If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below. |
|
|
Thread Tools | Display Modes |
#511
|
|||
|
|||
School Choice (was How Children REALLY React To Control)
Nathan A. Barclay wrote:
"Donna Metler" wrote in message ... I have a question: Why do parents send their children to school? My point of view is that the primary reason to send children to school is to give them an education. I want my child to learn materials appropriate to his age and maturity in areas like Mathematics, English, Foreign Language, History and Government (US and International), Sciences, and Arts. I don't see that religion is relevant to much of this. In areas where it is (such as world history, art, and music) it would be imperative that the basic concepts and beliefs of any religon related to the subject at hand be studied-but not practiced. Is the curriculum really so much different in a religious school? In the religious school I went to, there were four main differences. 1) Religion was viewed as an important academic subject on par with the others. 2) We had a "chapel" service every day with a brief devotional followed sometimes by a longer religious talk and sometimes by some kind of entertainment. 3) Religion was part of the "background noise" - public prayer before lunch and sometimes at the beginning of the day, religious content in some of the wall decorations, occasional inclusion of religious perspectives in connection with other subjects, and so forth - and also played a central role in discussion of moral issues. 4) The students were mostly people from the same religious background, which meant that peer pressure to act in ways contrary to my beliefs and values was relatively limited. So while the academics were very similar to what they would have been in a public school (aside from the fact that Bible classes displaced time that could have been used for a "study hall" or for taking some other class as an elective), the background environment was far more different. The Bible classes could, at least in theory, have been replaced some other way if I'd attended a public school, albeit not as effectively and efficiently. The background environment could not possibly have been replaced. Nathan ------------ Not for the purposes of brainwashing, but then I'll bet you can't possibly defend your twisted little religion logically, what do you bet, hmmm? Steve |
#512
|
|||
|
|||
School Choice (was How Children REALLY React To Control)
Nathan A. Barclay wrote:
A robber in the olkd cliche says, "Your money or your life." In government's case, it's just, "Your money, or your freedom." ------------------------------- Freedom is an illusion anyway, you can't do a thousandth of what you might want. What you are allowed to do is what the rest of us agree we can be allowed to do. Money and freedom go together. When people are arbitrarily forced to pay extra to exercise a freedom even though there is no inherent extra cost to exercising their freedom, it is no longer a true freedom at all. --------------------------- You have the right to drive where we drive, but you must BUY a Viper or build your own highway to drive 160 mph. There obviously IS an extra cost to that "freedom". And by the way, we speak of education as a right, but it's not, it's a privilege. Just like driving on the highway, you have to follow the rules to keep the privilege. It may be considered an obligation of the State to children, but it's just a privilege, not a right. While a privilege is obligatory upon the State, it isn't an unqualified right. You desire to take the funds taken taxes from the public at large (the Public at Large. Every tax payer. For the common good. Not just from parents. It is not a tuition.), and divert them to your specific, more narrow interests. If religious schools do just as good a job of educating children as government schools, public purposes for the common good are satisfied. There is no diversion away from the public interest. --------------------------------------- We have no obligation to follow you around and make sure that's all you would do with public monies. We already provide an oversighted setting for education. But refusing to fund children's education unless they attend nonreligious schools is in fact a diversion of funding away from the common good in order to pursue the narrower interests of some at the expense of others. -------------------------- Nope, it is appropriate use of taxes by a secular govt for secular purposes. We have highways to drive on, but if you want to drive a Viper at 160 mph on your own property it is YOU who is wanting something at the expense of others if you expect us to divert your highway tax money to help you. Your twisted little religion that is terrified of secularism is analogous to that. Most religions are not, and you chose yours freely. Children who attend religious schools, and their families, are just as much a part of "the Public at Large" as those who attend government schools, and the quality of those children's education is every bit as important to the common good. ---------------- Then you should send them to public schools, and join the PTA. We don't have to pay for the salve for your conscience for you. A voucher system that funds all children's education pursues the full range of public interest on an equal basis. ----------------- Nope, public interest is not a universal smorgasbord or a hogslop. It is decided democratically according to what we collectively want to pay for, and it is limited to that. A system that taxes everyone but funds only schools that exclude organized religion does not. ------------------------ To educate secularly and meet the needs of the Public Interest as decided democratically, religion belongs elsewhere. Else I'll bring in our satanists and our figures and literature to pass out, and see how you like that, and you ought to hear our prayers!! You'll take your kids right back to your private school!! sarcasm on You found me out. I'm actually such a horrible person that I believe that if a family is a part of the public, the family should