Partly right. Yes, early education pretty well has to be based on a lot of memorization and rote repetition. In later stages, it can become more creative, but the first requirement is mastering basic skills such as reading, writing, basic math, and so on, and 'creative' approaches don't work well in these basic areas.

So you are against innovation in these areas. The fact is sometimes innovation is a good thing. Students learn better when they are encouraged to be creative, at whatever age.

whereas in fact the more creative and interactive involvement students have with their education, and the more creative freedom teachers have, the better the students learn.

Evidence?

I don't have a mountain of studies at my fingertips. I've seen the evidence on TV.

You think testing is the answer, when in fact it causes teachers to teach to the test, instead of to teach.

When did I say that? I don't remember even mentioning testing.

You didn't, but that is the conservative Bush program, supported by the red zone voters.

Eric, conservatives do not necessarily oppose school funding. We do maintain that much of the money going into the educational system is being wasted, and the facts back this up.

As for blaming teachers, no, I actually tend to rank them as among the second-order victims of the same problem that messed up the schools in the first place. No matter how much funding they get, if the problem isn't corrected it's just pouring more money into a bag with a hole in it.

For whatever reason, you are showing my point. You think a lot of money spent on education is wasted, give no examples, and want to reduce that "wasted" amount, when in fact schools do a good job when they are well funded, and the problem is that they are not well-funded.

Not long ago, the head of a major public school system went back to the state legislature to ask for a supplemental appropriation, the second in a short time. The earlier one had amounted to about 9 billion, and when asked where it had
gone, he responded, "We don't keep track of such expenditures."

There is an attitude problem that afflicts American education, and it isn't caused by a shortage of funds.

This demonstrate what? One official was guilty of poor accounting? Is that the "attitude" you refer to? If not, what is it?

As for the public schools, no, we DON'T want them destroyed. I was a late convert to vouchers, charter schools, and the rest, and I would still greatly prefer to repair the public schools.

You say this, and yet the ONLY idea I ever hear from conservatives on how to fix the schools is the silly voucher idea. You conservatives simply aren't interested in improving the schools. Because well-educated people vote Democratic.

The conservative support for vouchers and the other ideas are in fact almost acts of desperation, since every other attempt to fix what's wrong with the public system has been balked by the vested interests! In this case, BTW, those vested interests are not the rich, not corporations, and not the religious right.

What "reforms" did the unions and faculty block, that haven't already been fixed?

If you want us to shut up about vouchers and the rest, then all you have to do is fix the public schools, or let us do it! BTW,that doesn't have to mean getting rid of the unions, either! I for one would be content if they'd just be willing to acknowledge that a problem exists other than a funding shortage!

What problem? Again, you're saying there's a problem with the way teachers are teaching, and I say that is balderdash. Teachers do a good job with what little they have to work with, and with what little freedom they are given.

Vouchers, BTW, are most strongly supported by poor and minority parents, Eric, living in Blue Zone hardcore areas.

Not so; most minorities see through the blatant deception. They see that vouchers mean the end of public schools, something which poorer people support.

The rich already have and will continue to have access to good education. The people who push for vouchers are those who have kids in the lousiest schools.

Some do, but almost all the people I see pushing for vouchers are white Republican politicians and ideologues.

Likewise, middle class and suburban professional parents (and many rural parents) have access to decent public schools, and tend to oppose vouchers as well. In opposing vouchers (and related ideas), you're standing with the rich and upper middle class against the poor, Eric!

Anyone with good sense of any class can see that vouchers destroy public education. I'm glad to stand with anyone who sees through red zone propaganda.

Eric, show me some evidence, any evidence that rehabilitation works! I'd love to believe it! I don't LIKE having people spend their lives in a cage, any more than you do!
But in all history, there is little or no evidence of it working! If there is, tell us about it! I'd love to be proven wrong about this, even though I know all too well that I'm not going to be so
proven.

There are many examples of it working. Train people for work, educate them, counsel them, treat them for drugs, supervise their progress, and it works for many, though not for all. I've seen the evidence on TV. Watch for it yourself. Also, reduce child abuse, and that would go a long way. The only thing that doesn't work is prison. Jails are training grounds for crime. I won't prove it to you, but the fact that you state there's no alternative to prison except death shows your backward social thinking that most other countries have long since outgrown. You guys in the red zone would rather fight over abortion than deal with real problems.

Eric, the 'root causes' theory of crime has been utterly discredited. It isn't poverty, recism, and commercialism that causes crime, especially violent crime!

Discredited only by conservative ideologues. Crime is not caused only by these things, but they are contributing factors. Poor people commit more crime. Who is in prison?

Prison does have one solving power over crime: over and over, it's been discovered that by a huge proportion, most crime and especially most violent crime is committed by a small percentage of regular repeaters. Lock up that small percentage, and the crime rate falls sharply.

We have followed your policy, and we still have the most crime in the world. True, for some people this is the only answer. But these people are the way they are because they were abused and mistreated. Institute more social programs to deal with child abuse and other social ills, and crime will be reduced. Other things can be changed on a personal moral level. In both ways, America is backward. Red zone churches frown on real attempts to bring about personal growth. They only offer obedience to the Bible, and call anything else of the devil. This is the thinking that dominates your zone, Cynic. It determines who is elected to Congress from your zone. Prejudice and hatred of hippies and new agers and people with long hair. Come on red zoners, grow up!

True, America has more crime than Europe, but it also has more energy and vitality. They are two sides to the same coin. Further, the violent crime rate in America has been dropping steadily, as we get further away from the Awakening,

But you admit the fact. You conservatives can blame the 60s
for everything all you want, but the fact is that crime peaked around 1990. If the economy continues to fall, crime will go up
again.

I admitted nothing of the sort! You keep saying I admit this and said that, and I didn't!

Every place where I said you admitted something, you did; thus admitting that America is backward. In this case, you admitted the America has more violent crime. Your answer is that violence is a good thing; it means we are energetic. That only proves my point about your backwardness. You also agreed that Europe has more social programs. That is true too! You simply disagree that social programs are progressive, which is only what I am contending. You people in the red zone have backward social ideas. You need to change if we as a nation are going to stay together. We can't continue to be held back endlessly by your foot dragging. 40 or 50 years of endless stagnation is a ridiculous state of affairs.

No, crime is not rising and falling in synch with the economy. It did peak in 1990, in part because of the number of Boomers and Xers in the high-crime age bracket, and started falling steadily afterward, exactly as Strauss and Howe predicted.

I doubt very seriously if a worsening economy will drive Millennials into a passionate criminal frenzy.

Strauss and Howe are not the last word on what will happen. The economy always is and will continue to be a reliable factor.

