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

[Belz...]

I said I used the third person to create distance. So you lied.

You said:

How is this uncivil?

And now you say it's how you treat enemies. THAT's how it's uncivil.

You still lied when you claimed it was civil. Grow up.

 

[jimbob]

Because the nation is one entity. "Education" has as many definitions as possible career paths. Still, the people who wrote the Constitution opposed standing armies and expected that armed citizens (the "militia") would provide the primary defense.

At the time, the most complex land-based weapons systems were accessible to individuals, whereas now this is not the case. Even naval weapons systems were fairly affordable and accessible. Now, only billionaires would be able to afford the most capable systems, but even they would not be able to access them (James Bond being a work of fiction).

Similarly, the facilities at many schools are too expensive for many individuals, the science and engineering equipment at a modern UK secondary school would cost more than a house and thus are out of reach.

Allowing individuals to say what they want their taxes to be spent on is utterly unworkable, not least because there would be massive waste due to the added paperwork. As a society the ultimate decisions about taxation are made at the ballot box.

 

[RandFan]

Because the nation is one entity.

Yes, a single entity that wants educated citizens. A single entity where society (AKA the people) are best served by an educated citizenry. Allowing the marketplace to sell bad products to poor people is a really terrible idea. But let me avoid begging the question and support my premise. Discount and dollar stores have made fortunes selling worthless crap to poor people. Sometimes competition simply means selling bad products with short service lives for a low price. Take the ninety nine cent can opener. Most dollar stores carry them. The service life of these items is very short and in the long run will cost more than a more expensive, higher quality can opener. You want to let private industry screw the poor even more. What's to keep someone from operating an inexpensive "school" that is in all actuality a day care center that works more to keep the children pacified and happy by offering video games, movies and other forms of entertainment. The market place would eventually figure out how to best exploit poor people for maximum benefit.

The concept of competition and free markets is critically important to a society. Societies who embrace capitalism are by far the most wealthy of nations. Such societies also have regulations, standards. Pure Laissez-faire capitalism has never existed anywhere that I know of.

Now, I understand that many public schools in depressed areas are providing very poor service (if not harmful service) to the poor. I'm for targeted vouchers and open enrollment for at risk youth. I'm for increased options, not less. Getting rid of public education (state run compulsory schools) would be disastrous for poor people.

"Education" has as many definitions as possible career paths.

While humans are varied and while I strongly support increased options for parents and children, teaching the ability to read, write, perform math and understand history are critically important as fundamentals and we should have national standards to ensure children receive the fundamentals.

BTW: I would be in favor of allowing some students who are obviously not interested in school to take online training and to take more courses that they are likely to benefit from. Vocational courses like shop, auto mechanics, carpentry, plumbing, electrician, etc.. The people who run these classes should seek out connections with employers who are willing to accept interns and provide apprenticeship training. This does happen to some degree right now but it could be expanded and there could be more focus to find ways to keep children interested and involved in school.

Still, the people who wrote the Constitution opposed standing armies and expected that armed citizens (the "militia") would provide the primary defense.

The people who wrote the constitution didn't intend for blacks and women to vote.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

Yes, a single entity that wants educated citizens. A single entity where society (AKA the people) are best served by an educated citizenry.

Maybe, but there's no universally accepted definition of "education".

Allowing the marketplace to sell bad products to poor people is a really terrible idea.

Empowering the largest dealer in interpersonal violence (the State) to determine what education poor people shall receive is a worse idea. Political control of school harms most the children of the least politically adept parents.

But let me avoid begging the question and support my premise. Discount and dollar stores have made fortunes selling worthless crap to poor people. Sometimes competition simply means selling bad products with short service lives for a low price. Take the ninety nine cent can opener. Most dollar stores carry them. The service life of these items is very short and in the long run will cost more than a more expensive, higher quality can opener. You want to let private industry screw the poor even more. What's to keep someone from operating an inexpensive "school" that is in all actuality a day care center that works more to keep the children pacified and happy by offering video games, movies and other forms of entertainment. The market place would eventually figure out how to best exploit poor people for maximum benefit.

People do not become more intelligent, more altruistic, better-informed, or more capable (except to the extent that access to the tools of organized violence enhances their capabilities) when they enter the State's employ. Government is a bunch of guys with guns. Government is not God. Except to socialists.

The people who wrote the constitution didn't intend for blacks and women to vote.

What does this have to do with the topic of the effect of compulsory processes on motivation?

I don't know enough about early US history to assess the assertion of the intent of the delegates to the Constitutional convention. Clayton Cramer wrote that some early post-colonial legislatures had free black members, iirc. I could be mistaken here.