receive an equitable share of benefits paid for with public money no matter what religious choices it makes. ---------------- That's entirely unrelated to any process of taxation that has ever existed anywhere. Taxation is what the Majority fines its citizens for the privilege of staying out of jail, which it then spends on what the Majority wants. And yes, you receive benfits, but if you don't USE them, then you don't GET them, and you do NOT get WHATEVER OTHER benefits that you just hapoen to want as a compensation for your supposed LOSS! Consider, anyone could avoid taxes altogether if he were permitted to decline all government benefit and chose his own instead! It attempts to evade the entire purpose of Democracy! When we vote for a law, the guy would opt out of its protection and want to write one of his own!! Etc! YOUR problem is just that you dislike Democracy and Majority Government!!! Why, I should be shot for daring to think that all members of the public should have an equal claim on public money without having strings attached that unnecessarily limit their religious choices. sarcasm off ---------------------------------- Because that is the essence of Fascist anti-Democracy. Seriously, the only public money I want is essentially the same money that would be spent on the children's education if they attended government schools - and actually not even quite that much. Nothing extra. Nothing special at the expense of anyone else. Just the freedom to use the SAME money in a way that does not require unnecessary compromises to religious freedom. ------------------------------ You can't have it both ways: *IF* the State's public education threatens your religion with its total secularism, *THEN* you prove thereby that you would wish to use said funds for non-secular purposes, which violates the separation of church and state. You have no such "freedom". Steve |
#513
|
|||
|
|||
School Choice (was How Children REALLY React To Control)
Nathan A. Barclay wrote:
A robber in the olkd cliche says, "Your money or your life." In government's case, it's just, "Your money, or your freedom." ------------------------------- Freedom is an illusion anyway, you can't do a thousandth of what you might want. What you are allowed to do is what the rest of us agree we can be allowed to do. Money and freedom go together. When people are arbitrarily forced to pay extra to exercise a freedom even though there is no inherent extra cost to exercising their freedom, it is no longer a true freedom at all. --------------------------- You have the right to drive where we drive, but you must BUY a Viper or build your own highway to drive 160 mph. There obviously IS an extra cost to that "freedom". And by the way, we speak of education as a right, but it's not, it's a privilege. Just like driving on the highway, you have to follow the rules to keep the privilege. It may be considered an obligation of the State to children, but it's just a privilege, not a right. While a privilege is obligatory upon the State, it isn't an unqualified right. You desire to take the funds taken taxes from the public at large (the Public at Large. Every tax payer. For the common good. Not just from parents. It is not a tuition.), and divert them to your specific, more narrow interests. If religious schools do just as good a job of educating children as government schools, public purposes for the common good are satisfied. There is no diversion away from the public interest. --------------------------------------- We have no obligation to follow you around and make sure that's all you would do with public monies. We already provide an oversighted setting for education. But refusing to fund children's education unless they attend nonreligious schools is in fact a diversion of funding away from the common good in order to pursue the narrower interests of some at the expense of others. -------------------------- Nope, it is appropriate use of taxes by a secular govt for secular purposes. We have highways to drive on, but if you want to drive a Viper at 160 mph on your own property it is YOU who is wanting something at the expense of others if you expect us to divert your highway tax money to help you. Your twisted little religion that is terrified of secularism is analogous to that. Most religions are not, and you chose yours freely. Children who attend religious schools, and their families, are just as much a part of "the Public at Large" as those who attend government schools, and the quality of those children's education is every bit as important to the common good. ---------------- Then you should send them to public schools, and join the PTA. We don't have to pay for the salve for your conscience for you. A voucher system that funds all children's education pursues the full range of public interest on an equal basis. ----------------- Nope, public interest is not a universal smorgasbord or a hogslop. It is decided democratically according to what we collectively want to pay for, and it is limited to that. A system that taxes everyone but funds only schools that exclude organized religion does not. ------------------------ To educate secularly and meet the needs of the Public Interest as decided democratically, religion belongs elsewhere. Else I'll bring in our satanists and our figures and literature to pass out, and see how you like that, and you ought to hear our prayers!! You'll take your kids right back to your private school!! sarcasm on You found me out. I'm actually such a horrible person that I believe that if a family is a part of the public, the family should receive an equitable share of benefits paid for with public money no matter what religious choices it makes. ---------------- That's entirely unrelated to any process of taxation that has ever existed anywhere. Taxation is what the Majority fines its citizens for the privilege of staying out of jail, which it then spends on what the Majority wants. And yes, you receive benfits, but if you don't USE them, then you don't GET them, and you do NOT get WHATEVER OTHER benefits that you just hapoen to