(Social programs are) only progressive if they actually WORK, Eric. They don't work if they can't be sustained.

Social programs work, here and abroad. They reduced poverty in the US right up until Reagan. Before the New Deal we had a society of rich and poor, very unjust. From the 40s through the 80s we improved and the Middle Class grew. Now things have gotten worse again, although Clinton's period saw some improvements.

The proof is in the very statistics those European health organizations publish, and in the fact that those who can come to America to use our system do so. There is almost no traffic
of wealthy Americans rushing to get to Europe or Canada's system!

Not so. I've seen reports of people who have to go to Canada to buy what they can't afford to buy here, because we protect the high prices of drugs. If these systems don't work, why are other nations not overturning them and adopting our system? The fact is, we are bankrupting ourselves with our absurd approach to health, in all ways. And thanks to you guys in the red zone, we refuse to change.
Quote:

Cynic wrote: Regarding energy waste, research and development continues on more efficient technology to use energy more effectively.




Eric wrote: At a snail's pace compared to Europe.

Cynic wrote: No, Eric, considerably faster than Europe. And even so, it's going to be necessary to increase supply.

What on earth do you mean? Europe is moving ahead with alternative energy. America is drilling in Wilderness areas for more oil, and blocking the Global Warming treaty. There's a clear difference. We are backward, held back into neanderthal policies by a red zone that depends on the oil business and more Enrons for its well-being.





[quote]We would have the higher murder rate with or without the
guns. Switzerland has mandatory gun ownership, the UK and Japan have broad gun bans, all three have lower murder rates. The two are only barely connected. Further, if the price of freedom is a lower level of safety, so be it. That was implicit in the foundation of the United States, BTW.

[/quote}

We're talking a lot less safety, and not freedom at all. Freedom to do what? Blow people away? There's no freedom at all in the "right to bear arms." That is just fear-based compulsion to take safety into your own hands instead of the law. The cases of Japan and UK are not disproven by the Swiss anomaly. Switzerland is a very advanced society, very non-militaristic, and very small. If we were like them in most respects, then I grant that high gun ownership would be little problem.

The fact that we are not willing to institute gun control is just another example of how we are socially backward compared to other countries. Apparently we agree that our capital punishment policies are another.

Guns are just another way in which the two zones are different. Apparently you need guns to deal with threats to livestock and such; imposing guns on those of us in the blue zone, where they only contribute to urban violence, is unfair. Perhaps separating would make it easier for us both to have what we need.

Those who sacrifice freedom for a little temporary safety deserve neither, and it the long run they will have neither. Ben Franklin.

Interesting quote, in the light of what your president is doing now!

I'll check out your Bush v. Gore material later. I don't know if I'm as well informed on the legal details as I was a year ago.

_________________
Keep the Spirit Alive,
Eric Meece

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Eric A Meece on 2002-02-23 23:58 ]</font>

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Eric A Meece on 2002-02-24 00:01 ]</font>

[quote]I would be, except that the budget was never really not screwed up.
[/quote

Don't you read the news? We had a huge surplus. You can't get around that fact. Bush's policies are largely responsible for the fact that we suddenly no longer have one. Granted that the economy is also a major factor. Why do you conservatives favor a big deficit now? I submit it is because it makes it impossible to afford social programs, which keeps the rich in power.

America's budget problems actually date back to the early sixties and the JFK administration.

You seem to forget who quadrupled the national debt.

No, and that's the real tragedy, Eric. The peaceful times are maintained mainly by the threat of the use of force against those who would end them. That's why large-scale disarmaments have usually occurred not too long before large wars. It's not a coincidence, the disarmaments tend to make wars more likely, by making potential targets look more vulnerable and tempting.

Only in the 1930s. You show again how locked into Munich thinking you are. The result of your thinking was Vietnam. Talk about something that screwed up our budget! That was it in a nutshell. Post-Munich thinking.

You neglect history. Military buildups and military thinking caused World War I, and the Franco-Prussian War before it. The militarism of the French Revolution gave Napoleon the tool he needed to wage wars of conquest. That Revolution was largely caused by French over-spending on the American Revolution. And without a bloated Defense Dept bent on getting us into wars, we would never have gone to Vietnam.

On 2002-02-23 20:31, Marc Lamb wrote:

George Bush is not a "gray champion" for Mr. Reed's generation, but he is a "champion" for those of generation X.

ROTFLMAO!!! Damn, Marc, that's a good one. Such an authoritarian puppet with no core beliefs most certainly could not be a "champion" for any liberty loving Nomad generation, much less my own Xer generation. I'm not certain that he is even a "champion" for your side of the Boomer War despite the fact that you fall to your knees every time he appears on the television to do further damage to the English language. However he may just be a "champion" to all those poor souls lying in hospital wards across America recovering from pretzel-related accidents. That much I will give you.

Tune in tomorrow for Mister Salty versus the Axle of Elvis. Same bat time. Same bat channel.

Eric Meese at least admits that Red Zoners do have legitimate uses for guns, thus implicitly admitting that the Blue Zone desire to disarm everyone is equally unfair.

On 2002-02-24 00:15, Eric A Meece wrote:

I would be, except that the budget was never really not screwed up.
[/quote

Don't you read the news? We had a huge surplus. You can't get around that fact. Bush's policies are largely responsible for the fact that we suddenly no longer have one. Granted that the economy is also a major factor. Why do you conservatives favor a big deficit now? I submit it is because it makes it impossible to afford social programs, which keeps the rich in power.

Technically, we had a surplus. But there is a bit of joint-party dishonesty in the way we calculate our budgets. Strictly speaking, we only budget a year at a time for most things. When politicians talk about their spending plans beyond a given year, it's all conditional at best and fantasy at worst.

The reason for the surplus, as I said, was that tax revenues rose unexpectedly with a booming economy in the middle 90s, combined with lower defense spending, which is not a practical long term option for America.

The surplus was already shrinking, before either Bush or 911, because tax receipts, which rose with the boom, fell with the bust.
This occurs even if tax rates are left untouched.

Not that either party is guiltless here. Both parties are spending addicts, with priorities ranging from vital to trivial on both sides. Had Al Gore won the election, we'd still be about to go into deficit, except that the military would probably get less of a percentage of the borrowed money, and Democratic pet projects more.

The surplus was almost entirely an unpredicted and unexpected side-effect of an economic boom based on information technology, the natural business cycle, and a stock bubble. When those things settled out or turned downward, the original deficit problem, which is a spending problem, reappeared, never having really gone away.

America's budget problems actually date back to the early sixties and the JFK administration.

You seem to forget who quadrupled the national debt.

No, I remember perfectly well the way successive Democratic-controlled Congresses refused to cut (or even slow the rate of growth of) spending between 1981 and 1988.