 

[bruto]

Maybe, but there's no universally accepted definition of "education".Empowering the largest dealer in interpersonal violence (the State) to determine what education poor people shall receive is a worse idea. Political control of school harms most the children of the least politically adept parents.People do not become more intelligent, more altruistic, better-informed, or more capable (except to the extent that access to the tools of organized violence enhances their capabilities) when they enter the State's employ. Government is a bunch of guys with guns. Government is not God. Except to socialists.What does this have to do with the topic of the effect of compulsory processes on motivation?

I don't know enough about early US history to assess the assertion of the intent of the delegates to the Constitutional convention. Clayton Cramer wrote that some early post-colonial legislatures had free black members, iirc. I could be mistaken here.

YOu keep making this assertion, but you don't seem to have defined "politically adept." I suspect that your idea of what this term means will vary from what others think it means. I would have thought it a no-brainer that people who are utterly non-adept at politics but who happen to agree with the status quo or with what line they're being fed by government will do well in government programs, while by some standards of what one might mean by "politically adept" people who are very aware, active, and political in their lives, such as dedicated communists, or vocal opponents of the status quo like yourself, would not do so well. You seem to define political adeptness as mere acquiescence. If that is what you mean, then perhaps you should find a better terminology.

Finally, if you know so little about early American history, to the extent that you equate the possible intention of delegates, or the situation in their home states, to the policy that the US Constitution they signed embodies, perhaps you should be careful here. The people who wrote the Constitution were clearly not the ones who ratified it. There was a great deal of wheeling, dealing and compromise, but the upshot is that a Constitution excluding women from voting, enabling the same for blacks, and empowering slavery is what they signed. It's true that there never was a slave in Vermont, but in 1791 Vermont ratified that Constitution in its entirety. Whatever the delegates thought about black voters, women voters, or slaves, it is the constitution that someone else wrote that they signed.

 

[RandFan]

¹ Maybe, but there's no universally accepted definition of "education".

^2a Empowering the largest dealer in interpersonal violence (the State) to determine what education poor people shall receive is a worse idea. ^2bPolitical control of school harms most the children of the least politically adept parents.

³People do not become more intelligent, more altruistic, better-informed, or more capable (except to the extent that access to the tools of organized violence enhances their capabilities) when they enter the State's employ. Government is a bunch of guys with guns. Government is not God. Except to socialists.

⁴What does this have to do with the topic of the effect of compulsory processes on motivation?

⁵I don't know enough about early US history to assess the assertion of the intent of the delegates to the Constitutional convention. Clayton Cramer wrote that some early post-colonial legislatures had free black members, iirc. I could be mistaken here.

1. Arguable but IMO, irrelevant.
2. a.) Some people might think that empowering the largest dealer in interpersonal violence by giving them $700B - $1T is the worst idea of all. b.) In any event, I do not accept your premise of "interpersonal violence". IMO, at this juncture that rhetoric will not move this discussion forward without an explanation of how it harms children. Representatives of the state are not beating up children or throwing them in jails arbitrarily as a result of having public education.
3. Again, I reject the premise. Even if I accepted that the govt is the largest dealer in interpersonal violence, your conclusions do not follow. You are missing an important aspect of your thesis. An explanation of how being a dealer in interpersonal violence harms students. Why do you even mention it? I don't want to dismiss your premise out of hand. I'll keep an open mind. Would you please give me one of your examples again? Bear in mind that I need more than a simple correlation. I need a control to eliminate other explanations. Or tell me how was I harmed? Under your system I would have spent my formative years shoveling rabbit and chicken feces, slaughtering and gutting animals, moving pipe, changing irrigation gates, pulling weeds, etc., etc.. Now, while I still had to do that I didn't have to just do that. I went to a state run school and that was the key to my freedom from menial labor. Because of the law, my biggest supplier of interpersonal violence, *my father, could not prevent me from getting an education. I learned math, how to read, how to write, history, civics, etc., etc.. That allowed me to go to the university and become a programmer and auditor. Your ideas would leave people like me no options. My father would not have spent a dime on me.
4. You stated what is in my opinion an irrelevant fact. I responded in kind.
5. Let's grant your premise, the exception would not disprove the rule.

*It would be dishonest of me to fail point out that I loved my father and have many fond memories of him. However, he was bi-polar and had a violent temper. He also would have preferred that his children stay at home and help run the farm and his various failed business for free. My father often farmed us out to do work for other people that he was paid for. My father often had us sorting paper for his recycling business and other forms of work. One of the things he hated was that we were not always available for chores and outside work.

 

[RandFan]

Government is not God. Except to socialists.

