"Freedom" thread or something

dtguitarfan wrote: There's a difference between using fear to push your agenda, and using facts that happen to imply scary things to push your agenda.   For example, I read a story about a pile of dead bees underneath some trees that were flowering.   The story mentioned a certain type of pesticide that people have said has harmful effects on bees and has been used in the area where the bees were found.   That has scary implications and many would come to the conclusions that we should make this type of pesticide illegal if we don't want the bee population to go extinct (which would be quite harmful to the human population).   Now on the other side of the story is the purely fear based conservative notion that if the government makes this type of pesticide illegal, it means that the government has too much power and we're going to turn into Nazi Germany.   There's a difference between fear resulting from facts and fear used to incite imagination.

There are no facts behind the fear of GMOs or vaccines. The example you give provides a fact(dead bees) with hearsay (people say the pesticide is harmful.) You could give a similar example for immigration (which I don't agree with, but for the sake of argument.) Fact: there are millions of immigrants living and working illegally in the country. Hearsay: people say this is harmful to our economy and results in higher crime.

I am not defending fear based tactics and I acknowledge that both sides do it. The reason people don't take you seriously is that you can never admit any wrongdoing by the democrats, whereas everything the republicans do is evil. Yours is such a one-sided perspective that anyone can see it doesn't reflect reality. Try to have some objectivity in your analysis and you'll see that while, yes, the republicans do plenty of terrible stuff, so does any political party that has a significant amount of power.

^I don't see it as an offence Gerinski. In fact, I agree with you in your statement about how both societies have evolved. The way the US is and its people are, I don't see a gigantic government working for the better in all ways. I have come to think that there's no absolute "best" system that can be applied to all societies. Of course, more freedom benefits everybody, but to reach the stage where that is possible there's no single perfect good-for-all-peoples path.

Edited by The T - June 21 2013 at 12:37

thellama73 wrote: dtguitarfan wrote: There's a difference between using fear to push your agenda, and using facts that happen to imply scary things to push your agenda.   For example, I read a story about a pile of dead bees underneath some trees that were flowering.   The story mentioned a certain type of pesticide that people have said has harmful effects on bees and has been used in the area where the bees were found.   That has scary implications and many would come to the conclusions that we should make this type of pesticide illegal if we don't want the bee population to go extinct (which would be quite harmful to the human population).   Now on the other side of the story is the purely fear based conservative notion that if the government makes this type of pesticide illegal, it means that the government has too much power and we're going to turn into Nazi Germany.   There's a difference between fear resulting from facts and fear used to incite imagination. There are no facts behind the fear of GMOs or vaccines. The example you give provides a fact(dead bees) with hearsay (people say the pesticide is harmful.) You could give a similar example for immigration (which I don't agree with, but for the sake of argument.) Fact: there are millions of immigrants living and working illegally in the country. Hearsay: people say this is harmful to our economy and results in higher crime. I am not defending fear based tactics and I acknowledge that both sides do it. The reason people don't take you seriously is that you can never admit any wrongdoing by the democrats, whereas everything the republicans do is evil. Yours is such a one-sided perspective that anyone can see it doesn't reflect reality. Try to have some objectivity in your analysis and you'll see that while, yes, the republicans do plenty of terrible stuff, so does any political party that has a significant amount of power.

But here's the problem - I do disagree with democrats in office from time to time.  In general, however, I have found myself in agreement with them.  Therefore they are the party I'm sticking with.  Now whenever anyone brings up things I should not like about the Democrats, it's because they want me to come to the illogical conclusion that therefore I should not vote Democrat but should go either Republican or Libertarian.  That's illogical, however, because just because I disagree with one policy doesn't mean I disagree with them all, nor does it mean the other party has a better package of policies.
Now I think there is something very, very wrong with the Republican party right now.  If I am right, it would not be a very good strategy for me to come out saying "here's all the things I think are stupid about the Democrats", is it?  If I am right about there being something  very wrong within the Republican party that is affecting just about everyone within, well then I'm going to focus on pointing out what's wrong there, right?

