Religious education, Public Education

[LeSellers]

There is no real basis from one to finger point and claim shout "indoctrination" when accepts and apologizing for the indoctrination they agree with.

But no one has disagreed with this position. You are right, once, when you say:

The premise of the original post is correct, it is hypocrisy to claim indoctrination in one instance but deny indoctrination in another instance, when the only difference is venue and who is controlling the message.

But that's the point, and the whole point. Someone will control the message, and, all other things being equal, it is vastly preferable for parents (and the students themselves) to be those who control that message, rather than politicians and bureaucrats. The former are motivated by love for the student and the latter by love for power over both the student and his parents.

As noted above,"indoctrination" is a neutral term. But the crucial issue, as you pointed out, is who controls the message.

Lehi

[Pahoran]

I don't know why I bother to even respond to this nonsense.

Perhaps because you started out by posting nonsense to begin with?

You accuse me of appealing to extremes and then you post this stuff putting words in my mouth and then referencing Tovarich.

What did I say that doesn't respond to what you actually posted?

No. Not unless you think evolutionary biology is left wing. Not unless you think science and math are left wing.

Now Tovarich Tarski, you know perfectly well that I was not talking about the subject matter.

Not unless you think promoting equality and tolerance is left-wing.

I don't have a problem with "promoting equality and tolerance." I have a problem with people using slogans like "promoting equality and tolerance" to disguise what they are really doing: creating protected classes of "special" people.

Not unless you think respect for and pride in our democratic form of government is left-wing.

Not unless you think telling the truth about the existence and effectiveness of birth control is left wing.

Sorry Tovarich, but the state has no business deciding what children should be taught about sex. You and the commissars are simply wrong.

In short, not unless you think our most prominant shared academic and societal values are left wing.

You've actually got a point: it doesn't really matter whether it's left wing, right wing, front wing or bat wing, the ideology you are spouting here is worthless from any direction.

If your OP had simply said that you thought public education was fine for teaching reading, writing and arithmetic, I wouldn't argue; I agree that it is. I didn't do too badly out of it myself. If you had also mentioned that your "some people" -- which we both know referred to Lehi -- had a somewhat paranoid view of public education, I would probably have agreed with you there, too. But, whether you realise it or not, by taking an ideological stance that the state, rather than parents, should decide what sorts of attitudes and opinions children should be taught, you have actually supported Lehi's POV.

Because, apart from Lehi's distaste for anything taxpayer-funded, the fact remains that if state schools only taught kids the three R's, plus some science, geography, history and woodwork, with some time out for sports, hardly anyone would have anything to complain about.

But when people such as yourself start pontificating about how state-funded "experts" are better than parents in deciding what children should be taught, then your arrogance is only exceeded by your hubris.

I understand that you are good at maths; great. I don't mind if someone such as yourself were to teach my sons how to factor quadratic equations. Where you step over the line is by arrogantly proclaiming that you are better qualified than parents to decide what their children should learn. When you start spouting those kinds of arrogant attitudes, I say: you are wrong, and until you accept that fact, you are a bad risk. The fact is that you are not better-qualified than any legally competent parent, including a Rastafarian solo mother, to decide what that parent's children should be taught.

So I suggest you accept that fact and confine yourself to explaining calculus to thick-headed teenagers.

Regards,

Pahoran

[Calm]

Lehi:

Shamelessly used from "ALL I REALLY NEED TO KNOW I LEARNED IN KINDERGARTEN"

These are the things I learned:

* Share everything.

* Play fair.

* Don't hit people.

* Put things back where you found them.

* Clean up your own mess.

* Don't take things that aren't yours.

* Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody.

* Wash your hands before you eat.

* Flush.

* Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.

* Live a balanced life - learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.

* Take a nap every afternoon.

* When you go out in the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands and stick together.

* Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: the roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.

* Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup - they all die. So do we.

* And then remember the ****-and-Jane books and the first word you learned - the biggest word of all - LOOK.

My grandson is in kindergarten....they only get crackers and water these days....

[krose]

I don't think the truth about it is left-wing. However, I don't think kids should feel like birth control exists to give them a free pass to do whatever feels good. I think they should know about risks of disease and accidents for various methods. I think they should understand the emotional dangers as well. How abortion is discussed will almost certainly be left or right wing due to polarization. The other methods may have some right-wing opposition, but not nearly as much. I rarely see them compared to murder quite as directly. It's hard to murder a human which never had a full set of approximately 23 chromosome pairs to begin personhood with (plus or minus a few for certain human genetic conditions).

Can you point to a school curriculum anywhere that presents abortion as another method of birth control?

[krose]

Now Tovarich Tarski...

Sorry Tovarich...