No, and that's the real tragedy, Eric. The peaceful times are maintained mainly by the threat of the use of force against those who would end them. That's why large-scale disarmaments have usually occurred not too long before large wars. It's not a coincidence, the disarmaments tend to make wars more likely, by making potential targets look more vulnerable and tempting.

Only in the 1930s. You show again how locked into Munich thinking you are. The result of your thinking was Vietnam. Talk about something that screwed up our budget! That was it in a nutshell. Post-Munich thinking.

[/quote]

Munich is the normal state of human affairs, Eric. Yes, the example of Munich remains the correct one to understand what's going on in the world, even today.

Vietnam was the product of a general 'conspiracy of stupidity' which involved the leaders of the U.S., the opponents of the war in the streets, and a dozen other players too.

Incidentally, after our abject failure in Vietnam, we were indeed left looking proportiately more vulnerable. Our opponents in the world acted upon that belief, and throughout the seventies they were correct in their assessment of our weakness (more psychological than physical).

You neglect history. Military buildups and military thinking caused World War I, and the Franco-Prussian War before it.

No, World War I was caused by political incompetence, a steady competition between the UK, France, Germany, the Austro-Hungarian empire, Russia, and even to a lesser extent such places as the Ottoman Empire for power in the world.

World War I was the first shakeout of which powers were serious contenders for global power, and which weren't. The military build ups were products of this thinking, not causes of it.

The militarism of the French Revolution gave Napoleon the tool he needed to wage wars of conquest. That Revolution was largely caused by French over-spending on the American Revolution.

The French Revolution was driven in the immediate sense by over-taxation, necessary to finance a bloated aristocratic/clerical elite which had grown up over the course of a century or more, combined ironically with aristocratic foolishness.

The leadership of the Revolution was from the upper classes, and it was they that dropped the spark into the 'pool of gasoline' represented by a hungry, over-taxed, and overgoverned mass population. They had no conception of what they were setting into motion, of course.

The larger cause of the French Revolution (and the American one too) was the Enlightnment, and the ideas which grew from it and undermined the legitimacy of the monarchy in the general mind.

As for Napoleon, he too was a product, in his way, of the Englightenment. The French followed him in his wars with a nearly religous passion. The Napoleonic Wars were the first 'modern-style' European wars, psychologically speaking.

Incidentally, Napoleon the man, though no saint, was an improvement over that 'man of the people', the progressive Robespierre!

And without a bloated Defense Dept bent on getting us into wars, we would never have gone to Vietnam.

The military, for the most part, didn't particularly favor getting into a ground war in Vietnam, Eric. That was the result of political and ideological calculations in the Kennedy Administration, and a misunderstanding of how to contain the USSR.



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: HopefulCynic68 on 2002-02-25 23:39 ]</font>

On 2002-02-23 23:55, Eric A Meece wrote:

Partly right. Yes, early education pretty well has to be based on a lot of memorization and rote repetition. In later stages, it can become more creative, but the first requirement is mastering basic skills such as reading, writing, basic math, and so on, and 'creative' approaches don't work well in these basic areas.

So you are against innovation in these areas. The fact is sometimes innovation is a good thing. Students learn better when they are encouraged to be creative, at whatever age.

No, I'm only against failed innovations.

You think testing is the answer, when in fact it causes teachers to teach to the test, instead of to teach.

When did I say that? I don't remember even mentioning testing.

You didn't, but that is the conservative Bush program, supported by the red zone voters.

I do favor testing as one element of an improved system, Eric. By itself, it does indeed produce a 'teach to the test' mentality. That's bad in some areas, perfectly acceptable in others.

Eric, conservatives do not necessarily oppose school funding. We do maintain that much of the money going into the educational system is being wasted, and the facts back this up.

As for blaming teachers, no, I actually tend to rank them as among the second-order victims of the same problem that messed up the schools in the first place. No matter how much funding they get, if the problem isn't corrected it's just pouring more money into a bag with a hole in it.

For whatever reason, you are showing my point. You think a lot of money spent on education is wasted, give no examples, and want to reduce that "wasted" amount, when in fact schools do a good job when they are well funded, and the problem is that they are not well-funded.

Not long ago, the head of a major public school system went back to the state legislature to ask for a supplemental appropriation, the second in a short time. The earlier one had amounted to about 9 billion, and when asked where it had
gone, he responded, "We don't keep track of such expenditures."

There is an attitude problem that afflicts American education, and it isn't caused by a shortage of funds.

This demonstrate what? One official was guilty of poor accounting? Is that the "attitude" you refer to? If not, what is it?

There is an attitude among some 'education professionals' that they are carryers of a great public trust, primarily responsible for the hope of the future. This is half-correct, but the other half is a lie, that this means they aren't bound by the mundane realities of life like limited budgets.

Also, many educators have forgotten that they, and their entire system, exist in loco parentis. The parents, not the schools, have ultimate responsibility for the raising of their children, and the parents collectively should be acknowledged as the masters of the schools, not the ideologues who have taken over too much of the system, to its detriment.

Yes, this means that parents have a say in what their children are taught, and the right to veto certain things, no matter how much they may appeal to the 'progressives' have have come to see the schools as the training ground for future 'enlightened citizens'.

Gargantuan amounts of money go into many school systems and vanish into the administration, used for things ranging from expensive interior decorations for administration offices to publically-provided transportation to high officials.

No, this isn't universal, and I don't paint every official this way, but it does go on.

Further, more money than should be goes into lawsuits, defenses against lawsuits, and garbage like multicultural education.

Other problems that not based on funding shortages include a lack of discipline in the schools, social promotion as a right, and the idea that the schools are primarily responsible for the socialization of the students, rather than their education.

As for the public schools, no, we DON'T want them destroyed. I was a late convert to vouchers, charter schools, and the rest, and I would still greatly prefer to repair the public schools.

You say this, and yet the ONLY idea I ever hear from conservatives on how to fix the schools is the silly voucher idea. You conservatives simply aren't interested in improving the schools. Because well-educated people vote Democratic.

By the statistics, the opposite is true.

The conservative support for vouchers and the other ideas are in fact almost acts of desperation, since every other attempt to fix what's wrong with the public system has been balked by the vested interests! In this case, BTW, those vested interests are not the rich, not corporations, and not the religious right.

What "reforms" did the unions and faculty block, that haven't already been fixed?

In California, the attempt to eliminate bilingual education, which has done enormous harm to the students trapped in it, has been fought to the death by educators wedded to the concept.

In another state, which I have forgotten the details of for the moment, the buildings were falling apart. Local parents, who included construction personnel and builders, agreed to fix the building themselves, since it was taking so long to deal with the bureaucracy. The Superintendent locked them out and threatened to call police if they didn't leave the premises.

