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

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

I'm not sure if this is serious or counter-productive rhetorical flourish. Can you please explain to me how the schools of the USA are "State-worshipful indoctrination centers" while those of the following countries are not?

• Canada
• New Zealand
• Australia
• UK
• Sweden
• Norway
• Denmark
• Holland
• Germany
• Singapore

If there is no distinction you must be claiming that they are totalitarian states.

You ask a two-part question. State-worshipful indoctrination in US schools: Remember this twit? Remember Obama songs? Consider any high school Social Studies text which ignores communist infiltration of the Franklin Roosevelt administration, which claims that FDR's policies ended the Depression, which represents minimum wage legislation as beneficial to low-skilled job seekers. Consider Warren Cohen's Ethics in Thought and Action, published by the UH CRDG for secondary Social Studies classes, which holds "western state Republicans" responsible for the war of 1812 (the Republican Party did not exist until 1854).
Part II. School choice, like the right of citizens to keep and bear arms, indicates a government that demands less than total obedience. Neither Cuba nor North Korea permits parents to keep their children out of State-operated schools. Compulsory attendance at government schools is a feature of totalitarian States. Some otherwise "liberal" (in the current European or 19th century US sense of "market-oriented") governments do not support parent choice of schools. Sweden, the Netherlands, Belgium, some Canadian provinces, Singapore, and numerous other countries give to parents the power to take the taxpayers' sub-adult education subsidy to schools other than those operated by government employees.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

If Malcolm would learn a little civility....

Like this?

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

... the Index of Economic Freedom, The Human Development Index, Index of GDP and Index of Per Capita GDP. All fail to falsify the theory of reciprocal altruism and the advantage of evolved social species to benefit from individuals temporarily reducing some of their fitness in order to increase the overall fitness of the group. The scientific theory involves multiple lines of studies from multiple fields including game theory and sociobiology.

None of that is in dispute. Free marketeers dispute the socialist assertion implied premise that the State (the dominant extortion racket in your neighborhood) is an efficient instrument of that altruism.

 

[RandFan]

Like this?

The most recent of those was July. It's October now. Perhaps you could try a little civility.

 

[RandFan]

None of that is in dispute. Free marketeers dispute the socialist assertion implied premise that the State (the dominant extortion racket in your neighborhood) is an efficient instrument of that altruism.

You can dispute it all day long but at the end of the day you have no index for which to turn to. The nations with the greatest wealth and well being are societies that regulate business and provide social services.

If and when you can show us that your *libertarian ideal has any basis in any reality you let us know. Until then the lack of social programs is negatively correlated with wealthy and healthy nations. Oh, put your hand down, I'm not claiming that it's a simple "cause and effect". I'm claiming that there is a dynamic feed back loop. As nations gain wealth they can provide more resources to the poor and that in turn results in raising the wealth of the poor and they are more productive, healthier and society as a whole does better.

Again, any day you have those stats for your *libertarian reality you'll be sure and let us all know. I was a staunch conservative/libertarian/etc. until 2-3 years ago and I'll be damned if I could ever find them.

*Before you complain that you are not a libertarian let me remind you that I'm just as much a socialist as you are libertarian. The sword cuts both ways. If you are going to label me a socialist then I'm going to label you a libertarian.

We can both battle straw men.

 

[RandFan]

I wanted to say one more thing about these posts, aside from how long ago I said them, they are correct.

Originally Posted by RandFan
Ignorance is bliss though, right Malcolm?


Originally Posted by RandFan
Malcolm would be fine if I had been denied an education. He would rather that I be poor and uneducated than to have the opportunity to better my life.


Originally Posted by RandFan
Malcolm would be fine with parents exploiting their children.


Originally Posted by RandFan
Pointing out that your remarks are bigoted and incoherent isn't ad hominem.


Originally Posted by RandFan
You don't care if poor people suffer without state run compulsory education.

You have shown zero interest in the poor. I have over and over used myself as an example and you simply do not care. You say you cannot predict what will happen and that it's not your responsibility. You paint a pretty thoughtless and amoral attitude toward the poor. Sure, you appeal to magical mechanisms that you cannot explain but you assure us will suddenly appear and that will take care of the poor, if we only would get rid of the very things that help the poor.

