There is an old bit of advice that sounds good. Pick the right tool for the job. What is the problem with that advice? We need to pick the right person for the job first. And what is even more important? We need to let the people who have the most at stake pick the right person for the job.
Consider this excerpt from a prayer written by
Forgive us for what we have taught our children.
Forgive us for teaching them that evil is good and good is evil, that darkness is light and light is darkness, that bitter is sweet and sweet is bitter. Forgive us for teaching them that left is right and right is wrong, that truth is false and falsehood is true.
Forgive us for teaching them that a career is more important than character, money is more important than morality, and information is more important than integrity.
Forgive us, Holy God, for teaching sexual promiscuity in our schools more effectively than we have taught sexual restraint to our students. Forgive us for teaching self-esteem better than we have taught science and civics. Forgive us for teaching values clarification more than virtuous behavior. Forgive us for diminishing the value of marital fidelity and leaving our kids clueless as to how to defend the definition of marriage.
Forgive us for teaching the generation that follows us to believe it has the authority to define life for the generation that follows it. Forgive us for teaching them that “choice” gives them the power to take away the right of the weakest to choose.
Forgive us for our narcissism: For proclaiming we are “as God”; that “we are the ones we’ve been waiting for and that we are the change we seek.” (from here)
When as parents we instruct one of our children, we can easily become confused. We can wish for our child what the world wishes. We may hope that our child will acquire great knowledge and skills, that our child will gain great wealth and fame. Yet that hope quickly becomes fleeting. What do we begin to understand when we see a small toddler misbehave and throw a tantrum? Can’t we see that before that small child will think about something other than what he or she wants that child must learn to love others?
1 John 4:20-21 New King James Version (NKJV)
20 If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? 21 And this commandment we have from Him: that he who loves God must love his brother also.
How do we know love is a necessary virtue? Why do we love God? Because He first loved us (1 John 4:19). Before our child can properly learn and make good use of what he or she learns, we must do our best to teach our child how much we love them. Even more important, we must teach them God loves them.
As parents we can be there for our child sometimes, but we are not gods. Only God can watch over each of us. Only with the knowledge of God can our small child learn virtue, especially love.
What happens when we allow public officials to decide how to teach our child, what our child will learn, and who teaches our child? We set God aside. At best, we have put our child in the care of those who will make what our child learns more important than why he or she should learn. At worst, our child will learn to acquire knowledge and skills solely for the sake of personal gain.
Public schools tend to be large bureaucracies consumed with rules, budgets, and metrics. In such a place, our child becomes nameless, a social security number. Consider this example, Lying Weasels Of Broward County: Marjory Stoneman Shooter Was In The PROMISE Program [VIDEO] by Nina Bookout
Instapundit Glenn Reynolds asked a very good question earlier today regarding the latest infuriating news regarding Broward County School district and the oh-so-politically correct and dangerous PROMISE program.
ARE THERE ANY PUBLIC OFFICIALS IN BROWARD COUNTY WHO AREN’T LYING WEASELS?
What is he referring to? Why this revelation that local media in Florida discovered and publicized Sunday night.
Broward school district officials admitted Sunday that the confessed Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School gunman was assigned to a controversial disciplinary program, after the superintendent repeatedly claimed Nikolas Cruz had “no connection” to the alternative punishment designed to limit on-campus arrests.
Two sources with knowledge of Cruz’s discipline records told WLRN he was referred to the so-called PROMISE Program for a three-day stint after committing vandalism at Westglades Middle School in 2013.
What is this program? It’s a program that we’ve referred to here and here. It’s a program that Real Clear Investigations reported on extensively. It’s a program that allows dangerous juveniles to skate through touchy-feely programs and go right back into the mainstream schools. It’s a program that has, WITHOUT parental and even school knowledge, put dangerous juveniles back into the mainstream schools; thus putting everyone at risk.
Assault
Sexual Assault
Rape
Burglary
Car jacking
Attempted murder
(continued here)
Are the politicians in Broward County a bunch of lying weasels? Perhaps there is a better question. When a politician sees our child, what does that politician see? Someone they love? No. Who has the capacity to love strangers? Not even God. God loves us because none of us are strangers to Him, but politicians just see our child as a small part of the “system” they control. Our child just one of they objects they control.
