Secularist Dogma: Final Refuge Of The Unfeeling?

[Mark Beesley]

Lehi:

Public schools have a thousands of years record. In the US it has been nearly from the landing of the Pilgrams.

What are the first public buildings to go up in any settlement? The church house and the school house.

It is a long and ignoble conspiracy to mold people into a unified society where equality is valued above greed . . .

[LeSellers]

Public schools have a thousands of years record. In the US it has been nearly from the landing of the Pilgrams.

Those schools were not at all like the schools imposed on families today. GCTF-welfare schools, as we know them today, did not exist in USmerica until 1852 in Massachusetts, and many states resisted them until 1912. Even as late as 1882 (iIrc), the people of Barnstable, Massachusetts, refused to send their children to the gctf-welfare school, preferring to send them to the local private school. That year, if it's the correct one, the militia, under orders from the governor, marched the children, at point of bayonet, past their private school to the gctf-welfare school. It is not, and never has been, about "education": it's about control over children's minds.

In the early "public" schools of USmerica, the students were under the complete control of the parents who voluntarily sent their children. The parents paid directly for them (possibly with some support from the community, usually the church, not the state, but not always). Parents had the right to abstain from sending, and to teach their children in any way they saw fit. There was a law in many New England colonies/states that made parents stupid: Until there were six families with children under age 10, aIr, in a community, there was no need to build a school. However, when the sixth family moved in (or was formed by marriage and childbirth) the law demanded they build a school and hire an outside instructor. To that point, however, the parents were considered competent to teach their children on their own.

What are the first public buildings to go up in any settlement? The church house and the school house.

Now "public" means "private", because the "public" church building was not owned by the state, and neither was the school house.

The first school teacher in Utah Deseret (actually, she taught along the Mormon Trail on her way across the plains) was commissioned by Brigham Young, and charged for her lessons as the parents were able to pay. Brigham paid for many orphans and poor children to attend schools around the Territory. The imposition of gctf-welfare schools on the Saints was a form of coerced indoctrination against the Church and against the Priesthood. Just as in Massachusetts a decade earlier, the issue was never about education, it was always about control over who would teach, what he would teach, and under whose control the children's minds would be.

When Horace Mann copied Friedrich's schools, his goal was the same as the emperor's: to separate the children from their parents and to instill a different set of values and mores in the next generation. That remains the primary goal of gctf-welfare schools to this day. The only thing that has changed is how far long the track they have progressed. And their progress has been formidable.

Lehi

[mfbukowski]

It is a long and ignoble conspiracy to mold people into a unified society where equality is valued above greed . . .

So I can tell you are here to leave your Mark on the wall...

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

So I can tell you are here to leave your Mark on the wall...

indeed.

[Loran Blood]

I suspect that one of the reasons so many fall prey to the notion that evil derives from insanity is the rejection of evil, as you say. But there is, I believe, another piece: evil, deep-seated wickedness, satanic emulation leads, inextricably to insanity. Even in the most evil person*, there remains a tiny ember of the Light of Christ. To have denied that to the point of a Hitler, a Mao, or an Amin, wrenches the person's spirit, and the conflict must resolve itself. It does so by resort to insanity.

* The Sons of Perdition

may

be exceptions.

Insanity does not cause consummate evil, such evil causes insanity.

Lehi

Intereting perspective, and I think I'd have to agree, just so long as what we mean by "insanity" is not the screaming, gibbering madman of the asylum, but one who still retains the capacity to think, calculate, scheme, plan, and foresee the consequences of his plans in an otherwise rational manner. In this sense, Satan himself is insane (no one in their right mind would have walked out of the grand council in the preexistence knowing what the consequences would be), even though fantastically knowledgeable and the preeminent sophist, all of which takes a great degree of rationality.