Thing is, we have history. We know that people without retirements had very difficult lives. We know that the plight of the poor was worse then than it is now. We know that most poor Americans lived short miserable lives.

We also have the present where con men business owners will charge usurious interest rates on the poor (upwards of 3,686%. There are laws in most states that make it illegal for private parties to charge those kinds of rates. If I were to charge you that very same rate here in California I could be arrested and go to jail. But for some odd reason the invisible hand protects the rich and not the poor in this case.

Then there are the dollar stores. Where cheap junk is peddled to poor people in massive quantities. A dollar can opener that lasts a month costs many times more than a quality can opener at a department store.

You know all of this. I've stated these facts over and over and you ignore them. You ignore them because you don't care. Your attitude toward the poor isn't immoral. It isn't malevolent. It's just thoughtless and amoral.

Those statements were not uncivil. They were fair.

Now, here is the punchline, it is an objective fact that your ideal society would not work. It would make society worse. The goose that lays the golden egg isn't simply the "job makers". It's the people who work hard at those jobs. They need to be well fed and healthy in order to be productive. Yet WallMart let's the govt pick up that tab while they try harder and harder to do away with social programs.

One hell of a punchline, biting your nose to spite your face.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

You have shown zero interest in the poor.

Three possibilities:
1. Randfan's memory of what he had read in this discussion fades after a day or so.
2. Randfan's reading comprehension is seriously deficient.
3. Randfan lies without shame.

I have repeatedly observed:
"Political control of school harms most the children of the least politically adept parents" (Use the search function. This will probably occur more than ten times in this discussion), and "Surveys find blacks are more likely to support vouchers than are whites. Support for vouchers rises as income falls. Poor people want OUT of the cartel's wretched schools". I can demonstrate that Randfan has seen posts which contain those expressions.

 

[RandFan]

Three possibilities:
1. Randfan's....

Malcolm still has not learned civility.

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

This is just ad hoc rationalization. At the end of the day you cannot explain how a poor person would or could get an eduction. You rely on some mystical power of the free market, never mind that there is ample evidence that the free market screws poor people as often as it can.

You cannot or will not address the many arguments I've made about how the free market screws the poor daily. The free market bleeds the poor for every penny possibly. From Rent-to-own schemes that make poor people pay many times more for an item than rich people, to pay-day-loan schemes that charge usurious interest rates to dollar stores that sell worthless junk with very short service lives, etc., etc.. The free market knows how to bleed the poor. The one thing the poor has is that the free market can't screw them out of an education.

You want to change that.

You don't care about the poor because you know these facts and refuse to address them. If you want to call someone a liar I suggest you find the nearest mirror.

 

[RandFan]

Let's not forget, you actually favor child labor which you euphemistically call "on the job training".

BTW: Before you start off on your "apprentice" or "internship' argument.... again, white color and many skilled professions still require attendance at high school, university or college before they will employ someone as a paid or unpaid intern. So that argument is dead before you even attempt to spout it.

One last thing, you've yet to provide an example of a nation that has no social services and is high in wealth and well-being.

 

[A'isha]

You ask a two-part question. State-worshipful indoctrination in US schools: Remember this twit?

A teacher telling his students that the elected President of the United States is like Hitler and that America is a terrible nation would seem to be the exact opposite of "state-worshipful indoctrination".

Remember Obama songs?

You mean the song that students during a single assembly at a single school were singing as part of their Black History Month lessons?

That seems...somewhat less than convincing evidence of "state-worshipful indoctrination".

Consider any high school Social Studies text which ignores communist infiltration of the Franklin Roosevelt administration, which claims that FDR's policies ended the Depression, which represents minimum wage legislation as beneficial to low-skilled job seekers.

I would hope schools don't teach their students loony right-wing free-marketeer talking points!

Consider Warren Cohen's Ethics in Thought and Action, published by the UH CRDG for secondary Social Studies classes, which holds "western state Republicans" responsible for the war of 1812 (the Republican Party did not exist until 1854).