I apologize for the lengthy response, but I wanted to give a detailed perspective on the public education system in the United States.  Feel free to read at your leisure. 

Gerinski wrote: The problem is that many children have parents which are unworthy and even at home they don't teach anything to their children (that is, anything useful). Children are not responsible for the misbehaving or problems of their parents. Public education is not so much returning a service for those parents who pay the taxes, it's a service to the children of the country, to make sure that all those children rising in problem families are not condemned to a life of misery and get a chance of being better than their parents, and that they will not become criminals which will cost the society even more trouble than the cost of giving them a decent education. People with enough money send their children to private school anyway, there are many private schools here which are not that expensive anyway because they receive some subsidizing from the government as well. This is convenient for a balanced system so that public schools are not flooded and the difference in education level between public and private is kept very reasonable. In a way you can think of it as 'retarded payment taxes'. For normal public services you may think that you pay taxes and then receive back services. I pay taxes and they collect my trash. With education it's the opposite. As a child the government made sure that you had a chance to get educated, regardless of how and where you were born. In return, as an adult you return that opportunity (regardless if you made us of it or not) by paying taxes which in turn guarantee the same opportunity to the children being born now. The same with public health care for people under working age. You might argue whether a working-age citizen should receive public health care, but a child with a health problem has no guilt of being poor or his parents being junkies and there's no reason why society should refuse to give him treatment. In the future as an adult he will hopefully become a productive citizen paying his taxes and contributing to the country so it's worth treating him (even besides moral considerations). Public services like education and health are an investment for the future of the society. The need to prevent people misusing the services is something altogether different from the principles behind.

Public school cannot adequately serve as a substitute for strong and faithful parenting.  In my experience, children of troubled homes often carry their troubles with them into the school setting, meaning they could not focus on academic matters.  This led to poor marks and disciplinary issues that would spill back into the home, creating an unfortunate cycle.  It's hard for people in general to separate home and "work" life, and much more so for developing adolescents. 

My first two years of teaching were not spent in a traditional public high school; I taught in a charter school for at-risk youth (mark that- the public schools hired a private company to handle their most difficult students).  Now I teach in a traditional public high school.  I can attest that the charter school, despite the students all having troubled backgrounds, was much more effective in student growth than the public school.  I'll leave it at that unless you want my opinion on why this is.

If you do not mind a bit of reading, I'm going to give a few anecdotes that are reflective of the culture we are experiencing in public schools.  Let me preface this by saying that these are my personal experiences as a high school teacher, but they are experencies shared by my colleagues who have taught in other parts of the country.

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First hand, I can tell you that most students don't go to school to learn.  They go to socialize.  They keep ear buds in their ears and they are constantly on their cell phones.  I have to repeat myself because students are blasting musical abominations into their ears constantly.  They were born in the age of the Internet, but have almost no skill in the use of search engines.  Many of them have names that show their parents lacked phonetic awareness.

These are not the exceptions- they are the norm.  Some even wear Pink Floyd apparel without any understanding of what Pink Floyd is (one of them told me Pink Floyd was a university ).

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I am routinely given 11th grade students (age 16 or 17) who cannot form a complete sentence.  I am not exaggerating.  They believe an education is a burden, not a privilege, and at the same time they believe it is something to which they are entitled.

(I never hear someone say "I need to be educated," a statement that implies a change of self; instead it is always said, "I need to get my education," a statement that implies exactly what many students believe: That an education is that piece of paper called a diploma they get after being pushed through thirteen years of mandatory public schooling).

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One of my students this past year was failing my course, knew it, and it didn't bother him.  He told me he would just pay the fee to take the computer-based course over the summer.  I asked him what this computer-based course consisted of, and he said, "Aw, pa, all you do is read a little bit and let the time run out."  (His exact words- his use of the word "pa" is an idiosyncrasy of his particular culture). 

So I asked him "Why would you take the course if you don't learn anything?" 

He replied, "So I can get my English credit." 