Interestingly, Vincent Bugliosi is adament that Charles Manson is, and never was "insane" in that crazed madman, disconnected from reality sense. He's said that Manson is smart as a whip, and very, very clever. His "insanity" is more, I might term it, following an old horror film I once saw, unsanity. He's left the world of normative morality and ethics for a completely alternative perception of reality. And yet, he has always retained the ability to manipulate, lie cleverly and carefully, put on wonderful acts at his parole hearings, and play with your head. He's disconnected from reality, but only our (and gospel, normative Judeo-Christian) reality. He has his own, as did Mao, Stalin, Lenin, Hitler, Minh, Pot, Castro, Guavara, Kim, etc., etc., etc., but that reality is lawful and governed by certain rules. Its not a madman's howling bedlam.

Edited August 30, 2011 by Loran Blood

[Mark Beesley]

So I can tell you are here to leave your Mark on the wall...

Just providing balance son, just providing balance.

[Chris Smith]

Loran,

Here's the gist of the post I wrote and lost yesterday.

I agree with you that atheism has less content than Christianity, and thus is at least theoretically less constrained in terms of what ideologies it can be wedded to. (This is a weaker claim than that atheism logically entails genocide, so I consider that we've made some progress toward an understanding on this point.) Having said that, the Bible is hardly a straightforward text, so I think you underestimate people's ability to reconcile it with problematic behaviors or even to derive a moral impetus for those behaviors from the text. (Parts of the Bible do, after all, embrace an ideology of purity and pollution that is used in the biblical narrative to justify genocide; see Deut. 20:16-18.)

Furthermore, the comparison of atheism to Christianity is apples and oranges, really. Atheism is just one belief; Christianity is a system of belief. A better comparison would be between atheism and theism, or between Christianity and humanism. In those comparisons, I think atheism and humanism come out looking pretty good.

In any event, I'm not suggesting that we should teach children atheism. I'm suggesting that we should teach them humanism. Like Christianity, humanism includes a full set of moral norms. The difference is simply how these norms are derived, and in what contexts and through what mechanisms they're inculcated and reinforced.

Peace,

-Chris

[Chris Smith]

I suspect that one of the reasons so many fall prey to the notion that evil derives from insanity is the rejection of evil, as you say. But there is, I believe, another piece: evil, deep-seated wickedness, satanic emulation leads, inextricably to insanity. Even in the most evil person*, there remains a tiny ember of the Light of Christ. To have denied that to the point of a Hitler, a Mao, or an Amin, wrenches the person's spirit, and the conflict must resolve itself. It does so by resort to insanity.

* The Sons of Perdition

may

be exceptions.

Insanity does not cause consummate evil, such evil causes insanity.

I half agree with you. There are some people who have-- by birth or as a result of trauma-- mental defects that make them more likely to perpetrate extraordinary evil. One inborn mechanism that can increase violent behavior is the MAO-A gene, also known as the "warrior gene". On the other hand, perpetrating such evil surely does have an additional effect on the brain, desensitizing or traumatizing it in a way that may lead to additional violence.

[Chris Smith]

I appreciate you sharing this information - I thought I remembered something about how you realized at around the age of eight that you would be giving up your belief in Christ. Do I have that story straight?

I did have that moment of dreadful certainty, yes. At the time, however, I prayed it away. (Yes, I know: ironic to pray that God would prevent me from becoming an atheist!) I didn't actually lose my faith until after college. In the interim, I was a very devout Pentecostal who spoke in tongues, prophesied, received checks for exactly the right amount right when I needed them most, and received "miraculous help" starting my car and finding my keys.

Anyway, if you are akin to the idea, I would love to discuss this with you privately since I don't think all eyes need to be privy to such a conversation, nor is it in keeping with the purpose of this OP.

I'd be happy to. Feel free to PM me.

Peace,

-Chris

[Facsimile 3]

Judging by Loran's lack of a response I'm going to assume he now doesn't fear Utilitarianism is going to channel the powers of Karl Marx and Mao when used by a secular humanist.

No one here seems to like to get into the nitty gritty (e.g. negative freedom and positive freedom), it's more popular to just throw things out there like analogies based on historical fragments pieced together. So I think I'm going to change my tactics up a bit.