What does this have to do with anything? This looks like a straw man and/or ad hominem poisoning the well. I will assume that your use of the term "god" is a metaphor. I don't think government is god. Further, using your definition of socialism, the most successful capitalist nations are also socialist (see we are all socialists now).

CAPITALISM:

1. Capitalism is the greatest economic engine the history of man has ever known.
2. Capitalism provides incentives for thrift, savings, investment and entrepreneurship.
3. Private ownership of most businesses has significant advantages over national ownership.
4. Nations that routinely score high in Per Capita GDP, gross GDP, HDI and Economic freedom are nations that allow and encourage private ownership of businesses.

GOVERNMENT:

1. Too much government control or de facto government control (see the classical definition of "socialism") has never been shown to work efficiently or generate the wealth that mixed economies (Keynesian or something akin to it) have generated.
2. Too much government control stifles innovation and investment.

Bottom line: The importance of capitalism cannot reasonably be denied. The problems of too much government control of business cannot reasonably be denied. The success of capitalism and monetary policy actions by the central bank and fiscal policy actions by the government with social programs such as safety nets (welfare, UHC) cannot reasonably be denied.

Top 10 nations for economic freedom

Hong Kong
Singapore
Australia
New Zealand
Switzerland
Canada
Chile
Mauritius
Denmark
United States

What quasi-Keynesian\socialists\capitalists like me think is:

1. That there are trade offs for various economic theories.
2. That humans are individuals and capitalism has been a huge boon for individual autonomy, freedom and well-being.
3. That humans are an evolved social species and that there is a synergistic affect of seeing to the needs of the most vulnerable in society. This has been scientifically demonstrated time and again in both human social studies and field research on non-human animals. The scientific theory is known as reciprocal altruism. The thesis is that the most successful species and the most successful human societies by far are those who are willing to reduce individual fitness so as to increase the fitness of the society. In modern civilizations this is done to some significant degree through taxation and public social programs.
4. That the societies with the highest levels of well-being and wealth are those that balance the needs of the individual with the needs of society.

I subscribe to the wisdom of Orwell (socialist) and the wisdom of Ayn Rand (capitalist), except for the purpose of defense and other serious safety issues, the state must never sacrifice the individual for the good of the state or the good of society.

Please note that I've provided a scientific theory that has both predictive and explanatory power. That the explanations are rational. That the data fits the theory and verify the predictions time and time again.

There is no scientific theory to justify Laissez-faire capitalism or anything akin to it. There is no scientific theory to justify Social Darwinism. It's just an umbrella term for various ideologies. Both Laissez-faire capitalism and Social Darwinism, as well as anarcho-capitalism and libertarianism as well as other similar right-wing economic ideologies (at least AFAIK) are mostly if not purely philosophical in nature and run counter to real scientific theories. They are based on a one sided view of human nature that largely ignores our capacity for empathy and compassion. Those who are highly critical of social programs seek to demonize proven solutions without any substantive evidence to justify such criticism. Those who are highly critical of social programs tend to lump any and all forms of socialism together be it the classical definition, communism, statism, or European style socialism.

 

[Border Reiver]

Maybe, but there's no universally accepted definition of "education".

There is however a general consensus that it must include more than just math, vocabulary and writing to be effective. What is most often disputed is the method of delivery.

the largest dealer in interpersonal violence (the State) to determine what education poor people shall receive is a worse idea.

Why? Why is it a bad idea for government to exercise control over the monies it collects?

Political control of school harms most the children of the least politically adept parents.

Two points:

1. The definition of "political control" is non-existent, making it worthless;
2. The definition of "least politically adept parents" is non-existent, again rendering it without value.

People do not become more intelligent, more altruistic, better-informed, or more capable (except to the extent that access to the tools of organized violence enhances their capabilities) when they enter the State's employ. Government is a bunch of guys with guns.

When did the Board of Education start arming?

Entering the private sector does not make people more intelligent, more altruistic or more capable either. In fact the profit motive degrades any sense of altruism in the private sector.

Government is not God. Except to socialists.

No more than the market is God.

What does this have to do with the topic of the effect of compulsory processes on motivation?

I don't know enough about early US history to assess the assertion of the intent of the delegates to the Constitutional convention. Clayton Cramer wrote that some early post-colonial legislatures had free black members, iirc. I could be mistaken here.