Why not drop the innuendo and come right out and call him a communist?

No need to dance around it. Red-baiting is coming back in fashion these days.

[thesometimesaint]

calmoriah:

Back in dinosaur times we'd get Graham Crackers.

[semlogo]

Why not drop the innuendo and come right out and call him a communist?

No need to dance around it. Red-baiting is coming back in fashion these days.

One of the things I often don't like about posting here is that people seem to feel the need to insinuate a lot of things about other people, but are afraid to come out and say what they mean for fear of the ban hammer. I used to do it all the time too (especially in fights over evolution), but after a while I got sick of it. Better just to drop the insinuations altogether and discuss issues.

[LeSellers]

Why not drop the innuendo and come right out and call him a communist?

It may not be communism, but statism that is the overriding concern. Who cares if children are being indoctrinated, against their parents' wishes, in socialism/liberalism/communism or so-called right-wing ideology? This issue is coercion in all those aspects of grtf-welfare schooling: curriculum, funding, licensing, structure, attendance, etc.

Communist Soviet Union was as much or more to be feared because a tyranny as socialistic. The problem most of us see with socialism is that it inevitably leads to statism, if not founded on it immediately. Socialism does not, cannot work without destroying liberty. As no one has seen a right-wing tyrant of late, this is conjecture, but it seems obvious to me that it works exactly the same way with regard to individual freedom and responsibility. For this reason, I abhor them both.

Lehi

[semlogo]

I don't have a problem with "promoting equality and tolerance." I have a problem with people using slogans like "promoting equality and tolerance" to disguise what they are really doing: creating protected classes of "special" people.

By 'creating protected classes of "special" people' do you mean providing equal rights to unpopular minorities? That seems to be the common underlying meaning of that sort of argument.

[thesometimesaint]

Lehi:

You too are a socialist.

http://i.imgur.com/Mpaco.png

[Walden]

Lehi:

You too are a socialist.

http://i.imgur.com/Mpaco.png

Interestingly, the countries with the highest standard of living in the world....Norway, Sweden, Canada, etc. are all socialist democracies.

[LeSellers]

You too are a socialist.

Alas, I have no choice: the state forces me to do (and be) what I despise by denying alternatives.

Lehi

[frankenstein]

Lehi:

You too are a socialist.

http://i.imgur.com/Mpaco.png

don't forget about this one, a double whammy - Federal and Carrier charge separately, who would have know that the capitalistic Corporation of the United State were such socialists

Universal Connectivity Fee (Universal Service Fund), Federal:

Because telephones provide a vital link to emergency services, to government services and to surrounding communities, it has been our nation’s policy to promote telephone service to all households since this service began in the 1930s. The USF helps to make phone service affordable and available to all Americans, including consumers with low incomes, those living in areas where the costs of providing telephone service is high, schools and libraries and rural health care providers. Congress has mandated that all telephone companies providing interstate service must contribute to the USF. Although not required to do so by the government, many carriers choose to pass their contribution costs on to their customers in the form of a line item, often called the “Federal Universal Service Fee” or “Universal Connectivity Fee”.

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

Why not drop the innuendo and come right out and call him a communist?

No need to dance around it. Red-baiting is coming back in fashion these days.

Ha, that is funny.

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

Interestingly, the countries with the highest standard of living in the world....Norway, Sweden, Canada, etc. are all socialist democracies.

Ireject that they have the highest living standards. But lets give you the benefit of the doubt, when are you going to move there? The US jsut sucks so bad doesn't it.

[semlogo]

Ireject that they have the highest living standards. But lets give you the benefit of the doubt, when are you going to move there? The US jsut sucks so bad doesn't it.

http://www.marketingcharts.com/topics/europe/un-norway-has-best-standard-of-living-niger-worst-10652/

Facts are facts. The US is #13

[frankenstein]

http://www.marketing...er-worst-10652/

Facts are facts. The US is #13

well of course the UN would not place the US at the top, your alleged facts are just a UN socialist conspiracy.

[Nathair/|\]

Interestingly, the countries with the highest standard of living in the world....Norway, Sweden, Canada, etc. are all socialist democracies.

My father is Canadian. (My mother is a landed immigrant). I grew up two blocks north of the Canadian border in southern Alberta. Fortunately, I was born in Provo while my parents were attending BYU and was educated in Montana, so I managed to escape while my siblings did not. One time, when I was a corrections officer, I was up visiting. My brother-in-law, a police officer, and I wanted to borrow my father's guns and go target shooting, but Canada's Draconian gun laws didn't allow it. If the state needed anyone knowing how to use guns, it was us.