For instance. LeSellers, you seem to be confident that a pre-industrial education model for the United States, one based on agriculture and trade ports, one more heavily based on Churches teaching children, is still vividly applicable for the world we live in today (try to imagine if you will the small town school house with children in the same class of all ages in the middle of Manhattan). If we could have kept this same colonial world it would require more women dieing during child birth, more children dieing before they reached the age of adulthood, a much lower life span, and lots of slaves. But according to LeSellers's subliming of this one period of time, he is making such a model an ideal end (one to be pursued no matter the results in experience). He asserts that we should look to examples of some creepy people that have influenced public education for a time, and then ignore all of the good that it has done and does in favor of his sublime ideas of a better way. And of course these ideas don't encompass slight adjustments but rather a cashing in of the old system for a new one. This is what political radicalism looks like. No compromise, no empirical results (results of theories tested by experience), just someone's pet part of a whole. A part that he has decided looks prettier than the whole and then moves to starve the whole for the sake of the part. If LeSellers was a real socialist (planned economy socialism) we could just replace a few bad secular humanists with a few bad capitalists.

This is precisely what real socialism requires (a closed eye towards utility and a lustful eye towards a sublime ultimate ideal truth not subject to scrutiny by the facts) whether you go the Hitler route or the Lenin route.

Hitler romanticized along with many Germans gave full energy to a sublime ultimate good of a more "traditional Germany" and imagined that of course in Germany that meant that only one race roved the Fatherland and that such a race was Aryan. This is not provable and the situation was much more diverse and complicated than that, but who cares about complexity when you subliming a time! Not only was it not necessary to try and prove such a claim, but they actually worked to eliminate the Jews (who by all monetary and business measures were the most valuable and successful race in German society. Going against the facts and what works in favor of a "more important ultimate good" is much more frightening to me than the rather unfrightening prospect of someone not believing in God and trying their best to live a good productive life in context to what he sees already working in his culture (which would include believers).

In the sort of way that public schools have been vilified here so was the capitalistic factory owner in the Marxist narrative. Naturally since some capitalists were really corrupt, treated their workers and the community badly, Capitalism was wrong (so a planned economy was the remedy). It's time to cash out everything for a completely new system even if the old one is working.

Pragmatism could NEVER be used to justify such moves. It's just not possible. I challenge you to do it; to write out an argument with steps that shows otherwise. There is no room for radicalism in Pragmatism. There was in Utilitarianism which led to the radically different world we live in today (free markets and civil rights and such), but Post Modernism and Pragmatism have zero outputs for such a radical change. William James defined truth as being what works and that when truth ceased to work it was best to make the least amount of change possible to keep that truth working in a newer context. That's about as empirical and cautious as one can come on such things. He was reacting to a time when science and capitalism was looking to wipe out freewill and God. He basically showed the middle ground between religion and industrial society that we now consider commonplace today.

I cannot tell you how ridiculous it is for me to read such nonsense about Postmodernism somehow being in league with the commies, or Utilitarianism or Pragmatism being lumped with the commies. Historically there is no context for planned economies coming from those veins of thought (where there certainly are such veins in Plato and Descartes) and there are not appeals to go in that direction by way of these schools of thought. It's like demonizing the Mormons and trying to drive them out of your state because someone started a rumor that they hate the founding fathers and sacrifice children. Such things could NOT be bought by the empirical of mind, but surely the emotion based radical would be the only one who might partake in such foolishness.

I consider myself a conservative in many ways, but I have never been less proud to call myself a conservative than during these last couple of years. I truly fear that the Republican Party is on a road to ruin by taking their interpretation of the Reagan era (which happened in a different context) and turning it into an ideal ultimate good to pursue regardless of what is working and what isn't. This happened with Liberalism during the Johnson years when that crop of Democrats tried to take an interpretation of the FDR New Deal (which happened in a different context) and turn it into an ideal ultimate good to pursue regardless of what was working and what wasn't.

