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

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

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

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

Nathan A. Barclay wrote:

You're missing the central difference: where the money comes from. If you
offered money out of your own pocket to educate my children on the condition
that I send them to a nonreligious school, that would be your right because
it's your money.
------------------
The same is true of the Majority. While the Majority votes for laws
and the government, funding other things besides the political govt
is ALSO their province as an organization of people, and they obey
the laws they made in doing it, those laws becoming their by-laws
inside the organization.


On the other
hand, if I didn't especially care whether my child attended a religious
school or a nonreligious one, I would probably be grateful for the
opportunity to benefit from your money and not care all that much about the
strings.
-------------------------
Then be a duck.

"Consider a duck. It encounters the air, water and soil.
It benefits from each, is hindered by none, harms nothing.
They are cute, too. Be a duck!"
Old Slovakian Saying


The problem with the public school monopoly system is that the money it
attaches strings to is TAX money, not private money, and includes tax money
from people who prefer to have children educated in religious schools, not
just from those who prefer to have children educated in nonreligious ones.
-------------------
Yes, that's right. And the govt must do that or else it must favor
some one religion, or all religions! If it does the former, we can't
decide which one, and if thel latter then we have to invite them all
to take up all the school time and fight over equal time.

One leads to civil war, the other leads to absolute paralysis.


Thus, it uses people's tax money to impose restrictions that are directly
contrary to what some of them want in regard to how religion will be dealt
with in children's lives during school hours.
-------------------------
That is the nature of all taxes, we can't exempt anyone from footing
the bill for what the Majority wants, or else they will ALL want to!


That is exactly the same kind
of sin and tyranny that was once the province of state churches, only
focused in a different direction.
---------------------------
Only because they were undemocratic states, not because they were
churches. So your assertion is phony.


But if I'm spending MY OWN money, I have a right to use it however I want
to.
-------------
Your taxes aren't yours. Taxes confuse you because you get to hold
the money for a while. We shouldn't do that.


Nor is it compatible
with religious freedom for you to rig the game so I have to donate
exhorbitant amounts just to make up for disparities in tax support from
government.
----------------------------
Nothing is rigged, except that YOU have rigged your own religion to
be so unbelievable that it isn't even factual and can't be permitted
in publically funded schools.
Steve

"toto" wrote in message
...

Frankly, the problem is that teaching Creationism as science is
a crock and will close off entrance into biology as the cutting edge
of that science is more and more involved with evolution.

How much effort has been made to develop biology curricula that (1) do a
good job teaching about things like genetics, mutations, and natural
selection without trying to tie them in to the idea that life as we know it
evolved through those processes, and (2) look at similarities between
organisms without trying to explain them through common ancestry? And what,
if any, parts of "the cutting edge" of biology would such a curriculum not
adequately prepare children for?

"Circe" wrote in message
news:%uEEc.10321$Qj6.103@fed1read05...
Nathan A. Barclay wrote:
"Banty" wrote in message
...
This is about convenience and expedience for the sake of an
explicity religious purpose. On the public dime.

It's about government achieving its legitimate goal of improving
the quality of children's education in a manner that does not
create unnecessary, artificial inconveniences for religion.

Begs the question. Assumes that 1) the quality of children's education
needs improvement (this may or may not be true, depending on the
school your child attends, but poor or low quality public education
is not an issue for all Americans by any means)

You're using the wrong basis of comparison. In evaluating how government
actions affect religious freedom, it is necessary to compare both the public
school monopoly system and a voucher system with how things would work if
government were not involved in education at all, and see how each approach
affects religious freedom in people's lives. Public schools are themselves
a means of improving the quality of children's education compared with what
would be available without financial support from government. Vouchers are
an alternative means of achieving the same goal.

and 2) that public
education, whether improved or not, creates unnecessary or artificial
inconveniences for religion.

The fact that the vast majority of private schools are religious proves this
beyond reasonable doubt. Granted, a great many people's exercise of
religion is not interfered with in a way that they particularly mind. But
that means only that government is establishing people, groups, and factions
that don't mind how religion is handled in government schools in a favored
position over those that do mind.