The attitude problem again: the educators don't see parents as their employers. They should. Further, if the parents had fixed the problem themselves, the lobbying effort for more state money would have been hamstrung.

The attempt to intruduce tougher standards is opposed by many elements of the educational establishment as well. By tougher standards, I mean basic reading and math skills. This faction refuses to accept that it's more important for the student to learn basic knowledge than it is for his or her self-esteem to be upheld.

The entire self-esteem movement, for that matter, that has gotten into the schools is a joke.

If you want us to shut up about vouchers and the rest, then all you have to do is fix the public schools, or let us do it! BTW,that doesn't have to mean getting rid of the unions, either! I for one would be content if they'd just be willing to acknowledge that a problem exists other than a funding shortage!

What problem? Again, you're saying there's a problem with the way teachers are teaching, and I say that is balderdash. Teachers do a good job with what little they have to work with, and with what little freedom they are given.

If you'll read again, you'll see that my complaints are more with the administrations, the teachers' union leadership (not the rank and file, necessarily) and the other higher-up elements than with the teachers themselves, for the most part.

Vouchers, BTW, are most strongly supported by poor and minority parents, Eric, living in Blue Zone hardcore areas.

Not so; most minorities see through the blatant deception. They see that vouchers mean the end of public schools, something which poorer people support.

Eric, every poll shows that it's the poor/minority parents who favor the vouchers. This isn't even in question.

The rich already have and will continue to have access to good education. The people who push for vouchers are those who have kids in the lousiest schools.

Some do, but almost all the people I see pushing for vouchers are white Republican politicians and ideologues.

If you're going by TV, that may be true. The media is strongly biased on this subject, and tends to cover it misleadingly.

The statistical numbers don't back you up.

Likewise, middle class and suburban professional parents (and many rural parents) have access to decent public schools, and tend to oppose vouchers as well. In opposing vouchers (and related ideas), you're standing with the rich and upper middle class against the poor, Eric!

Anyone with good sense of any class can see that vouchers destroy public education. I'm glad to stand with anyone who sees through red zone propaganda.

As I said, the middle class and wealthy don't like them, but they have kids in better schools anyway.

Eric, show me some evidence, any evidence that rehabilitation works! I'd love to believe it! I don't LIKE having people spend their lives in a cage, any more than you do!
But in all history, there is little or no evidence of it working! If there is, tell us about it! I'd love to be proven wrong about this, even though I know all too well that I'm not going to be so
proven.

There are many examples of it working. Train people for work, educate them, counsel them, treat them for drugs, supervise their progress, and it works for many, though not for all. I've seen the evidence on TV. Watch for it yourself.

I have. I'd take it more seriously if I didn't no from print journalism of various sources, from statitics gathered over 30 years of attempts, and from anecdotal evidence as well, that most rehabiliation efforts fail. The recidivism rate for all crime is high. It's especially high where drugs are involved.

It's true that if a criminal already wants to go straight, state efforts can be of great assistance. But the offender himself/herself must first desire to go straight, or it's futile.

Also, reduce child abuse, and that would go a long way.

This is another idea, that most crime traces back to child abuse, that is at best unestablished. Even the real-world rates of child abuse are in considerable debate.

The only thing that doesn't work is prison. Jails are training grounds for crime.

Too true. For more serious offenses, it should be harder to get out than it is. For more minor offenses in teen and childhood, or first offenses, fines and restitution might very well be preferable (though NOT for violent offenders).

I won't prove it to you, but the fact that you state there's no alternative to prison except death shows your backward social thinking that most other countries have long since outgrown. You guys in the red zone would rather fight over abortion than deal with real problems.

What has Europe done, besides prison? As far as I know, they don't use the death penalty there, so what do they do, besides incarceration and fines?

Eric, the 'root causes' theory of crime has been utterly discredited. It isn't poverty, recism, and commercialism that causes crime, especially violent crime!

Discredited only by conservative ideologues. Crime is not caused only by these things, but they are contributing factors. Poor people commit more crime. Who is in prison?

There are more poor people than rich people! Thus, at best there will always be more poor people in prison, though of course we don't live in an ideal world.

If you're saying that our drug laws need to be revamped, I might agree with you. It makes little sense to sentence crack worse than powder cocaine, for instance, and that sort of imbalance tends to create disproportionately poor convicts.

Another reason for the difference is that the rich and middle class, if they commit a crime, are likelier to get off. I agree here that the system is nearly broken.

The old joke runs: Why do they call it capital punishment? Because you get punished if you don't have the capital.

So if you're saying we need to revamp our system of public defense, I might go along with you there.

Prison does have one solving power over crime: over and over, it's been discovered that by a huge proportion, most crime and especially most violent crime is committed by a small percentage of regular repeaters. Lock up that small percentage, and the crime rate falls sharply.

True, America has more crime than Europe, but it also has more energy and vitality. They are two sides to the same coin. Further, the violent crime rate in America has been dropping steadily, as we get further away from the Awakening,

But you admit the fact. You conservatives can blame the 60s
for everything all you want, but the fact is that crime peaked around 1990. If the economy continues to fall, crime will go up
again.

I admitted nothing of the sort! You keep saying I admit this and said that, and I didn't!

Every place where I said you admitted something, you did; thus admitting that America is backward. In this case, you admitted the America has more violent crime. Your answer is that violence is a good thing; it means we are energetic. That only proves my point about your backwardness. You also agreed that Europe has more social programs. That is true too! You simply disagree that social programs are progressive, which is only what I am contending. You people in the red zone have backward social ideas. You need to change if we as a nation are going to stay together. We can't continue to be held back endlessly by your foot dragging. 40 or 50 years of endless stagnation is a ridiculous state of affairs.

No, crime is not rising and falling in synch with the economy. It did peak in 1990, in part because of the number of Boomers and Xers in the high-crime age bracket, and started falling steadily afterward, exactly as Strauss and Howe predicted.

I doubt very seriously if a worsening economy will drive Millennials into a passionate criminal frenzy.

Strauss and Howe are not the last word on what will happen. The economy always is and will continue to be a reliable factor.

S&H have one huge advantage over the other theorists about crime rates over the last fifty years. Their predictions came true.

That's something few of the other theorists can claim, and so I tend to give their views a bit more credence than the others.

Incidentally, during the last 4T, did the crime rate tend up or down during the Great Depression, as compared to the last 3T?