I think there is a better way forward in Mormon thought by giving up on Platonism that other Christians are bound to keep if they hold tight to a non-human immaterial Trinity. Postmodernism is not a hard fit for Mormons. I can respect Platonic Theologies as beautiful and worthwhile projects for people who pursue them and find joy. What I have very little tolerance for is a kind of Platonic deification of nostalgia (made up or not) from an earlier time that people try to impose on us now to relive; I'm very very fearful of what these people are capable of doing, religious or secular humanist alike (blind overly confident blowholes).

Edited August 30, 2011 by Facsimile 3

[LeSellers]

LeSellers

My name is "Lehi". I invite you to use it.

you seem to be confident that a pre-industrial education model for the United States, one based on agriculture and trade ports, one more heavily based on Churches teaching children, is still vividly applicable for the world we live in today (try to imagine if you will the small town school house with children in the same class of all ages in the middle of Manhattan).

You don't seem to have grasped my position at all. Moreover, it seems you do not understand the nature of learning nor of education.

If we could have kept this same colonial world it would require more women dieing during child birth, more children dieing before they reached the age of adulthood, a much lower life span, and lots of slaves.

Raising the specter of death and misery.

Sorry, you have not made a cogent argument. None of the things you worry about were relieved by gctf-welfare schools.

But according to LeSellers's subliming of this one period of time, he is making such a model an ideal end (one to be pursued no matter the results in experience).

False. You might ask me what I'm saying if you're unsure of it.

Further, the models I do subscribe to have proven themselves in the current environment.

He asserts that we should look to examples of some creepy people that have influenced public education for a time, and then ignore all of the good that it has done and does in favor of his sublime ideas of a better way.

They are hardly "examples" and they are far from "few". The fact is that the so-called "father of American public schools", Horace Mann explicitly said why he was motivated to establish gctf-welfare schools. it was to divorce children from their parents' mores and, especially, their religion.

John Dewey, signatory of the Humanist Manifesto, held similar views. He said "What can they [parents] do with their one hour of Sunday School against our thirty hours of secular schools."

William Torrey Harris, the US Commissioner of Education, said, in 1890, that his industrialist cronies that they had nothing ot fear form gctf-welfare schools because they were "scientifically designed to keep [students] form aspiring to anything we have not planned for them."

A union boss (whose name escapes me right now) from the American Federation of Teachers said, "When children start paying union dues, I'll start representing them."

I have heard with my own ears many teachers say that school would be a great place to work if it weren't for the %@#&@$ kids.

No one here has shown us where any of the Brethren has told us that we should ignore the counsel of the Brethren long ago (and there have been a hundred twenty years for them to have done so) to keep our children out of the gctf-welfare schools.

And of course these ideas don't encompass slight adjustments but rather a cashing in of the old system for a new one.

The failed experiment of gctf-welfare schools is the "new" system. It's only been around for 150 years. Other, successful, models have been around much longer, since Adam, as a matter of fact.

This is what political radicalism looks like. No compromise, no empirical results (results of theories tested by experience), just someone's pet part of a whole.

If we look at results, it's the gctf-welfare system that comes up short. And it is the gctf-welfare system that is intractable. Please remind my why the SCotuSA had to tell school systems (in [Yoder and Society of Sisters) that parents "own' the children, not the state.

If LeSellers was a real socialist (planned economy socialism) we could just replace a few bad secular humanists with a few bad capitalists.

Where in the world did you get the grossly mistaken idea I am a socialist? I'm the furthest from it: I am a libertarian. I'm not a conservative, I object to any state control over people's lives.

This is precisely what real socialism requires (a closed eye towards utility and a lustful eye towards a sublime ultimate ideal truth not subject to scrutiny by the facts) whether you go the Hitler route or the Lennon route.

Which is exactly why gctf-welfare schools (which are socialist by their very nature and by definition) will not work.

I have given hundreds of examples of the failures of gctf-welfare schools. It's not a few examples, it's the essence of the beast.

Lehi

[Facsimile 3]

My name is "Lehi". I invite you to use it.

You don't seem to have grasped my position at all. Moreover, it seems you do not understand the nature of learning nor of education.

Raising the specter of death and misery.

Sorry, you have not made a cogent argument. None of the things you worry about were relieved by gctf-welfare schools.

