Split Thread Does compulsory schooling equate to slavery? (Split from: "Liberal Fallacies" thread)

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

... to harm children ... to harm children (enslave them) ...to harm children ... to protect the future by protecting young citizens ... to harm children (enslave them) ...

"To" is a statement of intention. Intentions are invisible mental events, a matter of inference. I don't suppose that Alabama cotton plantations were established "to" enslave anyone. Slave owners were likely motivated by material self-interest. The harm to slaves did not concern them. That is all. People vary in empathy. Compassionate people would not have become slave owners. Compassionate people would not have approved the State-monopoly school system, either.
Added: The profession of politics differentially attracts control freaks (sociopaths).

 

[RandFan]

Eduardo Zambrano
"Formal Models of Authority: Introduction and Political Economy Applications"
Rationality and Society, May 1999

That doesn't begin to address the question. That is an opinion as to whether or not state run compulsory schools are effective and not, whether or not the politicians have colluded with educators to harm children. That opinion, by Zambrao, is not a consensus of experts in the field. It's like the opinion of the BYU professor, Jones, who believes 9/11 was an inside job.

If I asked you what was the motive of the America govt to blow up the twin towers the answer wouldn't be a pull quote from Profession Jones waxing on about "iron spheres".

I don't accept the arguments of Jones and I'm not at all impressed with any single authority or even a few authorities. Watch this video, it explains how lay people should analyze expert opinion when it comes to authority.



I'm not going to accept Zambrano just because you copied and pasted his opinion anymore than I'm going to accept Jones just because some 9/11 truther copies and pastes his opinion. Your job is to be compelling and not to brow beat people with demands that they must accept or refute any particular authority.

At the end of the day you cannot account for how or why nations are motivated to help children on one hand but are likewise motivated to harm them on the other. Those are very contradictory positions and all of your hand waving is doing nothing to reconcile them. You can scream "group identity politics" a million times and it will not reconcile the discrepancy.

 

[RandFan]

"To" is a statement of intention. Intentions are invisible mental events, a matter of inference. I don't suppose that Alabama cotton plantations were established "to" enslave anyone. Slave owners were likely motivated by material self-interest. The harm to slaves did not concern them. That is all. People vary in empathy. Compassionate people would not have become slave owners. Compassionate people would not have approved the State-monopoly school system, either.
Added: The profession of politics differentially attracts control freaks (sociopaths).

Slave owners in America did not believe blacks were human. Politicians know that children are human and deserving of protection. In fact, laws against child abuse and pedophilia are pretty harsh. You want us to believe that most law makers are sociopaths who don't care about the well being of children.

BTW: We are ALL motivated by self interest. Nothing else. It's in my rational self interest to help others because I might need help in the future (and because I am affected by the suffering of others. Reliving their suffering relives mine). Go back to the scientific model I refer to time and again. Reciprocal altruism. Individuals of a social species will reduce their personal fitness to increase the fitness of the group. That's a fact that's been demonstrated time and again through field research of social species in the wild. And it explains why humans have empathy and compassion. By increasing the fitness of my society (volunteer work, taxes, etc.) I increase the likelihood of my survival and well being.

So, why is it that the sociopaths in congress will use public resources for prevention and emergency services for children? if they don't care for them why invest in medicine?

 

[A'isha]

Eduardo Zambrano
"Formal Models of Authority: Introduction and Political Economy Applications"
Rationality and Society, May 1999

Quote something else (anything else) fom Zambrano that you think is directly relevant to what RandFan said above, and explain its relevance.

 

[Belz...]

There's another word (for another theory of the observed events): "interest group politics".

Are you going to provide evidence for your claims at any point ?

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

Slave owners in America did not believe blacks were human.

Unlikely. Some freed blacks owned slaves, according to Thomas Sowell.

Politicians know that children are human and deserving of protection. In fact, laws against child abuse and pedophilia are pretty harsh. You want us to believe that most law makers are sociopaths who don't care about the well being of children.

Earlier:...

The profession of politics differentially attracts control freaks (sociopaths).

BTW: We are ALL motivated by self interest. Nothing else. It's in my rational self interest to help others because I might need help in the future (and because I am affected by the suffering of others. Reliving their suffering relives mine). Go back to the scientific model I refer to time and again. Reciprocal altruism. Individuals of a social species will reduce their personal fitness to increase the fitness of the group. That's a fact that's been demonstrated time and again through field research of social species in the wild. And it explains why humans have empathy and compassion. By increasing the fitness of my society (volunteer work, taxes, etc.) I increase the likelihood of my survival and well being.

In a dynamically stable equilibrium, some defectors (sociopaths) gain from a narrower view of "self interest". Tigers in human form walk among us, and calculating sharks and meth-addled chimpanzees.

So, why is it that the sociopaths in congress will use public resources for prevention and emergency services for children? if they don't care for them why invest in medicine?

Easily answered:

...We are ALL motivated by self interest. Nothing else. ...

The pose of altruism enhances chances of election to office and promotion within the bureaucracy.

 

[Border Reiver]

Unlikely. Some freed blacks owned slaves, according to Thomas Sowell.