We would have the higher murder rate with or without the
guns. Switzerland has mandatory gun ownership, the UK and Japan have broad gun bans, all three have lower murder rates. The two are only barely connected. Further, if the price of freedom is a lower level of safety, so be it. That was implicit in the foundation of the United States, BTW.
[/quote}




The fact that we are not willing to institute gun control is just another example of how we are socially backward compared to other countries. Apparently we agree that our capital punishment policies are another.

Guns are just another way in which the two zones are different. Apparently you need guns to deal with threats to livestock and such; imposing guns on those of us in the blue zone, where they only contribute to urban violence, is unfair. Perhaps separating would make it easier for us both to have what we need.

The purpose of the Second Amendment, Eric, is not to protect hunters or ranchers or farmers, but to maintain an armed population to held keep the government in check. It was written precisely as a check on the power of the Federal authority.

I grant that a limited case can be made for small amounts of gun control on the part of local municipal authorities, but even there the case is very limited.

Those who sacrifice freedom for a little temporary safety deserve neither, and it the long run they will have neither. Ben Franklin.

Interesting quote, in the light of what your president is doing now!

I'm not worried much about Bush and Ashcroft in the short term. I don't like the precedent they are setting, and I'm against them on much of this, in precise accordance with Franklin's words.





<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: HopefulCynic68 on 2002-02-24 22:02 ]</font>

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: HopefulCynic68 on 2002-02-24 22:06 ]</font>

OK, I know this is a bit off topic but there is a pretty interesting article here about a new system being developed for relaying sounds that might only be heard by one person at a time. The army might use it for psychwar operations and police might use for crowd control. Basically, a soldier thinks that he's alone and he hears a sound confusing him. The sounds can be transmitted from hundreds of meters behind but the soldier can be made to think it's right in front of him. It might be useful in future Afghanistans. Just a thought.

http://www.wired.com/news/print/0%2C...0483%2C00.html

On 2002-02-24 21:41, HopefulCynic68 wrote:



Eric, every poll shows that it's the poor/minority parents who favor the vouchers. This isn't even in question.

In Australia the wealther Sections of the Working Class and the Lower Middle Class are most in favor of more private school funding because they are aspirational in spirt and see private schools as a status symibol. Similar sections of Americian society might be strongly in favor of school vouchers.

I think we need a radical new apporach on education by giving power of decisions in the school over to the parents, instead of teacher boards.

In my country the school teachers in general are politically baised, I went through 14 years of public school education, the teachers I had were very left wing politically, the political bias of teachers has to be tackled.

Tristan, left-wing bias is in the eye of the beholder. Conservatives charge left-wing bias in the media. Where I sit, the opposite is true.

Cynic wrote:

Partly right. Yes, early education pretty well has to be based on a lot of memorization and rote repetition. In later stages, it can become more creative, but the first requirement is mastering basic skills such as reading, writing, basic math, and so on, and 'creative' approaches don't work well in these basic areas.

Mastering skills is important, but there is always room for innovation in how this is done, and for interaction in the classroom.

I do favor testing as one element of an improved system, Eric. By
itself, it does indeed produce a 'teach to the test' mentality. That's bad in some areas, perfectly acceptable in others.

We already had testing. I took plenty of tests in schools as a Boomer. There never was a reason for this mania for testing. Just have a proper evaluation by properly-qualified and well-paid teachers of which students can be promoted. The areas that tests can test for don?t matter. The problems that existed were never soluable by the remedies proposed by conservatives. They have just gotten in the way. Those remedies that have been adopted were supported by liberals, even if they were also supported by conservatives too (better discipline, an end to social promotion).

There is an attitude among some 'education professionals' that they ... aren't bound by the mundane realities of life like limited budgets.

Why are the schools underfunded and teachers underpaid then?

the parents collectively should be acknowledged as the masters of the schools, not the ideologues who have taken over too much of the system, to its detriment.

This is red zone ideology and nothing more. Teachers are there to teach. What you call ?ideologues? means simply the fact that educated people like teachers tend to be liberal, and you don?t like that. Same with reporters. No, people who are trained to teach need to run the schools, not the parents. I think that understanding our society is something you guys are opposed to, because if you understand the realities, you tend to want to see change. You call the schools ?full of ideologues? who simply educate people regarding the facts.

Yes, this means that parents have a say in what their children are taught,
and the right to veto certain things, no matter how much they may appeal to the 'progressives' have have come to see the schools as the training ground for future 'enlightened citizens'.

That is absurd. If you support education, then allow the teachers to teach. If parents want to do it, they can do home schooling.

Other problems that not based on funding shortages include a lack of
discipline in the schools, social promotion as a right, and the idea that the schools are primarily responsible for the socialization of the students, rather than their education.

Blue zone Democrats oppose ?social promotion.? That is dissappearing already, so vouchers aren?t needed to ?fix? this. The same with discipline; an appropriate level is needed, so that there is not a violent or disruptive atmosphere or environment. I don?t know what you mean by socialization; I might agree with you there as well.

Because well-educated people vote Democratic.

By the statistics, the opposite is true.

Then you folks ought to support real public schools for everyone. You don?t; you want to kill them with vouchers and force teachers to defer to parents, perhaps so they can force them to censor the books or something. Allow teachers to teach creatively; fund the schools; support the training of teachers; provide for a reasonable way to promote children when they have learned enough to advance.

The fact is, towns with a university are the most left-leaning areas. The intelligencia votes Democratic. Rich people who work in business vote Republican. Their ?education? mostly consists of training for business, and they have forgotten the rest. Yes, poorer people vote Democratic too. That means they support public programs and not privitazation schemes like vouchers.

In California, the attempt to eliminate bilingual education, which has
done enormous harm to the students trapped in it, has been fought to the death by educators wedded to the concept.

Your complaint against bilingual education is just another conservative slogan. It is a side issue. Do you want to fix the schools, or threaten them with vouchers if they don?t acceed to your racist prejudices? Get real and stop being obsessed with multiculturalism. It is a fact we live in one world and a multi-racial society. This is an example of what I mean about the red zone. You want to hang on to ?traditional? America that speaks one language, has one culture, and ignores the needs of others so they will just go away. It is a losing battle, Cynic.

Your reference to stubborn superintendents is not something that liberals support. We don?t agree with wasteful and stupid administrators or the high salaries they get, and are fixing this problem.

The attempt to intruduce tougher standards is opposed by many elements of the educational establishment as well. By tougher standards, I mean basic reading and math skills. This faction refuses to accept that it's more important for the student to learn basic knowledge than it is for his or her self-esteem to be upheld.

The entire self-esteem movement, for that matter, that has gotten into the schools is a joke.

You attempt to blame some 60s humanistic ideas for the faults of education. I thought so. The educational establishment (translation, teachers) don?t want their students not to learn. That is absurd. Blue zone politicians don?t oppose standards, but they want a more meaningful way to ascertain them than testing. If you use tests, you teach to the test.