CRDG did not "publish" that book. And talking about "Republicans" in the context of the war of 1812 is...well, pretty much a standard and accurate description of them commonly used by historians, considering what the Democratic-Republican party referred to itself and its members by at the time.

As to your complaint in another JREF thread that Cohen didn't mention that the Democratic-Republicans became the modern Democratic party, both the Republican and Democratic parties that exist today descend from that earlier party. The party split into factions after 1824, one of which became the Democratic Party, the other which became first the National Republican Party, and then the Whig Party, which itself in turn factionalized over slavery in the 1850's - Southern Whigs mostly joined the Know-Nothings, while Northern and anti-slavery Whigs founded the Republican Party.

Neither Cuba nor North Korea permits parents to keep their children out of State-operated schools.

The US does, though.

Compulsory attendance at government schools is a feature of totalitarian States.

What does that have to do with the US, which does not have "compulsory attendance at government schools"?

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

You have shown zero interest in the poor.

Three possibilities:
1. Randfan's memory of what he had read in this discussion fades after a day or so.
2. Randfan's reading comprehension is seriously deficient.
3. Randfan lies without shame.

I have repeatedly observed:
"Political control of school harms most the children of the least politically adept parents". ...

This is just ad hoc rationalization.

No. It's an empirical generalization. Across the US the test score gap between children of high-school-educated black parents and the children of college-educated white parents (or between blacks overall and whites overall) widens as districts increase in size. Herman Brutsaert found higher mean scored in parochial schoolsthan I government schools in Belgium and a lower correlation between test scores and parent SES in parochial schools than in government-operated schools (government operation of school exacerbates inequality).

... At the end of the day you cannot explain how a poor person would or could get an eduction.

Readers may assess. Use the search function. I have explained: school can be expensive; education is potentially cheap. On-the-job training is education.

... You rely on some mystical power of the free market, never mind that there is ample evidence that the free market screws poor people as often as it can.

Randfan claims to endorse capitalism.
This looks increasing unlikely, given assertions such as that above. I asked earlier for a link to a Randfan comment in any JREF thread where Randfan supports deregulation of some industry, or the retreat of the State from operation of some productive or service industry (privatization). How 'bout it? Link = ___?

There's no "mystic power" in markets, to people who have read basic economics. Competitive markets generate information about consumer preferences. Competitive markets generate information about the cost of inputs used in production (businesses are customers of inputs). Competitive markets and the profit motive together link the magnitude of the reward for the discovery of improved production methods to the value of the discovery. An informed advocate for the capitalist economic system would know this.

You cannot or will not address the many arguments I've made about how the free market screws the poor daily. The free market bleeds the poor for every penny possibly. From Rent-to-own schemes that make poor people pay many times more for an item than rich people, to pay-day-loan schemes that charge usurious interest rates to dollar stores that sell worthless junk with very short service lives, etc., etc.. The free market knows how to bleed the poor. The one thing the poor has is that the free market can't screw them out of an education. You want to change that.

Only a government can force people to buy crap. Only a government can force children of the poor to waste 12 years of their lives in abusive, intellectually stultifying part-time prisons.

You don't care about the poor because you know these facts and refuse to address them. If you want to call someone a liar I suggest you find the nearest mirror.[/QUOTE]

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

A teacher telling his students that the elected President of the United States is like Hitler and that America is a terrible nation would seem to be the exact opposite of "state-worshipful indoctrination".

The alternative to a Republican President is a Democrat (i.e., more government). Kirov's assassination boosted Stalin.

Consider any high school Social Studies text which ignores communist infiltration of the Franklin Roosevelt administration, which claims that FDR's policies ended the Depression, which represents minimum wage legislation as beneficial to low-skilled job seekers.

I would hope schools don't teach their students loony right-wing free-marketeer talking points!

Was Alger Hiss NOT a Soviet Agent? Was Whitaker Chambers NOT a Soviet agent? Here's Wikipedia:

Harry Dexter White (October 9, 1892 – August 16, 1948) was an American economist, and a senior U.S. Treasury department official. He was the senior American official at the 1944 Bretton Woods conference. He dominated the conference and imposed his vision of post-war financial institutions over the objections of John Maynard Keynes, the British representative. After the war, White was a major architect of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.