With actual slavery being practiced in the US at the time the US Constitution was drafted, and the vast majority of slaves being concentrated in few states, and the entirety of the servile population being black, the method of preventing those states with a large slave population from getting more representatives was to have a black ( more than likely a slave) from counting as a whole person when counting the population for electoral purposes.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

YOu keep making this assertion, but you don't seem to have defined "politically adept." I suspect that your idea of what this term means will vary from what others think it means. I would have thought it a no-brainer that people who are utterly non-adept at politics but who happen to agree with the status quo or with what line they're being fed by government will do well in government programs, while by some standards of what one might mean by "politically adept" people who are very aware, active, and political in their lives, such as dedicated communists, or vocal opponents of the status quo like yourself, would not do so well. You seem to define political adeptness as mere acquiescence. If that is what you mean, then perhaps you should find a better terminology.

That's not at all what I mean by "politically adept". Powerless people who acquiesce get screwed in the current system. Support for vouchers is stronger among blacks than among whites. Support for vouchers rises as income falls. Children of high-SES parents are overrepresented in G/T classes, AP classes, and magnet schools. The bureaucracy knows better than to mess with a lawyer's kid.

Finally, if you know so little about early American history...

There's that "you". Keep it civil,

... to the extent that you equate the possible intention of delegates, or the situation in their home states, to the policy that the US Constitution they signed embodies...

Not "equate", infer. Delegates could not have varied too far from the mean of their constituents or they would not have been delegates.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

There is however a general consensus that it must include more than just math, vocabulary and writing to be effective.

Perhaps, but what else is beyond agreement.

Why? Why is it a bad idea for government to exercise control over the monies it collects?

"Government" does not exercise control; self-dealing bureaucrats and officers of public-sector unions exercise control.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

Two points:

1. The definition of "political control" is non-existent, making it worthless;
2. The definition of "least politically adept parents" is non-existent, again rendering it without value.

Define "the". If the cartel's shills start this obstruction game, I'm not playing. "Politically adept" is pretty obvious: people with above average skills at manipulating the apparatus of government.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

When did the Board of Education start arming?

A law is a threat by a government to kidnap (arrest), assault (subdue), and forcibly inoculate with HIV (imprison) someone, under specified circumstances. Parents who violate educational neglect statutes (who do not qualify as homeschoolers and who refuse to send their kids to school) risk arrest. If they fail to appear in court, cops will come after them. If they resist, police will subdue them. If they resist effectively, police will kill them.

Entering the private sector does not make people more intelligent, more altruistic or more capable either. In fact the profit motive degrades any sense of altruism in the private sector.

Reiver left out "better-informed". Markets institutionalize humility on the part of State actors. If a policy difference involves a matter of fact, where "what works?" is an empirical question, competitive markets will generate more information than will a State-monopoly enterprise. A State-monopoly enterprise is like an experiment with one treatment and no control, a retarded experimental design.

"Profit" is a bookkeeping term: the difference between total revenue and total costs. An organization that has no line in its balance sheet for "profit" must attribute all revenues to costs. This says nothing about the motives of the people in that organization

 

[jimbob]

Perhaps, but what else is beyond agreement."Government" does not exercise control; self-dealing bureaucrats and officers of public-sector unions exercise control.

The departmental budgets and manning levels are controlled by the governments, so ultimately in a democracy, the government does exercise control.

 

[jimbob]

And here's a link of pictures for RandFan showing people who didn't suffer from the slavery of having a free education.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

The departmental budgets and manning levels are controlled by the governments, so ultimately in a democracy, the government does exercise control.

Just as much as "the government" in a totalitarian regime exercises control. In any case, people who draw paychecks from an account in the government's name make and execute policy. In a democracy, these people "represent" taxpayers and voters about as well as the French Catholic hierarchy "represented" God's will. I recommend De Sade's Justine and Juliette.

 

[A'isha]

Wait, are you seriously using two of the Marquis de Sade's 18th Century novels as part of your argument against 21st Century public schooling in America?

Wow...

 

[RandFan]

If the cartel's shills...

Try civility. Ad hominem and appeal to ridicule are fallacies.

 

[RandFan]

And here's a link of pictures for RandFan showing people who didn't suffer from the slavery of having a free education.

Exactly, getting rid of child labor laws and expecting poor children get their education from work ensures that the vast majority of poor children will forever never do better than their parents.

 

[RandFan]

Just as much as "the government" in a totalitarian regime exercises control.

Fortunately we don't live in a totalitarian regime. We live in a Democracy so the point is irrelevant.

In a democracy, these people "represent" taxpayers and voters about as well as the French Catholic hierarchy "represented" God's will.

The comparison is not apt as there is either no god or no evidence as to what god wants. The French Catholic hierarchy did not serve at the pleasure of the public. You will need to find a more apropos example.

 

[Mister Earl]

I think it's been about five pages since I've noted that Malcom's statements are a great example why this country needs a high quality education. Otherwise we'd suffer this kind of lack of critical thinking far more often.