If you're going by TV, that may be true. The media is strongly biased on this subject, and tends to cover it misleadingly.

If there is any bias, it is the overcoverage they give to this stupid Republican shibboleth of vouchers. It?s basis is entirely in ideology and is an excuse to do nothing to fix the schools.

As I said, the middle class and wealthy don't like them, but they have kids in better schools anyway.

As I said, that?s 80% of the people. They don?t like them because they depended on public schools for their education, which allowed them to succeed. The poor believe in public programs; a few may be decieved about vouchers, but most aren?t. Whatever polls you saw are wrong.

... from statitics gathered over 30 years of attempts, and from anecdotal evidence as well, that most rehabiliation efforts fail. The recidivism rate for all crime is high. It's especially high where drugs are involved.

Recidivism is caused by prison itself, just as you acknowledged that prisons are training grounds for crime. There is no rehabilitation and hasn?t been for decades. If you are correct you are not talking about current times. As far as drugs are concerned, that is just where some pilot programs are working best. Several states have passed laws to treat drugs more as a disease. They will work, because it is a disease and not a crime. Drug users have no business being in jail in the first place.

It's true that if a criminal already wants to go straight, state efforts can be of great assistance. But the offender himself/herself must first desire to go straight, or it's futile.

Yes, as they say, can a psychologist screw in a lightbulb? Yes, but the lightbulb has to WANT to change. You don?t think that criminals can be persuaded to go straight? Ignorance is the problem, not ?inherent human nature? that makes some people ?inherently bad.? Yes, some people may be hopeless. They belong in jail. For others, there is hope.

This is another idea, that most crime traces back to child abuse, that is at best unestablished. Even the real-world rates of child abuse are in
considerable debate.

The reports I got say the evidence is so overwhelming that just about ALL violent criminals were abused as children. It is established and beyond dispute

For more serious offenses, it should be harder to get out than it is. For more minor offenses in teen and childhood, or first offenses, fines and restitution might very well be preferable (though NOT for
violent offenders).

You don?t think violent people can ever become non-violent? I guess that goes along with your international theories. But there is no basis for assuming that everyone who does something violent can never learn and improve; nor to believe that nations that did something violent can never improve.

What has Europe done, besides prison? As far as I know, they don't
use the death penalty there, so what do they do, besides incarceration and fines?

They have gun control and probably a better rehabilitation system. They put much fewer people in prison than we do. Europe used to be very violent, centuries ago; perhaps only decades. They are more civilized than we are now. We would be wise to learn from them instead of reflexively claiming we are better. Doing that all the time is the sign of an insecure and immature society and attitude. The red zone thinks that if you make any criticism or say other countries are better in any way, then you are unAmerican. No, it is they who are un-American.

Poor people commit more crime. Who is in prison?

There are more poor people than rich people! Thus, at best there will
always be more poor people in prison, though of course we don't live in an ideal world.

There are not more poor people than middle class people; about 20%.

If you're saying that our drug laws need to be revamped, I might agree with you.

I wish more Republicans did.

Another reason for the difference is that the rich and middle class, if they commit a crime, are likelier to get off. I agree here that the system is nearly broken.

So if you're saying we need to revamp our system of public defense, I might go along with you there.

Yes we might agree there.

S&H have one huge advantage over the other theorists about crime rates over the last fifty years. Their predictions came true.

That's something few of the other theorists can claim, and so I tend to
give their views a bit more credence than the others.

The economy can be claimed as a reason for the falling rates since 1990. Did you know the economy boomed in the 90s, or do you watch the news?

Incidentally, during the last 4T, did the crime rate tend up or down during the Great Depression, as compared to the last 3T?

Up during the great depression; then down during the war I believe.

The purpose of the Second Amendment, Eric, is not to protect hunters
or ranchers or farmers, but to maintain an armed population to held keep the government in check. It was written precisely as a check on the power of the Federal authority.

But that would be the only valid reason for it. An armed population can?t keep a government in check. I?ve gone over this with Bob Butler and others. The government will win, as at Waco and Ruby Ridge. You can?t speak of your respect for law, and then say we need an Amendment to make it possible for people to fight the law. Your argument is for anarchy; it is false. Most scholars know that the purpose of the 2nd was to provide for a militia, since the US didn?t have an army then.


_________________
Keep the Spirit Alive,
Eric Meece

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Eric A Meece on 2002-02-25 02:14 ]</font>

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Eric A Meece on 2002-02-25 02:39 ]</font>

No, I remember perfectly well the way successive Democratic-controlled Congresses refused to cut (or even slow the rate of growth of) spending between 1981 and 1988.

The Republicans controlled Congress during much of Reagan's term.He is completely to blame. He should not have assumed that the Democrats would cut all the programs we need and which the people they represent wanted. He persisted anyway with his unnecessary enormous defense boondoggles, with enormous tax cuts and deregulation that caused runaway scandals of greed, and doing this in a recession gave the deficit an additional boost. It was poor planning, based on ideology (supply sidism). Reagan had no common sense at all in how to apply his program, unlike Clinton. The simple fact: under Reagan the debt grew by 4 times. Don't weasal out of it! The budget was screwed up then 75% of the way, and the rest was due to Vietnam; period.

Munich is the normal state of human affairs, Eric. Yes, the example of Munich remains the correct one to understand what's going on in the world, even today.

You have proved my point; this is what you think. You guys are wrong completely. The 1930s were an anomaly. I pointed out why; Europe was shellshocked after the most devastating war in history.

Incidentally, after our abject failure in Vietnam, we were indeed left looking proportiately more vulnerable. Our opponents in the world acted upon that belief, and throughout the seventies they were correct in their assessment of our weakness (more psychological than physical).

First, it showed the futility of our war aim "to save face." We spent millions and killed millions to "save face," and it didn't work. We lost face.

Second, the "actions of our enemies" is just Reagan propaganda. Some revolutions happened such as Nicaragua which had nothing to do with Vietnam and should never have been feared or denounced or opposed. For the rest, we got out of places like Angola and Vietnam and let events take their course, which is what we should have done.

Did the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan happen because we lost Vietnam? At best, that is only an assumption. The Soviets were an imperial power like the USA, and they were merely acting on the same imperial habits as we were. And it had the same result, for the same reasons.

World War I was the first shakeout of which powers were serious contenders for global power, and which weren't. The military build ups
were products of this thinking, not causes of it.

The problem was the idea fixed in the minds of leaders and the public which you have just repeated; the idea that international affairs has to be about competing for power. That idea was current and dominant at the time, to a far greater degree than at any other time. That was the cause of the war, and the cause of the military build-up and the military attitudes that in turn also caused the war. The politicians deferred to the generals and their plans and priorities. If this had not happened, there would not have been a war. I studied this situation thoroughly.