False. You might ask me what I'm saying if you're unsure of it.

Further, the models I do subscribe to have proven themselves in the current environment.

They are hardly "examples" and they are far from "few". The fact is that the so-called "father of American public schools", Horace Mann explicitly said why he was motivated to establish gctf-welfare schools. it was to divorce children from their parents' mores and, especially, their religion.

John Dewey, signatory of the Humanist Manifesto, held similar views. He said "What can they [parents] do with their one hour of Sunday School against our thirty hours of secular schools."

William Torrey Harris, the US Commissioner of Education, said, in 1890, that his industrialist cronies that they had nothing ot fear form gctf-welfare schools because they were "scientifically designed to keep [students] form aspiring to anything we have not planned for them."

A union boss (whose name escapes me right now) from the American Federation of Teachers said, "When children start paying union dues, I'll start representing them."

I have heard with my own ears many teachers say that school would be a great place to work if it weren't for the %@#&@$ kids.

No one here has shown us where any of the Brethren has told us that we should ignore the counsel of the Brethren long ago (and there have been a hundred twenty years for them to have done so) to keep our children out of the gctf-welfare schools.

The failed experiment of gctf-welfare schools is the "new" system. It's only been around for 150 years. Other, successful, models have been around much longer, since Adam, as a matter of fact.

If we look at results, it's the gctf-welfare system that comes up short. And it is the gctf-welfare system that is intractable. Please remind my why the SCotuSA had to tell school systems (in [Yoder and Society of Sisters) that parents "own' the children, not the state.

Where in the world did you get the grossly mistaken idea I am a socialist? I'm the furthest from it: I am a libertarian. I'm not a conservative, I object to any state control over people's lives.

Which is exactly why gctf-welfare schools (which are socialist by their very nature and by definition) will not work.

I have given hundreds of examples of the failures of gctf-welfare schools. It's not a few examples, it's the essence of the beast.

Lehi

Wow Lehi (maybe you should change your profile name?), if you didn't even grasp my argument as an attack on your radical libertarian views by comparing them to radical socialist views, I don't really think we can have any kind of argument using abstract ideas. I guess I'm going to leave you to your battle against "gctf-welfare Schools." Fun fact if you google gctf-welfare schools you only get hits that are all by Lehi (a founder of a radical movement perhaps?).

The Brethren endorse public schools by sending their own children there! You are very far "out there."

My family has been on the teaching end of public schools for over 50 years and I went to a public school as I'm sure you did. There are just as many deadbeats in any job anywhere. Again I believe you are like the socialists because they used the ills of capitalism to throw the whole system out, you as a libertarian want to do the same with Public Schools because of some problems that have occurred during its history and problems that persist to this day.

Edited August 31, 2011 by Facsimile 3

[volgadon]

I spent the summer in Jerusalem at the Hebrew University and I learned some Hebrew there.

I love having my mind blown and luckily my limited intellect allows for it to happen often!

I didn't realise you had gone yet! Wow, welcome back!

BTW, לאן בא לך לעוף?

Edited August 31, 2011 by volgadon

[LeSellers]

Wow Lehi (maybe you should change your profile name?),

Can't. It was taken by an earlier forum member who isn't here any more.

Fun fact if you google gctf-welfare schools you only get hits that are all by Lehi (a founder of a radical movement perhaps?).

No, hardly the founder, although I have had the concept in mind since 1965, as a junior in high school.

The founder (or the most notable) was Marshall Fritz. He died a couple of years ago, but the organization he founded, the Alliance for the Separation of School and State, is alive and well.

The Brethren endorse public schools by sending their own children there!

By that standard, gctf-welfare school teachers endorse private schools, since they send their own children there at rates far in excess of the national average.

You are very far "out there."

And that's ... bad?

Thomas Jefferson was "out there", along with Washington, and the others. So were Lech Walessa.

There are three stages of an idea. At first it is belittled ("far out there"), then it is feared and attacked. Finally it is seen as self-evident. We are between one and two. More and more, people are seeing us as holding the best idea for educating children.