When parents make decisions for their child, their child is never just an object; crazy social engineering experiments like the PROMISE program are the farthest thing from their minds. What we all want for our child is a safe place where our child can be cared for and learn to care about others. What we don’t want is to make our child the object of dangerous experiments by politicians with screwy ideas.
To properly educate our child, we need to demand school choice. Parents need to demand the right to pick the right person for the job.
Citizen Tom 
Tom, Anon,
“What matters is whether his actions infringe upon the rights of another. Therefore, we must carefully define and have a high regard for each other’s rights.”
Since when does a dead victim ever have an opportunity to speak out about his or Her Rights?
“Nefarious consequences,” “is the result of people in charge, not discerning (thinking) beforehand about the Rights of other people, who may become victims of their single sided decisions, in my opinion.
Regards and good will blogging.
“I don’t think I even gave the appearance of making a legal case designed to indict anyone. I summed up my case quite clearly at the end.”
You did, however, imply that somehow these officials, their policies, and the public school system in some sense caused the tragedy. The two ways of looking at causation evolved rationally within the legal system as indicative of proof. These rational tools can be used by anyone regardless of whether the standard proof is probable cause, beyond a reasonable doubt or preponderance of evidence.
“What you have illustrated is one the difficulties of communicating. We may hear quite clearly what another person is saying, and we may understand the language, but we will still put their message within the context our own understanding and experiences.“
Wow! Well put, and I could not agree more.
Someone can have a part of the truth and also be convinced by falsehood. The key is to really communicate, to really listen and learn, rather than just responding with packaged responses before dealing with the truth that one has heard.
I need to digest what you have written further before I respond. You may not believe it, but I am honestly sympathetic to the truth you present about the problems of public education. However, I really don’t think that the motivations of original proponents of of public education were nefarious even if there have been unintended consequences. More to follow.
@tsalmon
We can do the same thing for variety of different reason. Five people can buy a what some call an assault style rifle. Each can have a different motive.
1. Defend home and family.
2. Target shooting with as close to the real thing as he can get.
3. Hunting.
4. Joining a militia of some sort.
5. Murder.
We cannot look at these people and judge their motives. Even if one of them is nuts — deranged — he may still think his intentions are good. Even if one of them knows he is up to no good, he may hide his intentions.
What matters is what these five do. What matters is whether his actions infringe upon the rights of another. Therefore, we must carefully define and have a high regard for each other’s rights.
Galatians 6:7-9 King James Version (KJV)
7 Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.
8 For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.
9 And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.
King James Version (KJV)
We all make decisions that we later regret. Regret is the anthesis of Wisdom.
Regards and good will blogging.
Just reading the responses….although you didn’t make a legal case against the school system,
I’m not convinced that Broward county schools aren’t liable here.
Now…would a lawsuit really help anyone? Well, probably not at this point the damage is done.
But they should end the PROMISE program immediately.
I don’t know very much about the law, but I’ll just use the reasonable person standard.
At present, neither military recruiters nor colleges can contact students without parental consent (this information is imbedded and bolded in the yearly Student code of conduct form they are required to sign).
So, on the one hand, student safety precludes a college or military from contacting an 11th or 12th grader (who might even be a legal aged adult), convicted violent criminals are permitted to attend the school with neither notification nor consent from parents. Did the parents even know that offenders were in these schools? Isn’t this something they should’ve been made aware of?
Look at this student code of conduct sheet:
Click to access 2017-18-Codebook-Summary-v2.pdf
It certainly strongly implies that student safety is a big concern and outright states that criminal behavior is not tolerated. Which would lead parents to believe criminal behavior is not tolerated. A strong case could now be made that this information is very very misleading.
THere’s an obvious answer to the PROMISE program for prior offenders, and it’s far more effective than demanding the population in public schools accept the criminals. I even know a person who spent a good portion of his high school experience in juvie. He went to a school for juvenile offenders. He said it was far better (for him) than being with the general student population. He’s an adult now (over 30), not a criminal and doing fine.