The French Revolution was driven in the immediate sense by [i][b]over-taxation[i][b], necessary to finance a bloated aristocratic/clerical elite

But the Crisis was brought on by the expenses of providing arms to the Americans. If you refuse to admit this, you are simply misreading history. This is a fact.

As for Napoleon, he too was a product, in his way, of the Englightenment. The French followed him in his wars with a nearly religous passion. The Napoleonic Wars were the first 'modern-style'
European wars, psychologically speaking.

This started in the Revolution, and the passion was for the nation state. Napoleon only took it over. I am also quite well informed on this period of history.

The military, for the most part, didn't particularly favor getting into a ground war in Vietnam, Eric. That was the result of political and ideological calculations in the Kennedy Administration, and a misunderstanding of how to contain the USSR.

It extended back into the days of Ike, but yes it was the politicians, but also the generals and military leaders that pushed the war and how it was fought.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Eric A Meece on 2002-02-25 02:46 ]</font>

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Eric A Meece on 2002-02-25 02:48 ]</font>

On 2002-02-25 01:30, Tristan Jones wrote:

On 2002-02-24 21:41, HopefulCynic68 wrote:



Eric, every poll shows that it's the poor/minority parents who favor the vouchers. This isn't even in question.

In Australia the wealther Sections of the Working Class and the Lower Middle Class are most in favor of more private school funding because they are aspirational in spirt and see private schools as a status symibol. Similar sections of Americian society might be strongly in favor of school vouchers.

I think we need a radical new apporach on education by giving power of decisions in the school over to the parents, instead of teacher boards.

In my country the school teachers in general are politically baised, I went through 14 years of public school education, the teachers I had were very left wing politically, the political bias of teachers has to be tackled.

I do think Cynic has a good point, in that many poor/minority parents in America are stuck in poor-performing public schools and see vouchers as a way to find higher-quality alternate educations. But, I don't think it is just that socio-eco group who want vouchers nowadays. Tristan's observation is mine, too, over here. The wealthy seem to always prefer private schools; also the upwardly-mobile middle class, they want/need to avoid paying property taxes in addition to private school tuition. It's my thought that were vouchers to be mainstreamed into practice, you'd see parents from all walks of life wanting to try them.

Tristan, your idea of putting parents in decision-making positions is one I also agree with. But, I don't think you need to look at it from a political partisan standpoint. Some states have tried implementing parents in decision-making, as additional members. It hasn't worked overwhelmingly or convincingly, unless it's all or nothing. Some schools do openly welcome parents on board as equal decision-makers, but not nearly enough, and the numbers of parents are usually only minimal, like window-dressing. The status-quo still ends up ruling the day.

From having taught school, I can tell you that the problem isn't liberal v. conservative. It's more like "us" versus "them". As a teacher, I saw parents with legitimate gripes taking them to the campus administrators, as was "procedure" or "policy", but if it was something the administrators didn't want to implement, parents got stopped right there, all too often. Sometimes, this is good if the idea is bad, but sometimes it isn't. I hate to be a tattle-tell or whistleblower, but many times administrators and teachers make decisions based upon what's easiest for them. :smile: And, to be honest, many parents do gripe about things that are just too self-centered as to their own children, or are impractical.

It's never left me that taxpayers own the schools, and if they want to run things a certain way, they should be able to, within reason. You need certain standards and procedures not up for grabs, but empowering parents helps. When most parents I've encountered really know what the school is up against and what the results need to be, they are quite accomodating and less apt to be self-centered about their issues.

The problem is, the degree of parent-empowering is not enough. An idea I've had before is to have a parent board for each school campus elected by other parents, that reports to and meets with the school district board, not the campus administrator. The administrator can be on it, too, but as a minority member. Each parent rep would be a voice for the school's parents, to communicate problems and work out solutions. The campus administrator would be more likely to keep problems solved better this way. Of course, con: more work and time for school boards. And, finding all these parents to be on these boards and do the jobs.

I think school personnel (teachers, too) are often afflicted with educational bureaucratic tunnel vision, no matter what their political philosophies. With so many rules to comply with that get handed down from district administration, it dissolves into a tedious game of serving the administrative master sometimes, instead of remembering who the real bosses are.

Even with my attitude, I found myself slipping into that "they don't understand" frame of mind all too often. And, many times parents DON'T understand, but they should be given the opportunity to gain understanding.

Comments on Bush v. Gore. Mr. cynic had a pretty good summary, but on some points I disagree.

I think if the count had gone forward, and Gore had won (which admittedly might not have happened), the Court could have ordered Gore certified. That might have carried more weight than the Legislature arbitrarily interfering.

The supreme Court's use of the equal protection clause was political postering. There was no violation, since Article Two gives the state legislature the ability to write the rules. The rules stated that each county determines how votes and recounts are done. The FSC was only upholding the state constitution in going forward with this method. If it was illegal, why did the court not overturn it in all the other states? This was hypocrisy pure and simple. A Court which refuses to interfere when it needs to, interfered when it should not have done so.

The idea that the president was "selected" was not created by "the liberal media." Get real. The Gore supporters came up with this. I first heard the phrase from a caller on a liberal talk show.

Eric

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Eric A Meece on 2002-02-25 03:20 ]</font>

Two items in todays papers that point towards the start of T4T. I still think it is late fall not the start of winter.

Many Gen Xers find marriage just a trial run. (Libby Copeland Washington post)

Grim times for music industry (Geoff Boucher LA Times)

On the Eric Meese versus HopefulCynic debate, I would just like to weigh in that I find myself mainly in agreement with HopefulCynic.

I am preparing a post to explain why, but I may decide that it belongs in a different folder.

Regarding vouchers, I think the school district has no right to force me to go to a particular school. Thankfully, homeschools in Texas fall under private school status.

On 2002-02-25 10:38, Chris Loyd '82 wrote:
Regarding vouchers, I think the school district has no right to force me to go to a particular school. Thankfully, homeschools in Texas fall under private school status.

That's an excellent point, Chris, because in school districts that operate under the "neighborhood school" theory for zoning mandatory attendance, the underlying principle that makes that fair is parity among the school campuses in those districts which have multiple campuses. Texas' site-based campus rules effectively void the results of parity (IOW, if there are 10 elementary schools in a district, none of them will be alike because site-based means every one can do things a bit differently as to what they spend their campus funds on; yet if you are forced to attend a certain one because it is in your neighborhood, you are not necessarily getting as good an education as what another campus in that district may be offering). The state's answer is for the parents to get in there and improve their neighborhood campus if it isn't up to their brand of snuff. Sounds great in theory. But, as I explained earlier, in practice, parents are not given enough power to go do that, unless the principal is ameniable to it and enough parents commit to the long haul. Setups like that end up being ones that frustrate parents and turn them away. Sort of like, we include you, but we really don't, but we can say we do, so just shut up and move along.