My family has been on the teaching end of public schools for over 50 years

So, you have a dog in the fight. I figured as much. No one defends gctf-welfare schools like someone whose paycheck, or that of a family member, depends on them.

and I went to a public school as I'm sure you did.

I had no choice. Anything else was illegal in the 50s and 60s. I have repented.

There are just as many deadbeats in any job anywhere. Again I believe you are like the socialists because they used the ills of capitalism to throw the whole system out, you as a libertarian want to do the same with Public Schools because of some problems that have occurred during its history and problems that persist to this day.

Were it only a few problems, I might be able to live with it.

The system is unnecessary, it is gravely harmful, and it is expensive. What's not to love?

Lehi

Edited August 31, 2011 by LeSellers

[Facsimile 3]

Can't. It was taken by an earlier forum member who isn't here any more.

No, hardly the founder, although I have had the concept in mind since 1965, as a junior in high school.

The founder (or the most notable) was Marshall Fritz. He died a couple of years ago, but the organization he founded, the Alliance for the Separation of School and State, is alive and well.

By that standard, gctf-welfare school teachers endorse private schools, since they send their own children there at rates far in excess of the national average.

And that's ... bad?

Thomas Jefferson was "out there", along with Washington, and the others. So were Lech Walessa.

There are three stages of an idea. At first it is belittled ("far out there"), then it is feared and attacked. Finally it is seen as self-evident. We are between one and two. More and more, people are seeing us as holding the best idea for educating children.

So, you have a dog in the fight. I figured as much. No one defends gctf-welfare schools like someone whose paycheck, or that of a family member, depends on them.

I had not choice. Anything else was illegal in the 50s and 60s. I have repented.

Were it only a few problems, I might be able to live with it.

The system is unnecessary, it is grave;y harmful, and it is expensive. What's not to love?

Lehi

So I think we can tie this to the topic quite well. Your views have a much stronger propensity for revolution and disturbance than Pragmatists. As a registered Republican I invite you to please stay out of my party (please take the Tea Party with you).

Edited August 31, 2011 by Facsimile 3

[LeSellers]

So I think we can tie this to the topic quite well. Your views have a much stronger propensity for revolution and disturbance than Pragmatists. As a registered Republican I invite you to please stay out of my party (please take the Tea Party with you).

I am a registered Republican. I welcome the TEA Party. We are "Taxed Enough Already", "enough" and 'way too much.

Lehi

Edited August 31, 2011 by LeSellers

[Facsimile 3]

I didn't realise you had gone yet! Wow, welcome back!

Yeah, I really enjoyed my time there! Though there were times I did miss cheap American food.

BTW, לאן בא לך לעוף?

ישנן נשים יפות בתל אביב

Edited August 31, 2011 by Facsimile 3

[mfbukowski]

Just providing balance son, just providing balance.

Son?

Wow you just made my day! I take all the senior discounts I can!

[Vance]

So, you have a dog in the fight. I figured as much. No one defends gctf-welfare schools like someone whose paycheck, or that of a family member, depends on them.

I have never understood why good teachers oppose vouchers. It is very obvious that if a state (as one recently did) issued vouchers so that parents could have school choice, more children would be put in private schools. With this increase enrollment the private schools would need to hire more teachers. The only way to draw the (good) teachers away from government schools would be to offer more pay/benefits. The only way the government schools could keep the (good) teachers is to match of beat said offers. Resulting in higher teacher compensation for all (good) teachers.

Amazing that government school teachers aren't smart enough to figure this out and thus remain firmly opposed to vouchers.

[mfbukowski]

Furthermore, the comparison of atheism to Christianity is apples and oranges, really. Atheism is just one belief; Christianity is a system of belief. A better comparison would be between atheism and theism, or between Christianity and humanism. In those comparisons, I think atheism and humanism come out looking pretty good.

I think it is important to always distinguish what statements are and are not logically incompatible with those we just usually think of as being incompatible ideologically.