The PROMISE program seems to have been forced on the schools by the Obama administration.
Well, if it was forced on them they couldn’t refuse. But did that preclude parental notification of this program? Seems the parents should’ve been made aware of it.
Public officials don’t like delivering bad news like that. Short sighted, but that is why government monopolies, when they can be avoided, are a bad idea.
“We need to put what we learn into a proper perspective. Science, literature, history, math and so forth needs to be grounded in a philosophy that includes the subject of God.”
This comment is exactly why people such as yourself with a religious agenda cannot have any control over schools.
I must ask what benefit is God for children? From what I understand Christians are not better than non-Christians at bringing up children, Christians do not make better teachers than non-Christians and Christians do not have better morals than non-Christians unless you have some solid evidence to prove these assumptions you make are true.
“Only with the knowledge of God can our small child learn virtue, especially love.”
You have to be very naive to believe that. Do you have any kids?
@sklyjd
That comment shows just how much you have chosen to miss the point. Look at how I ended my post.
As the situation now stands, as a voter I can have almost as much control over the education of OTHER PEOPLE’S CHILDREN as their parents. I don’t want that control. I don’t think you should have that control. Neither of us have the right.
The first amendment guarantees religious freedom. I am not trying to use the government to impose my religious beliefs upon others, but it is quite obvious, given your own words, that that is exactly what you want you to do.
Let’s talk about the elephant in the room. You and I both know that most people in this country still profess to be Christians. If school choice becomes a reality, then large numbers of people will start sending their children to religious schools. That switch, from secular to religious schools, will be a huge setback for secularists like yourself, people who want to impose Atheism. And yes, I believe you want to impose Atheism. All we have to do to reach that conclusion is look at what you wrote.. Hence, because you oppose religious freedom, you oppose school choice.
We all want a better education for our children and pursuing it with narrow minded political and religious ideals are not the way to do it in any country.
As a voter you have control over everything your country does. The point is the quality of teachers and the curriculum. Religious schools are fine and I do not oppose choice, but what scares me is the sciences being replaced with creationism, Adam and Eve and the young earth myths. These beliefs are what the Muslims have followed for hundreds of years and just take a look at where their technological advances are.
@sklyjd
I don’t think Creationism has held back Islam. Islam is a theocratic religion that does not teach respect for the rights of the individual. In that respect, Atheism is not appreciably better.
Tyranny stems from a haughty pride, a lack of forbearance. Those who support tyranny refuse to tolerate differing beliefs.
If we allow parents to exercise their right to pass on their own beliefs to their children, then those children will grow up in a world of competing ideas. Since no one among us can claim to have infinite knowledge and wisdom — to know THE ABSOLUTE TRUTH — allowing future generations to consider the various options is just about the best we can do for them.
“I don’t think Creationism has held back Islam. Islam is a theocratic religion that does not teach respect for the rights of the individual. In that respect, Atheism is not appreciably better.”
Not just creationism has held them back but their whole way of life emulating the ideology of their religion is backwards and non -progressive, this is why they have very few good scientists and forward-thinking people leading their people politically or in any subject you may think of.
Trying to compare atheism with Muslim rights as you have attempted to do would actually be much more related to Christianity as you both often treat homosexuals, women and children in a discriminative old-fashioned manner not accepted by the non-religious and atheists alike.
“If we allow parents to exercise their right to pass on their own beliefs to their children, then those children will grow up in a world of competing ideas.”
This will only work if parents pass on their views of the world such as religious, political and social aspects under certain circumstances such as without repetitious teaching of an ideology that may cause psychological stress and burden the child with parental, religious and institutional pressures, whereas religious indoctrination is based on all these aspects to principally manipulate young minds that should be allowed to grow and decide upon their own futures in their own time.
As you say, “allowing future generations to consider the various options is just about the best we can do for them.”
@sklyjd
Because Atheism does not offer a coherent philosophy, I did not waste much effort comparing Atheism with Islam. I just observed Islam does not teach respect for the rights of the individual. Because Atheism that does not teach respect for the rights of the individual, Atheism is not appreciably better.