This discussion may sound tedious, but it's an important cog in the problems of this issue wheel. I wish we could find a practical and efficient way to avoid using vouchers, as I think widespread use of them will cause a chaos in public schools that they will never recover from without a reliable enough private base to replace, and then we'll lose a lot of kids through the cracks.

On 2002-02-22 21:54, HopefulCynic68 wrote:

On 2002-02-22 09:24, Kiff '61 wrote:

I prefer to think of myself as God-loving, not God-fearing.

The two actually go hand in hand. (Using the word fear in the sense it was originally intended in the famous proverb.)

Which proverb is that?

I still have a hard time reconciling the idea that I am supposed to fear what I love.

I do not fear my God.

Kiff

On 2002-02-22 21:51, HopefulCynic68 wrote:

On 2002-02-22 10:50, Kiff '61 wrote:
I'm not going to rehash the E2K debacle from start to finish, but I think there's a clear indication that on November 7, 2000, in the state of Florida, more people went to their polling places intending to vote for Gore than for Bush.

Because of ballot irregularities in places such as Palm Beach and hanky-panky with voter lists in minority voting districts, many more potential Gore votes than Bush votes were lost.

That is the real tragedy of E2K, in my book, because it was entirely preventable.

The counts and recounts, and the ridiculous gameplaying in the courts, were a sideshow.

Kiff

It doesn't really matter what they intended. Part of the voter's responsibility is to use the ballot correctly, and in spite of all the complaints, the vast majority had no trouble with those ballots.

Incidentally, in various tests run after the election, using the same type of ballot with other items as a test, people ranging from grade schoolers to nursing home residents managed to use them with nearly 100% success.

Two points:

The error rate for those voters using punch cards was much higher than it was for those using optical scan technology. If you screw up a punch card, you really don't know it. If you screw up an optical scan, the machine spits out the card. You then have a chance to correct your mistake.

Areas using punch cards tended to be primarily Democratic; areas with optical span machines were Republican. It's likely, then, that more votes were rejected in predominantly Democratic areas.

And as far as people "post-testing" the ballots afterwards, don't you think that, because of all the attention the punch cards had been getting, that these people would be especially aware of what they were doing? Of course they would do better than the people did on the actual Election Day!!

I'm not going to argue that Bush shouldn't be in the White House. He's there; I've gotten over it.

What I want from the Republicans is acknowledgement that the voting system, particularly in Florida, did not work as well as it should have in November 2000, and that it needs to be fixed. Upgrade the voting technology. Educate voters about the process. Encourage people to vote, period.

Kiff

On 2002-02-25 10:38, Chris Loyd '82 wrote:
Regarding vouchers, I think the school district has no right to force me to go to a particular school.

just an aside, here in portland, parents can send their children to any public school in the district.


TK

On 2002-02-25 11:15, Barbara wrote:

....The state's answer is for the parents to get in there and improve their neighborhood campus if it isn't up to their brand of snuff. Sounds great in theory. But, as I explained earlier, in practice, parents are not given enough power to go do that, unless the principal is ameniable to it and enough parents commit to the long haul.

and let's not forget that a lot of the parents are real jackasses who couldn't be bothered to do anything to help the schools or their childrens' education.

and i don't really see how the vouchers will help those kids, because if the parents don't care enough to pick a good school, the vouchers are useless.


TK

On 2002-02-25 16:04, TrollKing wrote:

On 2002-02-25 11:15, Barbara wrote:

....The state's answer is for the parents to get in there and improve their neighborhood campus if it isn't up to their brand of snuff. Sounds great in theory. But, as I explained earlier, in practice, parents are not given enough power to go do that, unless the principal is ameniable to it and enough parents commit to the long haul.

and let's not forget that a lot of the parents are real jackasses who couldn't be bothered to do anything to help the schools or their childrens' education.

and i don't really see how the vouchers will help those kids, because if the parents don't care enough to pick a good school, the vouchers are useless.


TK

Definitely two more good points, TK. :smile:

I have followed the Meece/Cynic dialogue with great interest. To me the discussion points to a couple of things which I believed before. The first is: Issues such as these are not simple to solve. Well-informed intelligent people on both sides of a debate can use the same set of data to bolster their views. After a while the dust of arguement becomes so thick as to obscure any answers which may have been found. (I know. I've done it myself).

Second: Ah.. I forgot what my second was. Anyway, I am enjoying the debate. If I were to come down on one side or the other, it would (naturally) be somewhere between. I have actually found more agreement than I would have thought. I don't live in a red or a blue zone. More purple or lavender.

Where else would a buzzard stand but in the road? Carry on. Smokem if you gottem.

"Second: Ah.. I forgot what my second was. Anyway, I am enjoying the debate." --Buz




<center> :lol: </center>



Thanks, Buz. :smile:

This is another idea, that most crime traces back to child abuse, that is at best unestablished. Even the real-world rates of child abuse are in
considerable debate.

The reports I got say the evidence is so overwhelming that just about ALL violent criminals were abused as children. It is established and beyond dispute

All the Dept. of Justice reports on U.S. Jail and Prison populations support the high correlation between child abuse and prison.

In 2001 in Illinos, there were 28.024 children in fostercare (This is down from close to 43,000 children in fostercare in 1998.) We also had 45,629 prison inmates in 2001. Way too many people living in costly taxpayer funded state institutions.

We need to remove/divert the truely mentally ill, cognitively disabled and addicts from the prison population into appropriate treatment services and living arrangements. Early intervention would reduce the current prison population to the inmates who deserve to be there the violent and habitual offenders.

Provide better treatment for alcolholism and substance abuse. A large majority of the 28,000 children in fostercare is due to parental abuse of alcohol and substances.


BTW, Our Governor announced our FY02/03 budget, it will eliminate approx. 3,800 jobs and includes substanial cuts to state services. I had heard rumors in Dec of 15% across the board cuts. Hit hard in Nov. with deep cuts to current budget were medicaid reimbursements to hospitals and services for the developmentally disabled. Several state institutions are being closed, shifting the residents to community group homes and programs, while at the same time reducing the reimbursement rates to community providers.

Gov. Ryan challenged our state legislature to change whatever they liked as long as the bottom line stayed the same. Illinois will see a major budget battle when the Assembly returns following our primary in March. I can see a major genrational clash forming if too many Boomer value-driven programs are cut or eliminated.