And before you try to claim that it's not an unnecessary, artificial
inconvenience, explain why children don't go one place to study
English, another to study Math, a third to study Science, and so
forth. We don't do that. So if we expect children to go to a
separate place to study religion, we are singling out the study of
religion to be subject to an unnecessary, artificial inconvenience
compared with how other subjects are handled.

But you are not asking for a school that teaches adherence to a
particular religious creed as a separate aspect of the curriculum
like English, Math, Science, etc. People who send their children
to religious schools because they want a religious education don't
want a class on their religious beliefs in *addition* to English,
Math, and Science; instead, they want their religious beliefs to
be woven *into* the teaching of English, Math, and Science.

To a certain extent. Then again, aren't those other subjects sometimes
woven into each other? Should we ban word problems from Math books because
they get too much into the field of English? There is no good reason why
religion SHOULDN'T be tied into other subjects when it can be without
noticeably undermining the other subjects. Raising artificial barriers
against such ties through government control of children's schools damages
religious freedom.

If
what you want is a course in religious education for your kids,
send 'em to Bible School at church as an extracurricular activity the
way I send my son to piano lessons (I don't demand that the school
teach him piano or integrate it into their curriculum) and my daughter
to ballet lessons.

Unless MOST families send their children to such after-school activities,
and do so for academic reasons rather than because the activities are
something the children enjoy, what you are doing is demanding that families
who want their children to study religion accept a special, extra burden
above and beyond the burden that other families carry. You refuse to offer
them the option of substituting a religion class for some other class that
they consider less valuable (an art class, for example). That constitutes
discrimination by government against the choice to study religion as an
elective.

"Banty" wrote in message
...
In article , Nathan A. Barclay says...

Only by giving up benefits that, by the time two children graduate from
high school, have a higher value than my house. A robber in the old
cliche says, "Your money or your life." In government's case, it's
just, "Your money, or your freedom."

Toldjya it was about money allright :-)

It is about both money and freedom, just like every other fight against
government efforts to establish people who make some religious choices in a
favored position over those who make different choices has always been.

You don't have the right to use the public dime for one's own, specific,
private
religious interests.

Freedom to pursue our religious desires with as little government
interference or favoritism as possible is a public interest, not a private
one. In one sense, everyone's religous desires, whether to inclde religion
or to exclude it, are private. In that sense, an atheist's desire not to
have his children taught religion is every bit as much a "private" interest
as a Catholic's desire to have his children taught Catholicism. But because
we all have an interest in not having others make our choices for us, or
impose a financial disadvantage on us if we refuse to go along with their
choices, we have a shared, public interest in protecting religious freedom.

You, on the other hand, desire to have government promote the private
interests of people who want children to attend secular schools at the
expense of the interests of those who would rather have their children
attend religious schools. It is you, not me, that wants to put private
interests ahead of the shared public interest in freedom to choose.

Or even any specific private interest. That's not a loss of
freedom, any more than that the goverment does not set up for you a
computer,
some DVD's to burn, and distribute them to the public for you, mean you
have
a loss of the freedom of speech. Your rights don't have to be FUNDED.

If government bought other people such equipment, but refused to buy me the
equipment because it did not like the content of my speech, it very
definitely WOULD be a violaton of freedom of speech.

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.

No loss of freedom. You can have a free education, and do whatever you do
religiously. You just can't combine them exactly the way you like on the
public
dime.

The loss of freedom comes from the use of "the public dime" as leverage to
interfere with the natural ability to incorporate religion into children's
education, and into children's lives during school hours, in whatever ways
families desire. It comes from offering "the public dime" to families who
accept arbitrary restrictions on such religious activity while denying an
equal share of "the public dime" to anyone who refuses to accept the
restrictions.

Tell me, if government offered to buy anyone who wants one a "free"
Chevrolet minivan but refused to pay for any other kind of vehicle, and if
government raised taxes however much was necessary to pay for those "free"
minivans (thereby leaving us a lot less money to buy other automobiles with
our own money), would that or would that not damage our freedom to choose
what kind of vehicle to drive?