Can you show me an atheistic society we ought to emulate?
Christians treat homosexuals like homosexuals, women like women, and children like children.
Homosexuals define themselves by engaging in same-sex sex. Such activity is not healthy or wise. It is self-destructive to all involved. So it is a sin. Just the way homosexuality contributes the the spread of disease….. Still, Christians don’t hate homosexuals. All sinners need Jesus, and we are all sinners.
Christianity is an egalitarian belief. We are all made in the image of God. We are all sinners. We are all in need of salvation.
Christianity do not worry about removing our inequalities. Christianity says they don’t exist. None of us have any reason to be anything but humble before God. It is His love that gives us significance, not any works of our own.
Christians treat women as the equal partners of men. Because the Bible says men and women are equals, Christians were actually the first to do that.
Christians love children and protect them. Because Jesus loved children, Christians strive to love children.
By the time you are done protecting children from their parents, you will have decided how children should be taught, who teaches children, and what children should be taught. That is, “this” will only work if “this” is not allowed to work.
😒😖
I have met atheists whose moral beliefs were quite tolerable, but their beliefs were rooted in that virtue we call love, not Atheism.
When we won’t allow others the freedom to pursue happiness (virtue as they see it), we set our own desires above their desires. That is an act of pride, not love.
“Atheism does not offer a coherent philosophy”
Atheism is disbelief or lack of belief in the existence of God or gods, nothing more nothing less, nothing incoherent about that.
“Because Atheism that does not teach respect for the rights of the individual, Atheism is not appreciably better.”
Atheism is just a position of disbelief as above, but that does not mean atheists do not teach respect for the rights of the individual.
“Can you show me an atheistic society we ought to emulate?”
Yes of course, America should emulate Australia and New Zealand not to mention Sweden, Denmark, Norway and many others. It appears countries where faith in God is strong and religious participation is high tend to have the highest violent crime rates.
“Christians treat homosexuals like homosexuals, women like women, and children like children.”
Precisely, some Christian men treat women as second class citizens and submissive to men because ancient people thousands of years ago declared in the Bible that “man was not created for the woman’s sake, but woman for the man’s sake.”
Homosexuals are condemned by most Christians just as you have done because the Bible says, “homosexual behaviour is an abomination” and “homosexuals should receive the death penalty.”
Children are indoctrinated, and some go as far to beat their children because the Bible myth says “If you strike him with the rod, you will save his soul from Sheol”
Christians with this sort of attitude could do with all the salvation and love of Jesus they can muster.
“By the time you are done protecting children from their parents, you will have decided how children should be taught, who teaches children, and what children should be taught. That is, “this” will only work if “this” is not allowed to work.”
This is not even close to what I said, I am saying if you want children to grow up in a world of competing ideas why indoctrinate a child’s mind with adult’s ideals? Why not allow children to make up their own minds when they choose to? This is taking away a fundamental right of freedom from a child.
“When we won’t allow others the freedom to pursue happiness (virtue as they see it), we set our own desires above their desires. That is an act of pride, not love.”
Exactly right. The indoctrination of children is a case in point.
@sklyjd
All I said is that Atheism does not offer a coherent philosophy. You want to argue about that? What is the point? Atheists teach a disbelief. The faith of Atheist is that God does not exist. By default, Atheists must rely upon human reason, but reliance upon human reason is not by itself a coherent philosophy. Given the record of history, Atheists have not made very good use of human reason.
You point to Australia, New Zealand, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and many others as atheistic. I think you are confusing secular governments with atheistic people. Please check your facts => https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/resources/the-world-factbook/. Their church attendance may not be particularly high, but all these nations have a Christian heritage and traditions, meaning they inherited Christian moral values. In that respect they are not that much different from the United States.
What does the Bible condemn? I suggest you look at the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount. Homosexuality may be high on your list, but it is not high on mine. Homosexuality is just another sin we can commit and should avoid. When God gave the Hebrews the Law through Moses, the Hebrews discovered that no matter how hard they tried they could not obey the Law. They could kill sinners, but all of them sinned. What was needed was a Savior.
