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From: faustus@ucbcad.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: sundry delayed responses
Message-ID: <27@ucbcad.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 19-Dec-84 01:29:50 EST
Article-I.D.: ucbcad.27
Posted: Wed Dec 19 01:29:50 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 21-Dec-84 00:19:59 EST
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> > >...............................................  Please tell me at what
> > >point I incurred an obligation to pay for other people's children?
> > >
> > >Bob Stewart
> > 
> > You incurred the obligation the moment some doctor who probably began his or
> 							 ^^^^^^^^
> > her education in a public school slapped you on the butt and introduced you
> > to a civilized society.
> 
> So if his family doctor attended private school he would have no debt?
> If that is really when obligation to pay for other people's children
> ('s education) begins, then how did such a practice come into being?  
> Obviously the first person who asked such a question could not have been 
> given the answer Phil supplied.  I am not asking for a history lesson, merely
> pointing out that there must be some other reason supplementing Phil's 
> premise.
> Why doesn't someone answer the hard question:  If education has to be 
> subsidized for the poor, why don't people who can afford it pay for the 
> education of their children?

I'm afraid I don't know what you mean by this hard question. People who
can afford it generally do pay for the education of their own children,
and that of poor people also.

I think that this talk of obligations to society obscures the main point,
and that it that public education is definitely a positive force in
society, and thus is worth having. I don't think that anybody has argued
that having masses of completely uneducated illiterate poor people is
better than what we have now (although considering what things are like
now in the public schools, it might not be much worse).

> > M. L. King Jr. once
> > said that education was neccessary so that the poor and the
> > underprivileged could participate fully in american society.  
> 
> The comment has no relevance to how schools should be supported.

True, but the point is that they must be supported at any cost, and
if it takes government money, it should be supplied.

> > Free education and an educated
> > society benefits everyone.
> 
> Do the benefits come from "free" education or from an educated society.
> The two are not linked.

I don't think that a society would be very educated without free education.
Education wasn't free in the dark ages, and look how bad off they were.. :-)

> > Most public schools teach more than just academics.  In most public
> > schools there are a mix of children with various economic, social,
> > racial, and religious backgrounds.  Thus children will be
> > understanding and tolerant of others with different backgrounds.
> 
> Now you are arguing that integrated education is the big win.  Which is
> it?  "Free" education or integrated education?  Don't claim that these
> two are linked.  Think about it.

You explain how you can get integrated education without compulsory,
public education.  I don't think you can...

> > > HARD QUESTION #49: If what we're worried about is the education of the
> > >   poor, then why don't we have a system where you pay for it if you can,
> > >   and only get it free if you can't afford it?  This is what we
> > >   currently do with court-appointed lawyers.  My guess is that everyone
> > >   wants a piece of the "free" pie.
> > 
> > That's not far from what things are like now -- those who can afford to
> > tend to send their kids to private schools, and the public schools are
> > left with those who can't afford it. The result of this is that the
> > people in charge find less and less motivation for making sure that
> > public education is any good, and it goes downhill...
> > 
> > 	Wayne
> 
> What a great response!  You never answered the question, but you did imply
> that somehow teaching poor people is less motivating than teaching the
> well-to-do.

I wasn't trying to answer the question. I think that it is a good idea,
but if you look at the facts you will see that it tends not to work out.
Certainly teaching children in public schools is less motivating for most
teachers than teaching children in private schools, because the private
schools have the better students. It's too bad that things are like this,
because it tends to be a self-perpetuating thing -- the worse public schools
get, the more good students leave them, and they get worse. How do you think
this should be dealt with? Abolish the public schools? A bad school is
better than none at all...

> "1.  Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as punishment for crime
>  whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the
>  United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
>  2.  Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate
>  legislation."
> 
> How many involuntary servants' lives were lost in Vietnam?  Just what crime 
> had they been convicted of?  Oh, let me guess, the people that proposed this
> amendment in 1865 didn't have war on their minds when it was written so the
> lack of a "except in times of national emergency" clause was an oversight?
> Think hard now.  There is no way to interpret the draft as anything but
> involuntary servitude.  Now tell me that it is unlikely that the government
> can be perverted into a tyranny (Websters: 2. oppressive and unjust 
> government).

War is such an obvious exception to this sort of clause that you shouldn't
complain if it was left out. Take a justified war, where the country is
in danger of being invaded. I doubt that you would complain about
obligatory military duty in a case like this. Now consider all the
situations that are of the same sort -- Russia invades Canada, for
instance. Is this a clear case of justified military intervention?
Things can get pretty difficult to decide sometimes. If you were in the
position of the policy-makers during the Vietnam war, can you be sure
that you would make the right choice between unjustified meddling and
intervention where an essential interest of the US is concerned? 

> I have heard of stores robbed with hammers.  A large individual with a large
> hammer enters, says "give me your money or I will do large amounts of damage
> with this hammer," takes the money and drives away.  You don't see things
> like this happening in banks, because bank security guards are allowed to
> have guns.  Now, if you continue to allow money that is in a bank to be
> proteted by guns, but you don't allow money at home to be protected by guns
> you are unfairly influencing where someone should keep his money. 

And if you don't allow people to have anti-aircraft guns, you are unfairly
preventing them from keeping their money in big balloons a thousand feet
above their houses. Come on...

> In addition to all the reform that will be necessary to remove
> the victimless crime legislation, there should be a little work done on
> the judicial process.  People curious about some of my views on that will
> have no problem prompting me into a little ranting and raving here and there.

Ok, I'll bite... YOU ARE COMPLETELY WRONG ABOUT THE JUDICIAL PROCESS, AND
ONLY A LEGLESS FROG WOULD HAVE IDEAS LIKE YOURS. (By the way, what are they?)

	Wayne