Because, in the pre ACW US, slaves were the property of their masters. Ownership of human beings by other human beings is the key part of slavery.

Earlier:...In a dynamically stable equilibrium, some defectors (sociopaths) gain from a narrower view of "self interest". Tigers in human form walk among us, and calculating sharks and meth-addled chimpanzees.

Some in business, some in government...

The market is not an instantly responsive system and is often as slow to respond to small, niche markets as government services are to provide for the outliers in their services.

I still fail to see why education provided by non-state actors is any better and less founded on parental compulsion than that provided by state actors. You've provided little other than theory to support your concept, and I would be rather hesitant given the probable consequences of changing a system that works for the majority of participants.

Easily answered: The pose of altruism enhances chances of election to office and promotion within the bureaucracy.

Or the illusion that the business cares about the customer.

 

[RandFan]

¹Unlikely. Some freed blacks owned slaves, according to Thomas Sowell.Earlier:...

²In a dynamically stable equilibrium, some defectors (sociopaths) gain from a narrower view of "self interest".

Tigers in human form walk among us, and calculating sharks and meth-addled chimpanzees.Easily answered: The pose of altruism enhances chances of election to office and promotion within the bureaucracy.

1. A.) Hasty generalization. B.) The exception does not disprove the rule. C.) The founders declared that all men have an inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. D.) Thomas Sowell is in ad hoc fashion attempting to rationalize the fact that whites owned slaves.
2. "Some" cannot reconcile the disparity.
3. Doesn't answer the question. Modern liberal democracies are separate, though admittedly interdependent dynamic systems. For your premise to be compelling you would need to provide the specifics why the sociopaths consistently are willing to ensure a bleak future to placate constituents on one hand while taxing and expending on future infrastructure on the other. If I accept your premise then long term planning and taxation to provide for the future is pointless. Your logic would rule out any long term action for short term gain. I will confess that I very much believe that the GOP/right-wing/conservative/liberal/anarcho-capitalists are moving in that direction. Sacrifice long term goals for short term placation of special interests. In short, if I accept your base premise it does not support your thesis.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

1. A.) Hasty generalization. B.) The exception does not disprove the rule. C.) The founders declared that all men have an inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. D.) Thomas Sowell is in ad hoc fashion attempting to rationalize the fact that whites owned slaves.
2. "Some" cannot reconcile the disparity.
3. Doesn't answer the question. Modern liberal democracies are separate, though admittedly interdependent dynamic systems. For your premise to be compelling you would need to provide the specifics why the sociopaths consistently are willing to ensure a bleak future to placate constituents on one hand while taxing and expending on future infrastructure on the other. If I accept your premise then long term planning and taxation to provide for the future is pointless. Your logic would rule out any long term action for short term gain. I will confess that I very much believe that the GOP/right-wing/conservative/liberal/anarcho-capitalists are moving in that direction. Sacrifice long term goals for short term placation of special interests. In short, if I accept your base premise it does not support your thesis.

1. Seems to me the "hasty generalization" was "slave owners in America did not believe blacks were human". Unless freed slaves did not regard themselves as human, slave-holding by freed slaves implies that at least some slave owners regarded slaves as human. Does any evidence support the assertion: "Slave owners in America did not believe blacks were human"?
2. Please explain. What "disparity"? How does the general argument about the evolution of reciprocal altruism imply that employees of the largest dealer in interpersonal violence (the government) differ from, say, owners or employees of for-profit enterprises? Seems to me the only obvious distinguishing characteristic is the enhanced access to the tools of coercion that government employment entails, and guns attract thugs.
3. To what does this apply? Which "question"? Which "premise"?

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

Slave owners in America did not believe blacks were human.

Ownership of human beings by other human beings is the key part of slavery.

Maybe you two should argue.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

Thomas Sowell is in ad hoc fashion attempting to rationalize the fact that whites owned slaves.

Randfan is mindreading again. I doubt that Randfan has read Sowell on slavery in the US. Or he read it with his characteristic (lack of) care.

 

[A'isha]

Maybe you two should argue.

Why? What they're saying isn't contradictory.

Randfan is mindreading again. I doubt that Randfan has read Sowell on slavery in the US. Or he read it with his characteristic (lack of) care.

No, he's pretty much dead-on in his assessment of Sowell. Sowell is an ideologue who writes apologetics for the right, and his writings about slavery are just an elaborate tu quoque in an attempt to rationalize and minimize the ownership of black slaves by white conservatives.

 

[RandFan]

1. Seems to me the "hasty generalization" was "slave owners in America did not believe blacks were human". Unless freed slaves did not regard themselves as human, slave-holding by freed slaves implies that at least some slave owners regarded slaves as human. Does any evidence support the assertion: "Slave owners in America did not believe blacks were human"?
2. Please explain. What "disparity"? How does the general argument about the evolution of reciprocal altruism imply that employees of the largest dealer in interpersonal violence (the government) differ from, say, owners or employees of for-profit enterprises? Seems to me the only obvious distinguishing characteristic is the enhanced access to the tools of coercion that government employment entails, and guns attract thugs.
3. To what does this apply? Which "question"? Which "premise"?