White was accused in 1948 of being a spy for the Soviet Union. In August 1948, White testified and defended his record to the House Un-American Activities Committee. Three days after testifying he died of a heart attack. Historians state that newly opened Soviet records show he passed secret state information to the Soviets during World War II.

A State-mandated minimum wage of $X (where $X is greater than zero) means people whose labor is worth less than $X to every employer will not find employment. Consider black teenage unemployment since the 2007 increase in the Federal minimum wage.
On the Great Depression, I recommend Friedman, __Money Mischief__ and Powell, FRD's Folly: How Roosevelt and His New Deal Prolonged the Great Depression.

Consider Warren Cohen's Ethics in Thought and Action, published by the UH CRDG for secondary Social Studies classes, which holds "western state Republicans" responsible for the war of 1812 (the Republican Party did not exist until 1854).

CRDG did not "publish" that book. And talking about "Republicans" in the context of the war of 1812 is...well, pretty much a standard and accurate description of them commonly used by historians, considering what the Democratic-Republican party referred to itself and its members by at the time.

In 1812, the two dominant parties were the Federalists (e.g., Alexander Hamilton) and the Democratic-Republicans ("Republicans", for short). The D-Rs were the party of smallholders (broadly speaking, about as loose as a one-sentence characterization of today's parties would be). The D-Rs (of which Jefferson was one) became the Democratic Party of today. There was no "Republican" party in 1812 and the lineage of the party whose members, in 1812, were called "republicans" traces to today's Democratic party. Yes, historians know this, so Cohen did not speak in ignorance; he lied.

As to your complaint in another JREF thread that Cohen didn't mention that the Democratic-Republicans became the modern Democratic party, both the Republican and Democratic parties that exist today descend from that earlier party. The party split into factions after 1824, one of which became the Democratic Party, the other which became first the National Republican Party, and then the Whig Party, which itself in turn factionalized over slavery in the 1850's - Southern Whigs mostly joined the Know-Nothings, while Northern and anti-slavery Whigs founded the Republican Party.

Not according to Wikipedia.

The Whig Party was a political party active in the early 19th century in the United States. Four Presidents of the United States were members of the Whig Party. Considered integral to the Second Party System and operating from the early 1830s to the mid-1850s,[1] the party was formed in opposition to the policies of President Andrew Jackson and his Democratic Party. ...
The party was ultimately destroyed by the question of whether to allow the expansion of slavery to the territories. With deep fissures in the party on this question, the anti-slavery faction prevented the re-nomination of its own incumbent President Fillmore in the 1852 presidential election; instead, the party nominated General Winfield Scott. Most Whig party leaders thereupon quit politics (as Abraham Lincoln did temporarily) or changed parties. The northern voter base mostly joined the new Republican Party.

The Republican Party was a splinter of the Free Soil Party.

The party ran John P. Hale in the 1852 presidential election, but its share of the popular vote shrank to less than 5%. However, two years later, after enormous outrage over the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, the remains of the Free Soil Party helped form the Republican Party.[3]

I did not claim that Cohen's lies are as obvious as Randfan's. The slippery use of terms that vary over time make his deceptions less subject to short and immediate refutation.

 

[Niche Geek]

The alternative to a Republican President is a Democrat (i.e., more government).

This is your explanation for how criticism of Bush was statist worship? Really? Really? From afar it looks as though both of the US parties interfere in citizen's lives in ways that your philosophy would seem to preclude. This argument appears to be irrational and based upon a deduction from false premises. More precisely, you seem to be assuming the consequent. I suspect you'll have a very very hard time showing the Republicans, particularly under Bush, represent small government.

 

[RandFan]

Randfan...

Malcolm is still a stranger to civility.

I have explained: school can be expensive; education is potentially cheap. On-the-job training is education.

That you have "explained" something is not in and of itself evidence of anything. You need to support your claims and not simply make them. And of course you ignore, again, my point that you typically cannot get on the job training for anything other than menial work without some high school or university education.