Then I asked, "Why would you need an English credit?"

He said, "So I can graduate, pa."

I pointed to my printer and I said to him, "I tell you what.  I will go on my computer and create a diploma for you right now- print it right off.  It will have your name, where you went to school, the date, and it will say you are ready for college or ready for a career."

"Hey pa, you'd do that for me?"  (He completely thought I was serious)

"Yes, I will!" I said.  "And while I'm at it, I'll print you off a second certificate that says you're a unicorn.

He didn't get the joke.

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Most of my students cannot perform basic math mentally.  Once, a student spent two minutes (I watched the clock) as she used her cell phone to subtract 50 from 1982.

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One of my students asked if she could leave her bag in my classroom during one of her other classes.  I said that she could.

Well, I got a call later and had to meet someone on the other side of campus.  Realizing that the girl might come to retrieve her belongings in my absence (I keep my door locked when I am not there), I gave her bag to the teacher across from me.  Then I taped a large note in green marker with her name on it, telling her to retrieve her belongings from across the hall.

As I was coming back from my errand, I spotted the student.  She looked dismayed.  I asked her what was the matter.  She told me that she had needed her things, but that I wasn't there and the door was locked.

I asked her if she saw the note I left on the door.

Her exact words: "No.  I didn't read it because I didn't know if it pertained to me or not."

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Aside from what the state mandates, I design my own assessments for each period of American literature.

My assessments are 100% open note (students are welcome to use any notes they took during the course) and 100% open book (students are encouraged to refer back to the literature and provide examples to support their responses).  There are six questions, but only five are required (if you were absent and missed a piece of literature, you could still respond satisfactorily to five questions and earn the highest mark; if you answered all six and blew one, you could still earn the highest mark).  Many of the questions are opinion-based, but need to be supported by evidence from the text.

Students frequently fail.

We read excerpts from Walden.  On one assessment, I provide a quotation, and after the quotation, I ask, "What does Thoreau mean?"

On three separate occasions, I had a student ask if he could use a dictionary.

"Of course," I replied and fetched one for them.

On all three occasions, the students gained confused and frustrated expressions.  "What's wrong?" I asked.

"This word isn't in the dictionary."

I looked to the word they indicated.  I said, "Thoreau is the author's last name."


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I would say the majority of my students are on some form of government assistance, and they are proud about it.  I am not making this up: I once had an entire class that one day chose to talk about what they were going to get with their food stamps (spicy Cheetos was the most popular item) rather than focus on any academic task.  Never mind that these children all have nicer cell phones than I do (we have one AT&T Go phone, $10 a month).  They wear expensive shoes and name brand clothing. 

In the cafeteria, I often watch these children accept their free school lunches, eat a few tater tots, and put of the entire meal in the garbage bin. 


++++

One of my students had had a child.

Well, many of my students have had a child.  Some two.

One day during class, a student asked me how much it cost to have a baby.  Having had three, with three very different experiences, I was happy to entertain the question.

The girl who'd had a child said (with a hint of pride in her voice), "Having my baby was free."

I asked her what she meant.  She said, "The Medicaid Company paid for my baby."

"The Medicaid Company?" I asked.

She happily nodded and went on to explain that the Medicaid Company was a company that paid all her bills for her.  I asked her if she knew where they got the money to pay for her hospital bills.  She shook her head, saying "I don't know.  They a business that pay for you when you have a baby."

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My point in all of this, Gerinski, is just because something is taxpayer funded doesn't mean it's efficient, successful, or even noble.

More funding cannot fix the mess we are in.  Our school could have ten billion dollars, and I could have a salary of $1 million, and there's no way I could get a sixteen-year-old who reads and writes like a six-year-old to proficiency, let alone 60+ students in five months' time.  And if the student doesn't pass, they often will be herded along to the next grade anyway (see my "pa" anecdote above).  Or if a parent just complains enough, the school passes the child along.

Not all investments yield a return.  The US spends an average of $11,000 per year per pupil on education, yet we're ranked 17th.  Our government isn't spending our money helping people out of undesirable circumstances.

