by the teacher's unions. The politicians give money to the schools via taxes and get a kick back in the form of political donations from the unions. It amounts to a money laundering scheme that you, as a teacher, have absolutely no hope of changing whatsoever.

Attempting to fix government schools or to somehow make them better is like attempting to fix or improve Obama Care. It cannot be fixed or even improved upon. It must be gotten rid of entirely. We do not need it and never have needed it and would be so much better off without it.

I agree. I didn't say to reform it. I said the attempts have failed

 

[aikido7]

Originally Posted by aikido7:
You need to talk to me directly.

No I don't.

Geeze Louise!

Every one of your posts has that quote for everyone to read and it made for an excellent example of the sort of idiotic things the left says all the time.

Judgements and name-calling do not advance the discussion. And that is probably why you make them.


Originally Posted by aikido7;
Even many military generals and experts have talked about the way of violence is doing no good in the Middle East--from ISIS or from America.

Stupidity

Even Rand Paul and Bernie Sanders agree on keeping us out of the Middle East.

Hey, and how did that old Iraq invasion help us out?


aikido7 posted:
The people suffered under severe drought conditions for over 10 years and the government did not lift a finger to help.

And you believe this is America's fault?

Whenever America fails to lead, she must be accountable.

Your mind doesn't work.

Yesterday or the day before I was looking for my glasses (I take them off at night and put them on top of my dresser). I finally realized I was in fact WEARING them!”

Today I went down to the lobby to get the mail and I ended up in the library! I had forgotten all about it.

Twice last month I totally forgot a dentist appointment and a doctor’s appointment.

Yes, I plead guilty having brain damage too often these days!

Quote:
There happened to be a small demonstration against Assad's inaction by some students about 5 years ago. In some small out-of-the-way town, some anti-government graffiti was scrawled on a public wall and the government crackdown began in earnest.
Tyrants often crack down on their citizens for any number of unjust reasons, with or without droughts.

Quote:
And we see the result of that today.
So let me get this straight...

The middle eastern wars were caused because America invented cars and uses them which caused a drought in Syria that Assad did nothing about, which motivated a hand full of educated kids to paint something on a wall which then made Assad mad and he went nuts and here we are.

That’s one interpretation. It does not square with the facts, however.

Yes, terrorism IS the only type of war that poor people can wage.
Poor by what standard?

People in countries that have no significant military weapons wage hit-and-run terroristic actions. History is filled with this. The little colonial militias did not--could not--play the same power war games that the British did. They hid out in trees and fired on the English undercover.
The big army swept the theater in columns out in the open with drums and fifes.

It is nations and drug cartels that are financing terrorism not poor people.

That could very well be. The global poor are suckers for any political or social narrative that promises employment and wage increases.

posted by aikido7:
They do not have the LASERS and the big guns. They do have numbers and small weapons. They actually DO make war, Clete.

They are not poor and it has nothing at all to do with global warming you idiot!

Here are some facts, evidence and real data that is far from idiotic or stupid:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2015/03/150302-syria-war-climate-change-drought/

http://scienceblogs.com/significant...ia-water-climate-change-and-violent-conflict/

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/climate-change-hastened-the-syrian-war/The violence in Syria began because of global warming.
Idiotic.

Yes, it is just so terrible that we Americans have a strong military and decide to use it AFTER being attacked. Boo Hoo! I guess Iraq should have chosen their enemies more carefully.

War does not work. If it did we would all be living in total peace right now.

Pragmatism, nonviolence, diplomacy and collaborative problem-solving work.

More facts:

In the past 20 years, nonviolent action has skyrocketed. In 1989-1990 alone, some 13 nations around the globe had successful and peaceful revolutions--except for the protests in Red China.

These struggles involved about 1.7 billion human beings. That’s one third of the entire global population.

If we add all the nonviolent successes in the 20th century, we get the figure of 3.3 billion people: over half of the human race!

We can no longer claim that nonviolence does not work!

 

[Clete]

Nothing in your post was really worth responding to at all but I couldn't leave this one thing alone. It's just too amazingly idiotic to ignore...

War does not work. If it did we would all be living in total peace right now.

:rotfl:

Tell that to George Washington!

:rotfl:

 

[aikido7]

Nothing in your post was really worth responding to at all but I couldn't leave this one thing alone. It's just too amazingly idiotic to ignore...



:rotfl:

Tell that to George Washington!

:rotfl:

Washington lived in an age where war was the only response available to deal with conflict besides giving in or fighting back.

Washington has been long dead and in today’s age there are a billion points of light around the globe from people who are enacting the Kingdom of God on earth today--without war, without violence.

As I said before, the truth tells us that in 1989-90 about a dozen different nations successfully underwent nonviolent changes of government. And it worked every time it was tried in World War II in Europe.

 

[The Horn]

Wrong !!! Getting rid of our public schools, imperfect as they are, would be a HORRIBLE idea !!!!

 

[aikido7]

Wrong !!! Getting rid of our public schools, imperfect as they are, would be a HORRIBLE idea !!!!

Home schooling needs to be something more than what I see to be fundamentalist solipsism.

Kids need to be stimulated and guided, not fed silly grain with a funnel in their mouth.

 

[genuineoriginal]

Wrong !!! Getting rid of our public schools, imperfect as they are, would be a HORRIBLE idea !!!!

Why would getting rid of the factories that churn out liberals like you be a horrible idea?

 

[gcthomas]

Why would getting rid of the factories that churn out liberals like you be a horrible idea?

Which of these liberalism ideas do you disagree with? It would make for a more focussed discussion.

Liberalism is a political philosophy or worldview founded on ideas of liberty and equality. The former principle is stressed in classical liberalism while the latter is more evident in social liberalism. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally they support ideas and programs such as freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, free markets, civil rights, democratic societies, secular governments, and international cooperation.

Wikipedia summary.

 

[genuineoriginal]

Which of these liberalism ideas do you disagree with? It would make for a more focussed discussion.

Liberalism is a political philosophy or worldview founded on ideas of liberty and equality. The former principle is stressed in classical liberalism while the latter is more evident in social liberalism. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally they support ideas and programs such as freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, free markets, civil rights, democratic societies, secular governments, and international cooperation.

Wikipedia summary.

Your list is incomplete, moron.

 

[ok doser]

Wrong !!! Getting rid of our public schools, imperfect as they are, would be a HORRIBLE idea !!!!

what a persuasive, convincing argument! :thumb:

 

[gcthomas]

Your list is incomplete, moron.

Perhaps, but irrelevant - add to it if you like. Which do you disagree with?

 

[Clete]

Wrong !!! Getting rid of our public schools, imperfect as they are, would be a HORRIBLE idea !!!!

Saying it doesn't make it so.


Why don't you believe in the principles and ideas upon which this country was built?

Why do you trust the government with such things, things in which such trust is unnecessary and unneeded and, in the minds of our country's founders, is therefore unwise and contrary to what America was supposed and founded to be?

 

[gcthomas]

Saying it doesn't make it so.


Why don't you believe in the principles and ideas upon which this country was built?

Why do you trust the government with such things, things in which such trust is unnecessary and unneeded and, in the minds of our country's founders, is therefore unwise and contrary to what America was supposed and founded to be?

In 1647, the Massachusetts Bay Colony passed a law requiring towns to establish and maintain schools, now schools are run by local school boards, with less than 10% of the school funding coming from the federal government.

Which principles were you thinking of?