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.

But also serving a religous purpose. If public schools do just as good a
job
of educating children as religious schools, the common good can be
satisfied
without doing so.

This argument practically makes a deliberate public goal out of PREVENTING
religious interests from being pursued. That is directly contrary to
religous freedom.

Furthermore as a taxpayer with intersts in what kind of society my son is
to live in, I'm not interested in funding a segregationist ideology, that
all
should be enabled to live congregated with their own kind. So for that
reason
also, I vote to keep all my public dimes in the public schools. But that
isn't
my primary objection to vouchers - just to some of your motivations in
advocating vouchers.

In other words, you want to use other people's tax money to reshape society
to fit your desires.

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.
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. People who support religious schools, not only
including families but also including many non-parents such as myself,
are just as much a part of "Every tax payer." A voucher system that
funds all children's education pursues the full range of public interest
on an equal basis. A system that taxes everyone but funds only
schools that exclude organized religion does not.

What are you trying to tuck under the phrase "full range of public
interest".
OF course there are inappropriate things. Funding other's religion is
one.

In a voucher system, groups pay roughly enough in taxes to cover the cost of
their own children's education. In the monopoly system, virtually every
penny of the tax money of people who prefer religious schools is diverted to
fund nonreligious schools. You are the one with a clear and deliberate
desire to force some people to fund other people's preferences, not me.

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. 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

Your religious choices are not limited. You can worship as you want, be
as
you want. You just can't make the public pay for your religious time and
accouterments.

You make it sound as if I, and others who favor religious schools, were not
part of the public, as if "the public" were someone else entirely. All we
really want is equal benefits in exchange for equal taxes, with the benefits
provided in a way that does not impose arbitrary and unnecessary
restrictions on religous freedom.

It's your own self-imposed 'requirement' that you have to have only others
of
your religion teach you math and tennis. It's not a tenet of Christianity
even.
It does not impede your religion. Only your desire to refrain from using
a
public venue.

You are not allowed to tell other people what the tenets of their religion
are, nor are you allowed to restrict people's religious freedom to only
things that the tenets of their religion absolutely require. And the
restrictions imposed by government schools certainly do impede the exercise
of many people's religion - as evidenced by the disproportionately high
percentage of private schools that are religious. If the way government
schools handled religion were not an obstacle, there would be no more reason
to choose a religous private school than to choose a secular one.

It's like wanting to raid the city transportation department of some of
the bus
fares received, in order to put a down payment on one's own car. (Whyyy -
don't
I have a *right* to own a car?? Why should I be 'bribed' to take a bus by
that
being so much cheaper??)

I've dealt with this idiocy elsewhere. If we insist that government not do
anyting that can be regarded as even the tiniest bit unfair, government can
accomplish practically nothing. But when there are allegations that the
unfairness amounts to hundreds or especially thousands of dollars per year
per person for the people who claim they are being treated unfairly, we can
and should examine the issue and see if we can find a faierer way of doing
things.

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.

It does not take the SAME money to set up multiple schools, and have money
go
to hire multiple staffs with religious restrictions.

If it can't be done with the same money, religous people would have to pay
any extra costs out of their own pockets.

On the other hand, multiple smaller schools are not automatically more
expensive than fewer, larger ones. As long as each school has enough
students to operate efficiently, the main costs - teachers, classrooms,
textbooks, and so forth - are essentially the same either way. And a small
school does not need as big a staff to run it as a large one does.

It's much less efficient, and
also violates anti-discrimination laws in that the money would hire
faculties
that a religious school would deem appropriate.

Anti-discrimination laws are rooted in the equal protection of the laws.
The protection of the laws is NOT equal when a teacher is allowed to demand
the right to teach other people's children whether the children's families
want that teacher to teach them or not.

And the money would go to
buy crucifixes or other religious implements.

Only on the same basis that it could go for any other kind of wall
decorations and such. Government would neither discriminate in favor of
religious choices nor discriminate against them in regard to such matters.
You are the one who wants to discriminate.