want as a compensation for your supposed LOSS! Consider, anyone could avoid taxes altogether if he were permitted to decline all government benefit and chose his own instead! It attempts to evade the entire purpose of Democracy! When we vote for a law, the guy would opt out of its protection and want to write one of his own!! Etc! YOUR problem is just that you dislike Democracy and Majority Government!!! Why, I should be shot for daring to think that all members of the public should have an equal claim on public money without having strings attached that unnecessarily limit their religious choices. sarcasm off ---------------------------------- Because that is the essence of Fascist anti-Democracy. Seriously, the only public money I want is essentially the same money that would be spent on the children's education if they attended government schools - and actually not even quite that much. Nothing extra. Nothing special at the expense of anyone else. Just the freedom to use the SAME money in a way that does not require unnecessary compromises to religious freedom. ------------------------------ You can't have it both ways: *IF* the State's public education threatens your religion with its total secularism, *THEN* you prove thereby that you would wish to use said funds for non-secular purposes, which violates the separation of church and state. You have no such "freedom". Steve |
#514
|
|||
|
|||
School Choice (was How Children REALLY React To Control)
Nathan A. Barclay wrote:
"Banty" wrote in message ... In article , Nathan A. Barclay says... Causing children to go to school in a "neutral" environment instead of a religious one is not a neutral act. --------------------------------- Of course it is. Neutral *IS* Neutral!! What Neutral is NOT is NON-Neutral!! Secular is an absence, NOT a presence! An absence of indefensible and undemocratic assertions. Children are not "caused" to go to a public school. They aren't? Then why are about ninety percent of children in government schools? ----------------- People obviously feel it is sufficient. Children are not forced to go to public schools. But the economics of the laws of supply and demand provide a very, VERY powerful cause when government reduces the price of one option to zero. ------------------------------- Irrelevant. Something being free doesn't make it desirable unless it IS desirable. YOU prove THAT!! Your very existence threatens your assertion! like that. It only means it's absent. Period. Furthermore, that we think it is a Good Thing for Kids does not therefore mean the public schools are obliged to present it. This example is rather nonsensical since I'm not aware of any parents who pay thousands of dollars per year per child to send a child to a religious school just so they can exercise their freedom of Tae-Kwon Do. ------------------- Religion is a falsehood, and it is nothing more than a hobby. Your religion is mere humor to everyone *I* hold in high regard! But even so, a voucher system would protect and respect freedom of Tae-Kwon Do. That's part of the beauty of a system that adopts freedom as a core principle. ------------------------------------- All that means is that you'd gladly have the rest of us fund a little TKD to get your bills paid too! The point you're missing is that private schools provide these exact same benefits. ------------- Intermixed with falsehood/poison that damages children!! And that we can never tolerate! This is the rest of what you are mssing. Children who attend privately operated schools are just as much a part of "the populace at large" as children who attend government schools are. In a voucher system, government education dollars are used to educate the ENTIRE populace at large. ----------------- You mean use public monies to religiously brainwash SOME of them! It is the public school monopoly system --------------------------------- Lie!! Doesn't exist! that diverts money away from providing equal support for all children's education in order to provide greater support for some at the expense of others. ---------------------------- Only the some that attend instead of the others who drop out. You leave omn your OWN dime, don't pretend we owe you anything if you won't stay for it! The Supreme Court ruled to the contrary in the Cleveland voucher case, ---------------------- An obvious lie. Steve |
#515
|
|||
|
|||
School Choice (was How Children REALLY React To Control)
Nathan A. Barclay wrote:
"Banty" wrote in message ... In article , Nathan A. Barclay says... Causing children to go to school in a "neutral" environment instead of a religious one is not a neutral act. --------------------------------- Of course it is. Neutral *IS* Neutral!! What Neutral is NOT is NON-Neutral!! Secular is an absence, NOT a presence! An absence of indefensible and undemocratic assertions. Children are not "caused" to go to a public school. They aren't? Then why are about ninety percent of children in government schools? ----------------- People obviously feel it is sufficient. Children are not forced to go to public schools. But the economics of the laws of supply and demand provide a very, VERY powerful cause when government reduces the price of one option to zero. ------------------------------- Irrelevant. Something being free doesn't make it desirable unless it IS desirable. YOU prove THAT!! Your very existence threatens your assertion! like that. It only means it's absent. Period. Furthermore, that we think it is a Good Thing for Kids does not therefore mean the public schools are obliged to present it. This example is rather nonsensical since I'm not aware of any parents who pay thousands of dollars per year per child to send a child to a religious school just so they can exercise their freedom of Tae-Kwon Do. ------------------- Religion is a falsehood, and it is nothing more than a hobby. Your religion is mere humor to everyone *I* hold in high regard! But even so, a voucher system would protect and respect freedom of Tae-Kwon Do. That's part of the beauty of a system that adopts freedom as a core principle. ------------------------------------- All