On the other hand, I have been known to run around on the University of Montana in full kilt, openly bearing sgian dubh, dirk and battle ready claymore and responses range from disinterest to enthusiasm. photo

That's just one difference in the level of personal liberty between the two countries.

Yours under the Big Sky oaks,

Nathair /|\

[Walden]

Ireject that they have the highest living standards. But lets give you the benefit of the doubt, when are you going to move there? The US jsut sucks so bad doesn't it.

Why would I leave? I love the United States. I just get a kick out of it when the extreme right classify socialism as evil incarnate, yet fail to realize that social democracies dominate the top of the lists of countries with the highest standard of living in the world. You can reject that these countries have the highest standard of living all you want, but that also means rejecting the data and numerous studies that support these facts. Would you like a link to any of these statistics? You can check out the Human Development Index for starters.

[krose]

Ireject that they have the highest living standards. But lets give you the benefit of the doubt, when are you going to move there? The US jsut sucks so bad doesn't it.

Speaking only for myself, I would move to any of those countries in a heartbeat (especially Scandinavia) if I could stand to be so far away from extended family.

I've spent time in all three of those listed, and found them delightful.

[LeSellers]

By 'creating protected classes of "special" people' do you mean providing equal rights to unpopular minorities? That seems to be the common underlying meaning of that sort of argument.

I can't answer for Pahoran, but it is more than clear that some of those "unpopular minorities" have been raised to heights not attainable by us mere Caucasian males.

Black on black crime is far higher, per capita, than white on black crime, and black on white crime is closer to the former than the latter. How many times have "hate crimes" been prosecuted against minorities v against white men? Has anyone been charged with a "hate crime" in all of the arsons on LDS buildings? How many, though, have been prosecuted against criminals who'd burned black churches?

"Domestic violence" is almost universally seen as wife beating, but women are just as guilty, and the homosexual variety is even higher. But neither of the two latter classes is prosecuted nearly to the extent of the first.

Yes, there are "special people" under the law, and they're largely your "unpopular minorities".

Lehi

[LeSellers]

well of course the UN would not place the US at the top, your alleged facts are just a UN socialist conspiracy.

Had it been another member here, I'd have given this a rep point because, if we subtract its obvious sarcasm, the words themselves are true.

I've read a good deal of the HDI report, and it's clear that their criteria highly favored countries with massive social programmes, especially compulsory attendance in schools and socialized medicine. what is unclear is just how USmerica was penalized for our lack of confiscatory taxation (although our combined taxes are not much less than the Scandinavian countries, it's just wasted more effectively) and failure to become "like unto the nations".

Lehi

[Walden]

My father is Canadian. (My mother is a landed immigrant). I grew up two blocks north of the Canadian border in southern Alberta. Fortunately, I was born in Provo while my parents were attending BYU and was educated in Montana, so I managed to escape while my siblings did not. One time, when I was a corrections officer, I was up visiting. My brother-in-law, a police officer, and I wanted to borrow my father's guns and go target shooting, but Canada's Draconian gun laws didn't allow it. If the state needed anyone knowing how to use guns, it was us.

On the other hand, I have been known to run around on the University of Montana in full kilt, openly bearing sgian dubh, dirk and battle ready claymore and responses range from disinterest to enthusiasm. photo

That's just one difference in the level of personal liberty between the two countries.

Yours under the Big Sky oaks,

Nathair /|\

Yes, agreed, it is much easier to arm yourself here in America than in Canada.

Unfortunately, it is also much easier to become a victim of handgun violence here in America as well. According to statistics, in 2008, there were 10,886 murders committed with handguns in the US (not including suicides)....in Canada, they average roughly 850 gun deaths a year (with suicides included, which make up about 3/4 of that total).

Yes, it appears that there are a large number of Americans who fail to understand that with greater freedom comes greater responsibility.

[semlogo]

well of course the UN would not place the US at the top, your alleged facts are just a UN socialist conspiracy.

[semlogo]

I can't answer for Pahoran, but it is more than clear that some of those "unpopular minorities" have been raised to heights not attainable by us mere Caucasian males.

Black on black crime is far higher, per capita, than white on black crime, and black on white crime is closer to the former than the latter. How many times have "hate crimes" been prosecuted against minorities v against white men? Has anyone been charged with a "hate crime" in all of the arsons on LDS buildings? How many, though, have been prosecuted against criminals who'd burned black churches?

"Domestic violence" is almost universally seen as wife beating, but women are just as guilty, and the homosexual variety is even higher. But neither of the two latter classes is prosecuted nearly to the extent of the first.

Yes, there are "special people" under the law, and they're largely your "unpopular minorities".

Lehi

I wasn't aware that only whites could be prosecuted under hate crime laws. How interesting!