If you want to read the Bible selectively, you can fabricate a case that Christians do not treat women and children well. History and the plain facts of what we see today argue against such nonsense. Ironically, if not for our Christian traditions, no one would even take your complaints about women and children seriously. Unfortunately, few study history well enough to understand how Europeans treated women and children before Jesus Christ. Few consider how poorly women and children are treated in nations without a Christian heritage. Few understand the role Christianity played in the progress over the intervening centuries since Jesus died and rose from the dead. Too few bother to study, much less read the Bible. Nevertheless, the evidence that the Bible teach us to respect women and children is obvious. The countries where women and children are treated best have a Christian heritage.
This is funny.
What you are proposing is a proposition worse than the public school system. In addition to pressuring parents to send their children to public schools where they receive a secularized education, you want to deny parents the right to teach their own religious beliefs to their children. Yet you still have the gall to posture as a purveyor of liberty. What rot!
“All I said is that Atheism does not offer a coherent philosophy. You want to argue about that? What is the point? Atheists teach a disbelief.”
I could predict your false assumptions on this and sure enough you delivered. Atheists do not teach any beliefs, because there is nothing to teach. We take the position that we do not believe in gods as you should know, it is how we are born, the default state. Human reasoning is just a natural position of life, an individual thing we should all respect, nothing complicated about it unless an ideology is repeatedly rammed down your throat by people you love and respect, then it becomes abusive and very unfair.
“Their church attendance may not be particularly high, but all these nations have a Christian heritage and traditions, meaning they inherited Christian moral values. In that respect they are not that much different from the United States.”
Believe me when I say we are a secular country and far different from the United States. Atheists and non-believers, agnostics and people who hold other religious and various spiritual beliefs would be around 50% and could be higher in 2018. This is the site you should be reading, not the FBI web site.
http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/mediareleasesbyReleaseDate/7E65A144540551D7CA258148000E2B85?OpenDocument
Christians in Australia and these other secular countries do not congregate in areas such as your “Bible belt” brag or identify themselves as anything special or preach their belief so boldly like they do in your country.
The Australian religious people have long understood the consequences of publicising such stupidity and Christian heritage means little to most of us. Australia eliminated any mention of God in the national anthem that was adopted in 1984, and sporting icons are told to pull their heads in if they preach ideologies.
I think religion has cut its own throat, particularly through the discrimination of gay people and the massive amount of paedophile priests that have been exposed, not to mention the rejection of science and creationist doctrine. Must have been the will of God, don’t you think?
“few study history well enough to understand how Europeans treated women and children before Jesus Christ.” And, The countries where women and children are treated best have a Christian heritage.”
I would suggest you have never studied history either, these statements are complete rot.
Children as young as four years old worked long hours in factories under dangerous conditions. The practice of child labour continued throughout much of the Industrial Revolution until laws were eventually passed that made child labour illegal. (courtesy of Google). And I can find many upon many examples of child abuse and poor treatment in the days of strong belief in Christianity and I have not yet started on the women. Get real, take the stars from your eyes and educate yourself here.
https://family.findlaw.com/child-abuse/child-abuse-background-and-history.html
“you want to deny parents the right to teach their own religious beliefs to their children. Yet you still have the gall to posture as a purveyor of liberty. What rot!”
Considering your lack of realism about the abuse of children I think this is another figment of your imagination. I have never stated that parents cannot pass on their beliefs, I do draw the line at indoctrination as it is brain washing of children’s minds.
@sklyjd
I don’t claim to be an expert on Australia, but your own poll says half the population claims to be Christian, which is consistent with what I said. Australia remains civilized to the extent it still retains Christian moral values.
Science is ideological. So is mathematics. Whenever we teach anyone we instill or build upon a set of beliefs. If we don’t instill a set of beliefs in children, the alternative is to leave them ignorant of what previous generations have come to believe. Even teaching someone to think is just teaching them a system of thinking.
I have not advocated a one size fit all education system. I am happy to leave it to the free market and let parents decide.