that means is that you'd gladly have the rest of us fund a little TKD to get your bills paid too! The point you're missing is that private schools provide these exact same benefits. ------------- Intermixed with falsehood/poison that damages children!! And that we can never tolerate! This is the rest of what you are mssing. Children who attend privately operated schools are just as much a part of "the populace at large" as children who attend government schools are. In a voucher system, government education dollars are used to educate the ENTIRE populace at large. ----------------- You mean use public monies to religiously brainwash SOME of them! It is the public school monopoly system --------------------------------- Lie!! Doesn't exist! that diverts money away from providing equal support for all children's education in order to provide greater support for some at the expense of others. ---------------------------- Only the some that attend instead of the others who drop out. You leave omn your OWN dime, don't pretend we owe you anything if you won't stay for it! The Supreme Court ruled to the contrary in the Cleveland voucher case, ---------------------- An obvious lie. Steve |
#516
|
|||
|
|||
Joint Statement of Current Law (was School Choice )
Nathan A. Barclay wrote:
"Banty" wrote in message ... (trying again - arrrgh I hate the enter key...) Here is a link to the joint statement signed by many religious, legal, and civil rights organizations that summarize what the current law is concerning dealing with religion in the public schools. I could hope that this and other references would put to rest the "kids can't pray in schools" and "it's just like the old Soviet Union in our schools" assertions, but I know better ;-) The real problem is that you are trying to define how much religious activity during school hours is "enough" for other people. ---------------- Nope, just telling you we can't pay for any of it under our system of govt. Steve |
#517
|
|||
|
|||
Joint Statement of Current Law (was School Choice )
Nathan A. Barclay wrote:
"Banty" wrote in message ... (trying again - arrrgh I hate the enter key...) Here is a link to the joint statement signed by many religious, legal, and civil rights organizations that summarize what the current law is concerning dealing with religion in the public schools. I could hope that this and other references would put to rest the "kids can't pray in schools" and "it's just like the old Soviet Union in our schools" assertions, but I know better ;-) The real problem is that you are trying to define how much religious activity during school hours is "enough" for other people. ---------------- Nope, just telling you we can't pay for any of it under our system of govt. Steve |
#518
|
|||
|
|||
School Choice (was How Children REALLY React To Control)
Nathan A. Barclay wrote:
On the other hand, operating schools in poor areas could be a great opportunity for members of wealthier religious groups to help others and possibly win some converts ------------------------- I don't really think you grasp how much your use of the word "converts" makes an enormous number of people reading this want to shoot you through the head!! Steve |
#519
|
|||
|
|||
School Choice (was How Children REALLY React To Control)
Nathan A. Barclay wrote:
On the other hand, operating schools in poor areas could be a great opportunity for members of wealthier religious groups to help others and possibly win some converts ------------------------- I don't really think you grasp how much your use of the word "converts" makes an enormous number of people reading this want to shoot you through the head!! Steve |
#520
|
|||
|
|||
School Choice (was How Children REALLY React To Control)
Nathan A. Barclay wrote:
But I strongly reject the philosophy, "If we can't make sure everyone can get what they want, then no one should be able to get what they want." -------------- No one SHOULD get what YOU want for the rest of us!!! You mis-spoke. It should be, "We CAN'T give EVERYBODY what they want, and that's NOT our JOB EITHER!" Our Democracy has to vote for what the Majority wants and get it for them, and that means that under our system NO religious purpose can be served with public funds! In my view, laws designed on that basis are very serious violations of the equal protection of the laws ------------------------- Nonsense, Democracy requires that the Majority gets what it wants, because every other alternative to it is SO MUCH WORSE! because they deliberately harm some people or groups without really helping others. --------------------- HEY YOU ****!! It helps *US* a LOT not to see your religious **** EVERYWHERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! but preventing Christians from getting something just because poorer or smaller non-Christian groups can't afford it would itself be a serious violation of separation of church and state.) ----------------------- Nonsense, that's no result of separation of church and state!! What you **** can or can't afford is not our problem!! One final thought is that if the private sector of education would grow enough to create excess capacity in the public schools, the public system could rent its excess capacity to private schools. That could create potential to start private schools with very low start-up costs because they would be using existing infrastructure. -------------------- If that happened, I'd start burning churches with you **** in them! Steve |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
Chemically beating children: Pinellas Poisoners Heilman and Talley | Todd Gastaldo | Pregnancy | 0 | July 4th 04 11:26 PM |
misc.kids FAQ on Breastfeeding Past the First Year | [email protected] | Info and FAQ's | 0 | January 16th 04 09:15 AM |
| | Kids should work... | Kane | Spanking | 12 | December 10th 03 02:30 AM |
| Ray attempts Biblical justification: was U.N. rules Canada should ban spanking | Kane | Spanking | 105 | November 30th 03 05:48 AM |
So much for the claims about Sweden | Kane | Spanking | 10 | November 5th 03 06:31 AM |