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My View: Why not a right to a college education?
Cnn ^

Posted on 02/09/2012 10:49:12 AM PST by outpostinmass2

While in my office, preparing for the new semester, I had the opportunity to watch the president’s speech on college affordability delivered at the University of Michigan. I was interested in the speech in part because I am a political scientist, in part because I am a college professor, and in part because I am an alumnus of the University of Michigan. But most importantly I was interested in the speech because my oldest daughter will be leaving for college in just seven short months. And although being a Johns Hopkins college professor has its benefits (Hopkins gives a generous tuition benefit applicable to any college in the nation) I still worry about my daughter and her four younger brothers and sisters. In his speech President Obama focused on three components designed to ease the burden of middle-class families—reducing interest on college student loans, maintaining the tuition tax credit, and creating incentives to make universities lower their costs. Now I understand for some politics is the art of the possible. He proposes these things knowing that as hard as it will be to pass them legislatively, these things are at least possible to get past both houses of Congress. (It isn’t likely, particularly during an election year, but it’s possible.) But for me, politics isn’t just about the art of the possible—about what we can pass in the here and now. Politics is about expanding and extending that art, about pushing the borders to create space for even more change in the future. How can we do that here? What if, instead of proposing policies geared towards individual middle-class tax-payers that revolved around the assumption that higher education was an individual’s responsibility, the president instead proposed policies geared towards embedding higher education as an individual right.

(Excerpt) Read more at schoolsofthought.blogs.cnn.com ...


TOPICS: Editorial; Government
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To: outpostinmass2

We have the right to a pretty and loyal wife too, right?


61 posted on 02/09/2012 12:31:53 PM PST by GeronL (The Right to Life came before the Right to Pursue Happiness)
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To: Hoffer Rand

lol, sentences are not my forte today, apparently...


62 posted on 02/09/2012 12:39:41 PM PST by jboot
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To: Maverick68
I;m all in....as long as ALL college professors and administrators agree to work for free....

Bingo. That's the part this idiot doesn't get; making someone do it for free, or making someone pay for it is modern day slavery.

This is no different that saying I have the right to a new concrete drive way and I want to make this idiot writer build it for me, or pay for it.

63 posted on 02/09/2012 12:40:29 PM PST by CommieCutter
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To: outpostinmass2
Does a right to all A's go with that?

-PJ

64 posted on 02/09/2012 12:44:41 PM PST by Political Junkie Too (If you can vote for President, then your children can run for President.)
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To: Yaelle

And oddly enough, I would opt to continue funding my local school if given the choice despite not having any children of my own.

I want the school to be better and I want my portion of the funding to be charitable.


65 posted on 02/09/2012 12:56:20 PM PST by cripplecreek (What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his soul?)
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To: outpostinmass2

Like the “occupy” groups, this “professor” shows the clear results of the wonderful benefit that higher education in the U.S. excells at providing its students = naive ignorance.


66 posted on 02/09/2012 1:06:09 PM PST by Wuli (ui)
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To: outpostinmass2

I’m going to load up my M1 and excercise my right to a 20,000 square foot mansion on a knoll overlooking Clayton Valley.


67 posted on 02/09/2012 1:13:54 PM PST by editor-surveyor (No Federal Sales Tax - No Way!)
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To: allmendream
Nobody has a “right” that it is incumbent upon someone else to provide for them.

That is why none of the rights named in the Bill of Rights are for goods or services. I never hear conservatives in the media make this point explicitly but I wish I did. It is key. It is also a fairly simple concept, easy to explain so even a college student can grasp it.

68 posted on 02/09/2012 1:32:02 PM PST by Homer_J_Simpson ("Every nation has the government that it deserves." - Joseph de Maistre (1753-1821))
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To: Homer_J_Simpson

Yep.

The right to free exercise of religion doesn’t mean someone has to build me a Church.

The right to peaceably assemble doesn’t mean that people must go assemble where I tell them to.

The right to keep and bear arms doesn’t mean someone has to provide me firearms and training.

The right to be secure in my home person papers and effects from unreasonable search and seizure doesn’t mean that someone has to provide me a home, papers and effects.

Our rights are given by our Creator - and do not require the compelled unpaid labor of anyone else.

Slavery is (should be) illegal in these United States.