I don’t think you have the right to force your disbelief on others by not allowing parents to instill their own beliefs in their children. You even want to equate the religious instruction of children with child abuse, and that is plainly absurd.
What is the natural position of life? Each of us wants everything to revolve around our own desires. So what do you when I disagree with your opinion, which is the natural position of life, of course. You seek to attack and destroy what I believe. You would go to the extreme of denying me the right to instruct my own children. Such hatefulness is the best you can do with “human reasoning” when it is unrestrained by the wisdom of God.
I think Tom, that you are living in a dream world.
One specific meaning of the term religious abuse refers to psychological manipulation and harm inflicted on a person by using the teachings of their religion. It is most often directed at children and emotionally vulnerable adults. Psychologist Jill Mytton describes this as crushing the child’s chance to form a personal morality and belief system; it makes them utterly reliant on their religion and/or parents, and they never learn to reflect critically on information they receive. Similarly, the use of fear and a judgmental environment (such as the concept of Hell) to control the child can be traumatic. (Wikipedia).
Religious Abuse: a book written by a pastor with 40 years of experience, Keith Wright came to realize that a dichotomy exists within the walls of many churches. While many churchgoers find the environment wonderfully embracing and supportive, the fact is that religion can offer both a positive and a negative experience. Religious abuse affects millions of church members and church leaders in every denomination.
If I trusted in the good intentions of busybodies, that would be foolish, wishful thinking. Then I would be living the nightmare that busybodies create.
If believing in God is a dream, I am still better off. The Bible, whatever its origin, contains more wisdom than is found in our little minds.
The biggest source of religious abuse come from those people who use the power of the state to force their views upon others, and that is exactly what you are trying to do. There is no love in what you want, just arrogant pride.
The very same handwringing liberals who are ostensibly concerned with “science” and terribly terribly fearful that creationism might somehow invade .001 percent of primary school curriculum are the folks who have been in charge of our education for the last few decades and made the high school diploma essentially worthless.
Interesting take. In the law, there are two different types of causation in terms of liability: proximate or legal causation and “but for” cause or causation-in-fact. “But for” causation is a test that asks whether the harm would have been caused “but for” a certain action or omission. Proximate causation is a limitation on causation-in-fact that asks whether there was a legal (or in this case moral) responsibility to do or not do something and was the act or omission within the prevailing standard of care for such acts or omissions.
Would the gunman have committed the school murders “but for” certain programs provided by school officials or because of a lack of other programs that school officials (or a different type of school) might have provided? I don’t know, but what you have written here does not seem to provide enough evidence of “but for” causation on the part of school officials.
Even assuming that you get past the causation-in-fact test, are school officials legally or morally responsible because of the program that they provided or failed to provide, and was the program that was provided within the prevailing standard of care (or in other words, best practices) for schools at the time? It is hard to say without more expertise and information on best practices, but just from what you have said here, it would seem that, even though those practices did not prevent the 18 year old gunman from buying an assault weapon and murdering these children, the school officials were probably not the proximate cause of the murders. It would seem that you are saying that it is unknowable whether easy access to guns morally or legally caused this tragedy, but you are willing to say thar you believe that the school system and officials caused it. Am I right?
Would a private school system have allowed or prevented the same murders, in either a “but for” or proximate causation sense? It’s a hypothetical so it’s kind of impossible to say. Do private non-religious and religious schools teach better morals or do the parents and children at such private schools already have better morals and a greater concern for moral development so that they self select into these schools? Who knows?
If we completely ellimated the public school system, but still required universal education in a private school system would that have prevented these murders and lessen all other school violence? Perhaps, but because the “universal education” mandate changes the self selection dynamic, it is possible that the most expensive, harder to get into private schools would have less violence and the least expensive easiest to attend private schools would have more problems. And without a universal education mandate, you may have growing education wastelands in rural areas and inner cities that would be economically damaging to a society as a whole, and that goes against the moral norms of a society that values equal opportunity.
I don’t think that privatization of education is a panacea for all the ills of society, including school violence, but I could be wrong. There are too many factors and unknown unintended consequences to know for certain. I’m sure not against experimentation that is driven by data and expertise rather than just blind ideological dogma.