1. A.) Non responsive. B.) That's not what a hasty generalization is. Blacks did not write the laws. White people wrote the laws and it's what they believed that matters as it relates to the laws. The founders said that all men have the inalienable right to liberty. They then codified slavery for blacks. IOW, ALL men does not include black men. The only way to reconcile those is to concede that the founders (not black slave owners) believed that black men were not human men.
2. The disparity between working to harm children and working to better the lives of children.
3. You are arguing that legislators are either mostly sociopathic and/or that they are driven largely by pandering to interests that are short term.

 

[RandFan]

Randfan is mindreading again. I doubt that Randfan has read Sowell on slavery in the US. Or he read it with his characteristic (lack of) care.

The point about blacks owning slaves is irrelevant to the mind set of the founders. The point does not alter the fact that the founders set about to give "men" inalienable rights and then set about to deny blacks those inalienable rights. That blacks owned slaves isn't a coherent answer to anything other than whites were not the only slave owners.

In this world there are exceptions that do not disprove the rule. The existence of albino crocodiles does not falsify the rule that gators have melanin that provides coloring to the alligator.

I don't need to mind read or read the book. I just need to recognize fallacy.

 

[R.A.F.]

Compulsory education has benefits, Malcolm....that is, an education.

Can you tell me how slaves benefited from being slaves?

that's the difference you seem to be ignoring, and I wonder why.


...and a side bet says that you won't answer...


...or should I say, you can't answer...

 

[elbe]

Compulsory education has benefits, Malcolm....that is, an education.

Can you tell me how slaves benefited from being slaves?

that's the difference you seem to be ignoring, and I wonder why.


...and a side bet says that you won't answer...


...or should I say, you can't answer...

I dunno. I think the chances are decent he'll be able to find an apologist that believes dragging indigenous peoples here in chains to be forced into manual labor was good for them.

 

[Garrison]

Compulsory education has benefits, Malcolm....that is, an education.

Can you tell me how slaves benefited from being slaves?

that's the difference you seem to be ignoring, and I wonder why.


...and a side bet says that you won't answer...


...or should I say, you can't answer...

Well based on my reading of his posts his argument appears to be that education is not a benefit; it's an anchor that drags down the best and the brightest and exists only for the enrichment of the educational establishment.

 

[RandFan]

I dunno. I think the chances are decent he'll be able to find an apologist that believes dragging indigenous peoples here in chains to be forced into manual labor was good for them.

To be fair, children who misbehave in school can be stripped to the waste, tied to a whipping post and scourged. The scourging tears through the flesh leaving lacerations, abrasions and often scars. Student's can be sold. Female students can be impregnated by educators so the offspring can be sold. If the children try to escape their slavery the schools can hobble the children. Hobbling is the practice of breaking one or both ankles or some other serious infliction so as to cripple the child for life. And of course students can be hung. Educators can without fear of criminal or civil liability spit on, slap, punch or verbally abuse their students.

Then again, perhaps the use of the word "slavery" is a bit of sophistry, loaded language (see below), the purpose of which is to evoke an emotional response because we have come to see slavery as pernicious and dehumanizing.

Logical Fallacy: Loaded Words

A word or phrase is "loaded" when it has a secondary, evaluative meaning in addition to its primary, descriptive meaning. When language is "loaded", it is loaded with its evaluative meaning. A loaded word is like a loaded gun, and its evaluative meaning is the bullet.

Loaded language is not inherently fallacious, otherwise most poetry would commit this fallacy. However, it is often a logical boobytrap, which may cause one to leap to an unwarranted evaluative conclusion. The fallacy is committed either when an arguer attempts to use loaded words in place of an argument, or when an arguee makes an evaluation based on the colorful language in which an argument is clothed, rather than on the merits of the argument itself.

Loaded language is a subfallacy of Begging the Question, because to use loaded language fallaciously is to assume an evaluation that has not been proved, thereby failing to fulfill the burden of proof. For this reason, Jeremy Bentham dubbed this fallacy "Question-Begging Epithets".

 

[RandFan]

Oh, and yes, I have from time to time used words that have the potential to be loaded. Schizophrenic, irrational, etc.. Tu quoque is a poor form of argument but, for the sake of this discussion I will be here on out as neutral as possible.

 

[jimbob]

To be fair, children who misbehave in school can be stripped to the waste, tied to a whipping post and scourged. The scourging tears through the flesh leaving lacerations, abrasions and often scars. Student's can be sold. Female students can be impregnated by educators so the offspring can be sold. If the children try to escape their slavery the schools can hobble the children. Hobbling is the practice of breaking one or both ankles or some other serious infliction so as to cripple the child for life. And of course students can be hung. Educators can without fear of criminal or civil liability spit on, slap, punch or verbally abuse their students.

Then again, perhaps the use of the word "slavery" is a bit of sophistry, loaded language (see below), the purpose of which is to evoke an emotional response because we have come to see slavery as pernicious and dehumanizing.

Logical Fallacy: Loaded Words

That is ridiculous.

Hanged, not hung.