Posted on 08/10/2009 4:53:45 PM PDT by achilles2000
“Even so, my paycheck comes from customers who VOLUNTARILY fly on our airplanes. Parents who choose public school FORCE citizens to pay for the education of their children.”
You wish to be the arbiter of who can be conservative, while not applying the same standard to yourself that you foist upon others.
I think you should retract your less-than insightful analysis of who can be conservative. You’re completely wrong and hypocritical, since you feel you have no choice but work as a member of a union, whereas you seem to think that all parents can choose to homeschool or send their kids to private school.
It’s ok, Hypocrisy is completely curable, just retract your statement and admit you really don’t think that conservative parents can’t send their kids to public schools. That’s an indefensible statement.
I’ll stop busting your chops about being a whiny union member who likes to tell everyone what they can do or say or think - just like how your union bosses treat you.
“Actually, it’s not self esteem per se that’s important - it’s morale. “
For the record, my statement on “self-esteem” was a joke.
“Forcing other citizens to pay for the education of your child is stealing. You shall not covet anything that belongs to your neighbor. “
You know, for a bus driver, you are not well equipped for the arguments you are making.
How the heck do you get from a parent sending their kids to the local public school to coveting something of your neighbor is about as convoluted an argument as you can make.
Please elaborate.
For the record, my statement on “self-esteem” was a joke.It does make homeschooling parents feel better though, and if public school has taught me anything, it’s that self-esteem is important!“Actually, it’s not self esteem per se that’s important - it’s morale. “
Yes, it looked sarcastic to me. But IMHO the points I made in response are valid - homeschooling is a morale movement and "self esteem" is a flattery movement. The former should work even against circumstances due to effective placebo action if nothing else, whereas the latter, ironically, actually has a negative placebo effect.
You might not have been bored as a homeschooler. What your account tells me is that you were smarter than most of your classmates and probably weren’t challenged the way you could have been. Classroom education is aimed more toward the stupid end of the class than the smart end - it has to be.
When I was homeschooled, my mother let me work at my own pace, so the material always challenged me, even if that meant doing twice as much math per day as a schedule would have said I should because I just got the concepts and didn’t need more time. And our schooling rarely took as many hours of the day. As a young kid, I had the whole afternoon to read or play because I didn’t have to sit and do busy work. And I graduated two years early and got a head start on college.
You are very narrow minded and I have heard your mantra before. No thank you.
“But IMHO the points I made in response are valid - homeschooling is a morale movement and “self esteem” is a flattery movement.”
I agree.
the students **know** that it is not Christian to teach children how to think godlessly.
There is an inherent conflict between being Christian and teaching nonChristianity. It is an uncomfortable truth, but if you take the Bible seriously it is clear that most of us trim.
Since you haven't read my post here is part of it again:
I understand than many parents including conservative parents do not have the option of home schooling or sending their children to private schools. It's the "conservatives" who have the option but defend public education that I question.
The state has an interest in seeing the children are housed and fed, but we don't have government farm collectives, government cafeterias, government food dispensaries, or wide spread Soviet-style cement block housing . We handle this privately. Parents pay for their children's food, housing, and clothing. We have government food vouchers ( food stamps) and Section 8 housing vouchers that are redeemed in the private market.
Yes, the government has an interest in seeing that children are educated, but we do not need Soviet-style government schooling to do it. It should be handled privately with charity and vouchers assisting the poor among us.
As for government charity:
In my city they actually had to have a advertising campaign to encourage people to use government food stamps and housing vouchers. It turns out that our local private food pantries are doing such and excellent job in feeding the poor, finding emergency and permanent housing, and job placement that the poor **prefer** to use the private system. The private charities can act immediately with little paper work or hassle.
So?....Even if government did provide government vouchers for the poor for education, I bet the poor in my city would also tend to use private educational charity rather than deal with the government.