Admittedly the statements "God exists" and "God does not exist" are logically contradictory but the statements "God exists" and "Darwinian evolution is true" have nothing to do with each other logically. Yes, many people regard them as incompatible, but they are not logically incompatible. God could use evolution for example to create species- and of course there have been many many many threads on this topic alone.

Science's job is to create answers using natural evidence- THAT is what science does, but that does not mean that the answers of science and religion are logically incompatible once we understand the basic premises of each.

Each of these philosophical models we are discussing are just that- models- pictures- metaphors we use to describe our experience both as individuals and collectively as a culture. Usually they are cohesive in terms of general concepts, but that does not mean that every "precept" of Darwinian evolution for example is logically incompatible with every precept of religion

We get to pick and choose what "single belief" makes sense and what works for us as we cobble together out own world views which work for us to give our lives meaning.

There is absolutely no logical conflict between Humanism or Mormonism or Christianity though obviously the founders of Humanism may have been atheists. The whole attempt was to create a values system without God- much as the goal of science is natural, ie: Godless explanations.

But as long as we pick carefully, there are no logical contradictions in the pieces we pick to fit into our own jigsaw puzzles unless we unwittingly include them.

[Loran Blood]

It is a long and ignoble conspiracy to mold people into a unified society where equality is valued above greed . . .

In actual historical and philosophical practice, most have supported regimens of "equality," not because it is valued above greed, but as the best way to actualize their own. Redistribution of wealth is, for mortals, the ultimate satisfaction of their own unbridled avaristic impulses rationalized through state power.

Equality, in other words, is valued above quality. Being against "greed" is the rationalization that makes the mass plunder of one's neighbors seem morally palatable.

[LeSellers]

I have never understood why good teachers oppose vouchers. It is very obvious that if a state (as one recently did) issued vouchers so that parents could have school choice, more children would be put in private schools. With this increase enrollment the private schools would need to hire more teachers. The only way to draw the (good) teachers away from government schools would be to offer more pay/benefits. The only way the government schools could keep the (good) teachers is to match of beat said offers. Resulting in higher teacher compensation for all (good) teachers.

Who'd want teachers polluted by state-controlled schools in the first place?

But, assuming someone did, your scenario is correct. It would also reduce the numbers of children in the gctf-welfare schools, meaning there would be less demand for teachers there. The first to be let go, would, however, not be the poorest teachers, but those with the least seniority. This means the gctf-welfare schools would be staffed with older teachers, more stuck in their personal ruts. That would increase the need for other schools (and non-schools), so even more teachers in those private organizations would be hired, and at higher prices. Eventually, the gctf-welfare schools would disappear because they would be totally superfluous—no one could justify them, irrespective of the lies and distortions they might use to try. Just as they were imposed on the lie that children were not getting "educated" in the first place, we'd hear those lies once again. But information is gold in these matters. That's why keeping the internet free of government control is important.

Amazing that government school teachers aren't smart enough to figure this out and thus remain firmly opposed to vouchers.

Well, apparently they are not, at least on average. You are right: the market always works and it always makes everyone better off. It does not assure "equality", but it does insure that everyone's condition improves as time goes on. It rewards diligence, hard work and dedication to meeting other people's needs.

Vouchers, though, come laden with a trainload of their own problems, not least of which is the propensity of those "providing" the money to dictate how it will be spent. They represent a Trojan Horse that would destroy all private education in USmerica (or anywhere else they are tried).

Far better to use totally private sources. They may come with strings attached (and I hope they do) but there would be so many sources that it is inconceivable that a needy parent would not find a way to educate his children as he sees fit. That's why Brigham Young paid the school fees of so many poor children and orphans: he had attached strings (they all went to LDS academies on his dime), but they got the education their parents thought best.

Government, like fire, is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.

Lehi

[Loran Blood]

Those schools were not at all like the schools imposed on families today. GCTF-welfare schools, as we know them today, did not exist in USmerica until 1852 in Massachusetts, and many states resisted them until 1912. Even as late as 1882 (iIrc), the people of Barnstable, Massachusetts, refused to send their children to the gctf-welfare school, preferring to send them to the local private school. That year, if it's the correct one, the militia, under orders from the governor, marched the children, at point of bayonet, past their private school to the gctf-welfare school. It is not, and never has been, about "education": it's about control over children's minds.