Competitive markets and the profit motive together link the magnitude of the reward for the discovery of improved production methods to the value of the discovery.

This isn't in dispute. What also isn't in dispute is your refusal to acknowledge facts. Free markets don't protect the poor from predatory practices. Been born disadvantaged has a meaning.

...claims to endorse capitalism.

Pointing out that capitalism is not without problems hardly calls for your conclusion. Capitalism is the greatest economic engine in the history of mankind. Of course I endorse capitalism. I think capitalism should be regulated to protect the vulnerable from predators. Of course you know this. You've just devolved into a "gotcha" argument. You are not reading to understand but to find something to quibble with. No one reading what I wrote would conclude that I'm against capitalism. I'm against laissez-faire capitalism. The freedom of the market must be balanced with the protection of the vulnerable.

I asked earlier for a link to a Randfan comment in any JREF thread where Randfan supports deregulation of some industry, or the retreat of the State from operation of some productive or service industry (privatization). How 'bout it? Link = ___?

I have supported deregulation. Ask Nova Land. As a conservative and as a fan of Ayn Rand I was often for deregulation. In fact, for a time, my signature was "the government that governs best is the government that governs least". I don't need to prove myself to you. Please to show me a link where I advocated government take over of any business? How 'bout it? Link =_____?

Anyway, enough with the red herrings. Where is your evidence for your claims? Where is the list of nations that are high in wealth and well being and have little or no social programs? They don't exist for a very simple reason. We are an evolved social species and failing to take care of the disadvantaged and vulnerable harms society over all. Given how many nations exist, given how many have adopted democracy and capitalism, surely you could find some evidence for your claim, assuming of course your claim was best for society. Someone should have caught on by now. I think there are many nations that meet your criteria. I just think they result in low standards of living for most people and that's why you don't have any evidence and I do.

I'm guessing we won't be getting any science from you that supports your beliefs either, right?

Let me guess,

more cricket sounds, right?

 

[RandFan]

This looks increasing unlikely, given assertions such as that above. I asked earlier for a link to a Randfan comment in any JREF thread where Randfan supports deregulation of some industry, or the retreat of the State from operation of some productive or service industry (privatization). How 'bout it? Link = ___?

While I don't need to defend myself I will humor you.

...I agree with you when it comes to regulations. I think we need to weed out the bad ones. I think there are a lot of bad regulations.

 

[RandFan]

Oh, BTW, let me clear up a bit of your obfuscation. One does not need to believe in deregulation to endorse capitalism. You have conflated capitalism with Laissez-Faire Capitalism. They are not mutually inclusive. I believe industry should have some degree of regulation. I think many industries are over regulated and many are under-regulated.

What we need is to balance the needs of citizens and the rights and needs of industry. It's not an easy task but the notion that deregulation will make things better is akin to saying that getting rid of traffic laws will improve traffic conditions.

 

[A'isha]

The alternative to a Republican President is a Democrat (i.e., more government). Kirov's assassination boosted Stalin.

Niche Geek did an adequate job of pointing out how ludicrous this is.

Was Alger Hiss NOT a Soviet Agent? Was Whitaker Chambers NOT a Soviet agent?

So were Aldrich Ames, David Boone, Edward Howard, and Ronald Pelton, yet I see a distinct lack of demands that social studies books teach about the Soviet infiltration of the Reagan Administration.

A State-mandated minimum wage of $X (where $X is greater than zero) means people whose labor is worth less than $X to every employer will not find employment. Consider black teenage unemployment since the 2007 increase in the Federal minimum wage.

It's a good thing there wasn't anything else that might have happened to the economy after the 2007 increase in the Federal minimum wage which had an impact on unemployment rates, isn't there.

On the Great Depression, I recommend Friedman, __Money Mischief__ and Powell, FRD's Folly: How Roosevelt and His New Deal Prolonged the Great Depression.

Powell's Cato Institute propaganda has been cited a lot by right-wingers seeking to create a revisionist history of the Great Depression, and his arguments are based on things like deliberately undercounting the number of full-time employees under the New Deal so he can pretend that the "real" unemployment rate was a lot higher.