I sympathize with the idea that, when so much of their day is spent in school with teachers, those schools and teachers are bound to have a moral impact on students. I’m unconvinced, however, that the public schools aren’t actually just the reflection everyday virtues of the parents and the community in which those schools are located. Good neighborhoods with concerned moral (and it doesn’t hurt if they are financially well off) parants seem to correlate with good public schools. Of course, that depends on how one measures “good”.
Also, I don’t think we are that objective in measuring progress because we see the bad crisis of the moment rather than measuring the long term benefit. Has universal public education been a form of progress where more people now have more opportunities than they would have had otherwise? I tend to think so because I know that I personally have had opportunities out of public education that would have been unimaginable to most of the mass of average humans throughout history, but that is only one data point, and I’m not smart enough to know all the data and factors that have allowed this progress in opportunity. Maybe you or someone else here is that smart.
@tsalmon
I don’t think I even gave the appearance of making a legal case designed to indict anyone. I summed up my case quite clearly at the end.
What you have illustrated is one the difficulties of communicating. We may hear quite clearly what another person is saying, and we may understand the language, but we will still put their message within the context our own understanding and experiences.
Is there way of gathering such data? Not really. What we do know is that religious schools will put an emphasis on religious instruction and moral behavior. If the parents are not happy, they can remove their child and take that child to another school. For financial reasons, when parents are unhappy with the public schools, their options are far more limited.
Is school choice a cure all? No. Is it an improvement? Yes.
Do parents have the right to choose the educational institution their child attends? Yes. Is our government interfering with that right? Yes. Is the government applying financial pressure to coerce parents to send their child to the public school system? Yes.
Are we talking about experimentation? Yes. So I have a question for you. What gives you the right to use the government to experiment upon and impose your social agenda upon other people’s children?
We have the public school system because the people who set it up made some serious logical moral errors. Here are some of them.
1. To ensure children receive an education, government needs to run a public school system.Just because politicians want to control everything does not mean they should. When government runs something, that means that you and I and all those other voters are responsible for making it work. We pick the managers, the politicians, and we do an awful job. Why? Didn’t you just admit how little you know? And you are smart and well educated. Yet, because any system that government operates tends to be monopolistic, we leave people stuck with one bad choice. In a free market parents don’t have to be experts. They just have to find a school that works.
2. A “universal education” mandate means children have a right to education. We can mandate anything we want. Yesterday I mandated that the sky turn purple with red polkadots. Did you notice? We can mandate that a horse drink water. So what? An education is a privilege. If someone pays for another’s education, that is a gift. If government just takes the money, that is robbery. A mandate does not change that. If a child either does not want to learn or cannot learn, that child won’t learn, and the money is wasted.
3. Education in understanding can be separated from instruction in wisdom. The public school system teaches “secular” knowledge. Teachers are actually prohibited from teaching wisdom as it relates to religion. So teachers cannot address fundamental questions.
Not a good idea. We need to put what we learn into a proper perspective. Science, literature, history, math and so forth needs to be grounded in a philosophy that includes the subject of God.
4. Public education is more egalitarian. Actually, the opposite is likely more true. The wealthy don’t send their children to public schools. Since the quality of the public schools varies, the price of housing varies in accordance with the quality of the public schools.
5. There is something sacred about the public schools. No choice allowed. The party that calls itself pro-choice detests school choice. That just reeks of irony. I am glad I am not a Democrat because that is so difficult to explain.
Have you really thought about it? Why do Liberal Democrats insist upon controlling and screwing up every good thing we might do? As individuals and in voluntary associations, we are supposed to educate our children and to provide charity for the poor, but Democrats cannot leave well enough alone. They have created costly health, education, and welfare programs, and the Federal Government doesn’t even have a charter to do these things. At the same time Democrats are perfectly happy encouraging us do things we clearly should not do: killing babies, euthanasia, perverted sex, blowing up government budgets, allowing illegal immigration to turn us into a multilingual nation, and on and on and on.