"Banty" wrote in message
...
In article , Nathan A. Barclay says...

Voluntary separation so that people can pursue different desires
without interfering with each other's rights is an entirely different
matter. It is not a threat to freedom, but rather is an integral part
of freedom. It occurs as a side effect of people's pursuing
different goals or wanting to be in different kinds of environments,
not because people make separation itself the goal.

This is exactly the state of the segregationist rhetoric in the '60s that
I
recall. That everyone *wanted* to be segregated. "Separate but equal".
Perhaps you don't remember it.

The problem with segregationist rhetoric was that the reality very clearly
did not match the rhetoric. And even if the segregationists were right that
most black people wanted to remain "separate but equal," that would not have
justified forcing the ones who wanted to integrate to remain separate. The
separation the segregationists wanted to maintain was at best voluntary on
only one side, and often not even that because the segregationists wanted to
force segregation onto pro-integration white people as well as onto black
people.

As long as the separation is voluntary on both sides, there is no
possible threat to freedom. When a person wants to join a group
but the group doesn't want to accept the person, the situation gets
a bit trickier, but a fairly simple rule of thumb can help a lot in
distinguishing the difference. If the group wants to reject the person
because of who or what the person is, it's segregation. If the group
wants to reject the person because the person is not willing to accept
the group's standards of behavior while in the group, or because the
person's needs and desires are not the same as those of the group
and would distract the group from pursuing its purpose, it's not
segregation.

Yup - sounds familliar. "The ones who act like us are OK". Of course,
there's the little matter of one or other group often having more
resources.

The alternative is to give people a "right" to demand to be allowed into
other people's groups no matter how they behave. That violates the freedom
of the people who are forced to be around others who are behaving in ways
that bother them.

I'm sure you recognize the basic principle. Indeed, you apply it yourself
in demanding that children in government schools not exercise their religion
in ways that would be "disruptive." But you want to be allowed to pick and
choose for other people what kinds of behavior they should have to accept
and what kinds they are allowed to reject.

I hope you write your book. You're quite the poster child for the
anti-democratic undercurrents and motivations of the movement for
vouchers.
The desire to segregate in public life. The desire to convert the
religion of
others.

The word "democracy" means "people-rule." The greatest rule by the people
possible comes when we rule over our own lives while interfering in each
other's lives only when truly necessary. Anything else results in having
some of the people rule over other of the people. What you call
"democratic" is more properly "majoritocratic" - rule by the majority over
the minority - and is only a good thing when leaving people free to rule
over their own lives is not a viable option.

What I want is not to "segregate public life" but rather to allow people to
choose for themselves how much of their lives to make "public" instead of
having people tell each other how much of their lives must be considered
"public." The only way you can use the words "segregate public life" is by
claiming public ownership of portions of other people's lives.

"Nathan A. Barclay" wrote in message
...

"Circe" wrote in message
news:%uEEc.10321$Qj6.103@fed1read05...
Nathan A. Barclay wrote:
"Banty" wrote in message
...

Unless MOST families send their children to such after-school activities,
and do so for academic reasons rather than because the activities are
something the children enjoy, what you are doing is demanding that
families
who want their children to study religion accept a special, extra burden
above and beyond the burden that other families carry. You refuse to
offer
them the option of substituting a religion class for some other class that
they consider less valuable (an art class, for example). That constitutes
discrimination by government against the choice to study religion as an
elective.

Do a majority of families send their children to weekday religious education
classes? The common practice where I grew up was Church and Sunday school on
Sunday AM, Youth Fellowship (which was much more social than worship) for
middle and high school kids on Sunday night, Choir practice on Wednesday
night. This was mainline protestant churches.

The church (non-denominational protestant) I currently attend does groups
for kids Wednesday night (which, again, are more social than devotional) and
an Adult bible study, but otherwise is the same schedule.

It was common practice there, and is here as well, that no homework be given
or school events scheduled on Wednesday night, because that is "Church
Night".

I know a lot more parents who send their children to ballet class, soccer
practice, or piano lessons during the school week than who send their
children to weekday religion classes.