What does it mean to be a conservative in America. This is my definition: one who wants the country governed by the principles as set forth in the Declaration of independence. Governments, therefore, are instituted to protect the natural rights of the citizens. Redistribution of wealth, although you could argue it promotes the general welfare violates my natural right to own property. Communism, after all, made the same claims about general welfare. They, at least were honest about abolishing private property, but they could hardly be described as being conservative.
I am using food, housing, and clothing as an example.
Is food, clothing, and housing less important that education? I don't think so, but we do manage to handle food, clothing, and housing privately. Why is schooling sooooooo special that we need Soviet-style government K-12 schooling?
Also....Let's say education were completely privatized. Parents and private schools should be held to the same standards that government has for its schools today. If illiterate and innumerate is considered acceptable for being passed from grade to grade in a government school, then that should be the same standard for parents and private schools.
Essentially government K-12 schools have no standards so government should not hold parents or private schools to a higher standards.
At the very most, in a completely private system, the only thing government could demand of a parent or private school is that they make a sincere effort to educate the child. If government can can't guarantee a successful outcome in its schools, it can't demand success from parents or teachers either.
I don’t think they need closed, but they need to be understood. Public schools are to education what public housing is to housing.
Its the education of last resort, those that are unable to educate their child in any other manor.
We cannot have a completely ignorant population and expect to survive. Unfortunately though the public schools have been taken over by social manipulators and are nothing more than indoctrination and dumbing down factories by and large.
No government school in the U.S. is "great" unless the parents are atheists and are thrilled to have their godless worldview imposed on other people's children. At the moment every government school in the nation is godless in its education philosophy and worldview. This is **not** religiously neutral in content or consequences.
Also, since it is impossible for any school to be religiously, culturally, or politically neutral. Even if the district were the size of a suburban subdivision, it is impossible to have unanimity form one neighbor to the next regarding religious, cultural, and political worldview. The voting mob would force their neighbors to fund a religious, cultural, and political worldview that could never be neutral.
Whether to districts are large or small, local, state, or federal...**all**...government schools are a First Amendment and freedom of conscience abominations!
In general, America has one of the finest education systems in the world provided you are only interested in educating children to the 5th level
All government schools in the U.S. are godless in their worldview. Teaching children how to think godlessly is not "fine". Teaching children to compartmentalize their faith is not "fine". Teaching children that must be silent about their faith is teaching them to be ashamed of their faith as if it were a bathroom activity. This is not "fine".
Finally,...It is likely impossible to judge whether or not a government school is academically "fine" or not because nearly everything a child learns is at HOME due to the child's and their parents' "afterschooling" efforts. What appears to be "fine" schools may merely be horrible schools whose children have great parents who are doing a wonderful job of "afterschooling".
A worker is completely free to seek non-unionized work. No one will haul him off to prison if he chooses not to work for a company with a union.
Ah!...But government schools are different. Behind every government principal and teacher in the U.S. stands an armed policeman who is more than willing to force the government's will on the citizen. ( Real bullets in those guns on the hip!)
The citizen is under armed police threat to support atheistic government schools. These schools can **never** be religiously, culturally, or politically neutral because neutral schools are impossible! It is axiomatic.
For those parents who can not afford to ransom their children by paying extra in private school and homeschool expenses, they are under armed police threat to send their child to the government indoctrination camps! Some people call this “ransom” by the term, “jizya”!
Government schools are an abomination! They crush freedom of conscience and establish the religion of atheism.
So?...I appears to me that there is no difference whatsoever between what parents of academically successful institutionalized children are doing in the home, and what my homeschooled kids and I did in the home.
Maybe, these institutionalized children are successful because the parents and kids are doing a great job of “afterschooling”. If success is entirely due to “afterschooling”, then why bother to institutionalize?
It could be that institutionalization of academically successful children is actually retarding their social and academic development.
It is very likely that government schools actually waste the child's life and cost the taxpayers unnecessary expense.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.