In the early "public" schools of USmerica, the students were under the complete control of the parents who voluntarily sent their children. The parents paid directly for them (possibly with some support from the community, usually the church, not the state, but not always). Parents had the right to abstain from sending, and to teach their children in any way they saw fit. There was a law in many New England colonies/states that made parents stupid: Until there were six families with children under age 10, aIr, in a community, there was no need to build a school. However, when the sixth family moved in (or was formed by marriage and childbirth) the law demanded they build a school and hire an outside instructor. To that point, however, the parents were considered competent to teach their children on their own.

Now "public" means "private", because the "public" church building was not owned by the state, and neither was the school house.

The first school teacher in Utah Deseret (actually, she taught along the Mormon Trail on her way across the plains) was commissioned by Brigham Young, and charged for her lessons as the parents were able to pay. Brigham paid for many orphans and poor children to attend schools around the Territory. The imposition of gctf-welfare schools on the Saints was a form of coerced indoctrination against the Church and against the Priesthood. Just as in Massachusetts a decade earlier, the issue was never about education, it was always about control over who would teach, what he would teach, and under whose control the children's minds would be.

When Horace Mann copied Friedrich's schools, his goal was the same as the emperor's: to separate the children from their parents and to instill a different set of values and mores in the next generation. That remains the primary goal of gctf-welfare schools to this day. The only thing that has changed is how far long the track they have progressed. And their progress has been formidable.

Lehi

Indeed. I would encourage anyone interested in some through critiques of public schooling and its history, to read Dr. Thomas Sowell's Inside American Education, and The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America. The second is a huge tome, but well worth your while as it is primarily a compendium, in historical order, of the writings and thoughts of the progressive founders of modern public education and their disciples, from Dewey to the end of the end of the nineties, including a great deal of what for laypeople outside the schools of education, the public education educracy, the Dept. of Education, and the major teacher's unions, obscure material, much of it which was never intended for public consumption. Frankly, I was once dubious about the "deliberate" aspect of the title, but have come to little doubt in the intervening years since that book was published about the efficacy of that term.

It is, to say the least, fascinating reading.

[Mark Beesley]

In actual historical and philosophical practice, most have supported regimens of "equality," not because it is valued above greed, but as the best way to actualize their own. Redistribution of wealth is, for mortals, the ultimate satisfaction of their own unbridled avaristic impulses rationalized through state power.

Equality, in other words, is valued above quality. Being against "greed" is the rationalization that makes the mass plunder of one's neighbors seem morally palatable.

If you say so . . .

[subgenius]

.... Atheism is just one belief....

actually atheism is multiple beliefs (arguably) - but atheism is best defined by its rejection of "belief" (in the context of God(s)).

To attempt to define atheism as a "system" or "belief" is a fallacy. It is first and foremost a self-centered endeavor that requires amorality cloaked as "tolerance" and eradicates any possibility of free-choice and individuality.

The modern atheist is confined to an existence that is simply a skin bag full of chemical reactions.

I'm suggesting that we should teach them humanism.

are you sure? this term is so broad in meaning that you can not possibly "teach" it, because it relies on a "value system". There were religious humanists spawned from the French revolution, and then secular humanist which reject religion....which "humanism" are you promoting that we "teach"?

The point is that individuals and society must have a "value system" and atheism abhors a value system. While an individual atheist may convince themselves that their fly-by-the-seat-of-the-pants value system is a value system, it is not...it is a value improvisation. A "society" of atheists would be unable to construct a value system because they have no ability to reason, rationalize, or infer that an absolute truth about anything exists. The atheist can not recognize the supernatural because it allows for the possibility that they are incorrect about the existence of God, so the atheist must rely on only that which can be bio-chemically described. Therefore each atheist is governed, completely, by the natural laws of the universe - thus each atheist suffers from the inability to "decide otherwise".