In 1812, the two dominant parties were the Federalists (e.g., Alexander Hamilton) and the Democratic-Republicans ("Republicans", for short). The D-Rs were the party of smallholders (broadly speaking, about as loose as a one-sentence characterization of today's parties would be). The D-Rs (of which Jefferson was one) became the Democratic Party of today.

They became both the Republican and Democratic parties of today. The Federalists vanished, and the Democratic-Republicans became the Democrats and the Whigs, with the Whigs later evolving into the Republicans.

There was no "Republican" party in 1812 and the lineage of the party whose members, in 1812, were called "republicans" traces to today's Democratic party.

There was no "Republican" party, but there was a party whose members were called "Republicans"? I see.

And the the lineage of the party whose members, in 1812, were called "Republicans" traces to today's Republican party as well.

Yes, historians know this, so Cohen did not speak in ignorance; he lied.

As the other historical work I linked to showed you, historians who write about the Democratic-Republican party of 1812 call them just "Republicans" (or, sometimes, Jeffersonian Republicans), the same way Cohen did.

If there are lies being told here, they're not being told by Cohen.

Not according to Wikipedia.

Yes, according to Wikipedia.

From that exact same Wiki article, which lies in between the two sections you quote above but that you snipped out and omitted to mention:

Most of the founders of the Whig party had supported Jeffersonian democracy and the Democratic-Republican Party. The Democratic-Republicans who formed the Whig party, led by Henry Clay and John Quincy Adams, drew on a Jeffersonian tradition of compromise and balance in government, national unity, territorial expansion, and support for a national transportation network and domestic manufacturing.

Democratic-Republicans who opposed Jackson formed the Whig party, whose members in turn formed the Republican party.

The Republican Party was a splinter of the Free Soil Party.

No, it wasn't. As the wiki articles that you are misquoting clearly note, it it was formed from an 1854 coalition of northern Whigs and Free Soil members (who themselves were largely Democrats), with most of the membership being former Whigs.

One more time: the Democratic-Republicans split into the Democrats and the Whigs. The Whigs in turn split into northern Whigs and southern Whigs, with the northern Whigs joining with an offshoot party of the Democrats to form the Republicans, and the southern Whigs joining first the Know-Nothings, then the Constitutional Union party.

I did not claim that Cohen's lies are as obvious as Randfan's.

Neither one has told any lies.

 

[RandFan]

:A State-mandated minimum wage of $X (where $X is greater than zero) means people whose labor is worth less than $X to every employer will not find employment.

• Australia has a minimum wage of $16.88
• An unemployment rate of 5.8%
• Is ranked 3rd in Economic Freedom
• Is ranked 2nd in Human Development,

Where is your evidence Malcolm? Why is it that I can find evidence counter to your claims? Please to support your claims with something more than explanations and philosophical argument. Anything can be "explained" and argued.

Got evidence?

 

[Border Reiver]

No, I don't think he does.

Nor does he have an answer as to why private schools in Canada cost more than what the public options spend per student. (Yes, public options)

He can though indicate that democracy is not effective by engaging in reductio ad absurdum

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

This is your explanation for how criticism of Bush was statist worship?

In the case of Jay Bennish, yes. Not in general.

From afar it looks as though both of the US parties interfere in citizen's lives in ways that your philosophy would seem to preclude.

True.

This argument appears to be irrational and based upon a deduction from false premises. More precisely, you seem to be assuming the consequent. I suspect you'll have a very very hard time showing the Republicans, particularly under Bush, represent small government.

They don't. They represent smaller government than Democrats (as a general rule). I was not a fan of Bush I or Bush II, but even less a fan of Dukakis, Gore, Kerry, or Obama.
I don't agree with anyone 100%--not even me. Give me a sufficiently detailed and wide-ranging political preference questionnaire, that covers issues from drug policy, occupational licensure, the scope of federalism, eminent domain, trade policy, foreign aid, defense policy, environmental policy, etc., and, when I'm done, immediately give me the same questionnaire, and I'll probably have reconsidered some of my answers.