kuro5hin.org || How Home-Schooling Harms the Nation

measl at mfn.org measl at mfn.org
Thu Aug 30 23:20:49 PDT 2001



On Thu, 30 Aug 2001 mmotyka at lsil.com wrote:
> measl at mfn.org  wrote :
> 
> <zap>
> my old stuff :
> >> Another facet is that the well-to-do are attempting to remove their
> >> funds from the systems so they can use those funds to educate their
> >> children as they choose. A voucher system would surely benefit me
> >> financially. This is a reasonable desire but it will have a negative
> >> effect on the public school systems and a subsequent negative effect on
> >> the society as a whole.
> >
> >So I must educate my children according to the public good, and not the
> >good of the kids themselves?  Fuck you.
> >
> Learn to read poopyhead (isn't that now the official CP insult?). 

Actually, I think the currently "hip" term would be "twit" :-)

> Look at the part you snipped :
> 
>   I'm not saying that it (vouchers or other defunding)
>   should be ruled out but you should at least think 
>   about the implications a bit.  

Which, in context, is clearly a justification of what follows it.

> All I said was that actions can have unintended consequences. 

No, you did not.  Nowhere was this said or implied.  What you said is
above, so there is no need to <QUOTE> it here as well.

> Make well
> considered choices. Look at the power industry deregulation in CA. Too
> much, too quickly and poorly crafted. 

I am not endowed with any expertise on this topic, so I cannot make any
considered judgement on the example.  Having thrown out the required
caveat, it seems to me that the deregulation was only a small part of the
problem.  Of course, I am truly talking out of my ass on this topic, so I
will leave it here...

> By all means let's improve the
> educational opportunities in this country but not with some stooopid
> knee-jerk approach. 

The fact that you consider this a "knee jerk" response does not make it
so: you have no way of knowing how much or little I have looked into this
topic.  As someone who has had 4 kids in various public and private
schools, as well as person who has personally attended two private and
three public schools, I have had ample incentive to look at homeschooling
when it began to cross my radar about three years ago.

My beliefs regarding homeschooling are very definitely _not_
knee-jerk reactions.  And my statements regarding the state of the public
schools is from personal first hand experience, both as a student, and as
a parent.

> Try and do it in one fell swoop based on right-wing
> war chants and I'll bet you do more harm than good.

What "right wing war chants"?  Where the hell do you get the idea I'm a
right wing type of guy?  Just because I believe that home schooling is a
Good Thing and that the public schools are a life threatening repository
of brainwashing and bad karma?  Last I heard, it took a LOT more than this
to qualify as "right wing".


> I know the masses are a bit thick but do you 
> want them to be even thicker? 
> >
> >To be frank, sending kids to public schools is practically *requiring*
> >that they become "thick", merely in order to _survive_.
> >
> This statement is neither entirely true nor entirely false but it sure
> as hell is a knee-jerk reaction to the issue.

Again with the knee jerk label.  If it's a view you disagree with, it's a
knee-jerk reaction, huh?

> Sounds like the sort of
> foolishness that Rush Limbaugh vomits on the airwaves.

I wouldn't know, I don't have much use for Rush, and have only heard
*about* his show.  However, we again see the disparaging of view with
which you disagree as terms such as "foolishness".  This "position" is
hardly persuasive.  Perhaps you can enlighten us as to WHY it is so
"foolish"?  Perhaps you can trade some FIRST HAND information you have on
the state of the public schools, so that we may more readily examine the
ISSUES before us, and not your assertions that all positions you disfavor
are "knee jerk reactions"?
 
> >> I wish there were more ( and better ) educational choices and that those
> >> choices were reflected reasonably in the financial systems but every
> >> proposal I've seen so far sucks moose bladder through a hairy straw.
> >
> >While you claim to favor choices, you have just argued that these choices
> >should not be available.
> >
> Uh, nope, that's not what I said. I said I would be in favor of
> carefully considered proposals. Proposals that are fair to individuals
> and beneficial to the community.

No.  Your post did make several statements which claimed to favor
proposals that were fair to the community, but NOT to
individuals.  Personally, I think the Good Of The Many depends totally
upon the Good Of The Few.  The macrocosmic must fail if the microcosmic is
broken.

> Again, the two goals are neither
> completely compatible nor mutually exclusive.

While I actually agree with this assertion to a degree, I would also
caveat it with (1) I can only supply a very weak degree of "confidence" in
the truth of this assertion, and (2) I am unable to compellingly argue
either for or against it.  This type of conundrum should lead the more
analytic amongst us to examine these issues on a much deeper basis,
hopefully to determine what properties are impeding the discovery of the
actual truth or flasity of the above premises...
 
> >Make up your mind.
> >
> I have : good ideas, thumbs up, bad ideas, thumbs down. 

The ideas expressed above, namely the Good Of The Many outweighs the Good
Of The Few: Thumbs Down.

> >Yours, 
> >J.A. Terranson
> >sysadmin at mfn.org

> Fuck you back,
> Mike

Taken from you as an honor, and with a smile (which was much needed
tonight! Thanks!).

-- 
Yours, 
J.A. Terranson
sysadmin at mfn.org

If Governments really want us to behave like civilized human beings, they
should give serious consideration towards setting a better example:
Ruling by force, rather than consensus; the unrestrained application of
unjust laws (which the victim-populations were never allowed input on in
the first place); the State policy of justice only for the rich and 
elected; the intentional abuse and occassionally destruction of entire
populations merely to distract an already apathetic and numb electorate...
This type of demogoguery must surely wipe out the fascist United States
as surely as it wiped out the fascist Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

The views expressed here are mine, and NOT those of my employers,
associates, or others.  Besides, if it *were* the opinion of all of
those people, I doubt there would be a problem to bitch about in the
first place...
--------------------------------------------------------------------






More information about the cypherpunks-legacy mailing list