69 posted on 02/09/2012 1:37:09 PM PST by allmendream (Tea Party did not send the GOP to D.C. to negotiate the terms of our surrender to socialism.)
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To: outpostinmass2
the president instead proposed policies geared towards embedding higher education as an individual right.

There is a distinction between "rights" to economic goods and services that are the product of society and the actions of man and natural rights that are God-given.

70 posted on 02/09/2012 1:44:57 PM PST by mjp ((pro-{God, reality, reason, egoism, individualism, natural rights, limited government, capitalism}))
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To: Homer_J_Simpson
0bama framed this argument as “positive rights” and “negative rights”.

Justice Ginsburg confirmed this view of the law when she recommended that the Constitutions of nations that promise “positive rights” (she didn't AFAIK use that term) be emulated - not our own.

To 0bama and his ilk a “negative right” is something that the government cannot do to you, while a “positive right” is something that the government must do FOR you.

Where are our rights from again?

71 posted on 02/09/2012 1:49:46 PM PST by allmendream (Tea Party did not send the GOP to D.C. to negotiate the terms of our surrender to socialism.)
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To: outpostinmass2

An article written by an affirmative action professor of nothing remotely worth studying in support of the right to have working taxpayers pay for his children to go to an absurdly overpriced school to learn to be professors of nothing remotely worth studying. From useless to useless in two generations while sucking the life out of those who still do something worthwhile like plumbing or welding.

I am so proud of my wonderful country where we are fully committed to diversity. All the professors of this sort in the world added together are worth one hell of a lot less than one good toilet scrubber.


72 posted on 02/09/2012 2:07:37 PM PST by RipSawyer
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To: LucianOfSamasota

“When you never contribute anything to society, I guess your sense of value diminishes.”
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

A complete analysis of the basic problem and it is contained in one sentence.


73 posted on 02/09/2012 2:18:00 PM PST by RipSawyer
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To: outpostinmass2
Only if you have the H.S. GRADES, College Entrance Exam scores, and are taking MATH, Science, Engineering, Medical, Law Degree courses then maybe. Fail to pass and graduate...and it's a debt you owe and will pay back.

Emphatic NO for any wuss LIBERAL Arts Degree.

74 posted on 02/09/2012 2:59:44 PM PST by SandRat (Duty - Honor - Country! What else needs said?)
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To: outpostinmass2

I didn’t have to read Professor Spence’s bio to know that he’s not a professor of economics.


75 posted on 02/09/2012 3:34:36 PM PST by Huntress ("Politicians exploit economic illiteracy." --Walter Williams)
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To: TexasFreeper2009

“I want a right to a porche!”

I guess you’ve never heard of Political science 101. All President Obama has to do is make Swedish our official language. Then we would all a human right to own a Volvo.


76 posted on 02/09/2012 5:28:55 PM PST by haroldeveryman
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To: Jim Noble

dumb idea. As a ditch digger why should i work a shit job and pay taxes for some smarty pants to get a free education and high paying job? And why in the world would these little book smart elitists want to risk their precious and obviously so much more worthy lives in the military? Or did you mean they’d be officers sitting in an office in the U.S. somewhere while the ditch digger variety actually does the fighting?


77 posted on 02/09/2012 7:08:20 PM PST by annelizly
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To: Jim Noble

dumb idea. As a ditch digger why should i work a shit job and pay taxes for some smarty pants to get a free education and high paying job? And why in the world would these little book smart elitists want to risk their precious and obviously so much more worthy lives in the military? Or did you mean they’d be officers sitting in an office in the U.S. somewhere while the ditch digger variety actually does the fighting?


78 posted on 02/09/2012 7:08:27 PM PST by annelizly
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To: outpostinmass2
"A well-entertained populace being necessary to the security of a socialist state, the right of the people to receive a big screen TV from the government shall not be infringed."

Our Founders would be so proud.

79 posted on 02/10/2012 12:22:48 AM PST by William Tell
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To: allmendream

Someone does not have a “right” to insist I teach them everything I know about Molecular Biology without compensation.


I’ll happily fill that niche, on condition they promise not to ask anybody with actual knowledge of the subject for a second opinion about the material I present to them. It might be fun to screw up freeloaders for life, and we retirees need all the hobbies we can get.


80 posted on 02/10/2012 12:31:53 AM PST by ApplegateRanch ("Public service" does NOT mean servicing the people, like a bull among heifers.)
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