What it is doing is subsidizing poverty.

Epignosis wrote: dtguitarfan wrote: Epignosis wrote: dtguitarfan wrote: The T wrote: So is any mindset. Mind you Geoff, I was quite the stalinist before (well, not really) but I always had libertarian leanings in personal freedoms. I challenged my own views by checking others' and thus I became more of a proper libertarian and even then my views were not definite, since I used to be more anarchic for a while. It IS possible. You also said you changed your views but the way you argue (or politicize the debate, more clearly), it would seem you are similar to the guy who used to be something that now embarrasses him and has become the absolute opposite trying to atone for past sins. That's all. Nobody owns THE truth because it doesn't exist.  Here's what I'm getting at - I was asked to explain why I perceived certain things in a certain way.   So I tried to do so by trying to outline what I perceive to be a pattern. I was very clear about the fact that the few events I mentioned were not a comprehensive list, nor were the sources I provided the only sources where one could read about such events.   So what does Rob do?   He says one of my sources is disreputable (without providing any proof) and seems to think that means the entire pattern thereforecould not possibly exist.   That's what I'm saying is the whole problem with the modern conservative mindset - it does not engage those who disagree with them but rather seeks to burn them.   It says "don't get your truth from them - you can't trust them.   Only get your truth from us."   There's a word for that attitude: cult. Was I making things up or not? You chose not to address a single thing I said in response to a point-by-point analysis of your first source.  The only response I got out of you was that I was somehow "missing the point and that "Democrats came around and started thinking of others besides themselves, and they came out on top because of that.  Meanwhile, today's Republican party keeps insisting it's not racist..." This is a sweeping generalization rooted in bitter decisiveness and a holier-than-thou attitude, not facts. You are insisting that the pattern I have laid out is not an existing pattern because the pattern was different before the period of time when I said this pattern started to emerge.  This is illogical, and that's the reason I said you're missing the point. There was a pattern?

Don't know why I even bother with you - you won't see it no matter what I put right in front of you face.  Which is why I'm done - the burden of proof is not on me.  The burden of proof is on you to prove me and the majority of millennials wrong:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/ten-brutal-findings-from-the-republican-partys-report-on-young-voters-20130604

As you can see, I'm not the only one who has come to this conclusion.  You just refuse to see it as even being a possibility and thus any evidence I present to you will be deemed false.

dtguitarfan wrote: But here's the problem - I do disagree with democrats in office from time to time.  In general, however, I have found myself in agreement with them.  Therefore they are the party I'm sticking with.  Now whenever anyone brings up things I should not like about the Democrats, it's because they want me to come to the illogical conclusion that therefore I should not vote Democrat but should go either Republican or Libertarian.  That's illogical, however, because just because I disagree with one policy doesn't mean I disagree with them all, nor does it mean the other party has a better package of policies. Now I think there is something very, very wrong with the Republican party right now.  If I am right, it would not be a very good strategy for me to come out saying "here's all the things I think are stupid about the Democrats", is it?  If I am right about there being something  very wrong within the Republican party that is affecting just about everyone within, well then I'm going to focus on pointing out what's wrong there, right?

I'm not asking you to compose lengthy polemics against the democrats. Nor am I asking you to vote for another party if you feel the democrats best represent you. I'm simply asking, when we make the point that democrats do the same things you complain about from republicans, that you be objective enough to acknowledge it rather than denying it as you usually do.

Epignosis wrote: dtguitarfan wrote: Epignosis wrote: dtguitarfan wrote: Epignosis wrote: dtguitarfan wrote: The T wrote: So is any mindset. Mind you Geoff, I was quite the stalinist before (well, not really) but I always had libertarian leanings in personal freedoms. I challenged my own views by checking others' and thus I became more of a proper libertarian and even then my views were not definite, since I used to be more anarchic for a while. It IS possible. You also said you changed your views but the way you argue (or politicize the debate, more clearly), it would seem you are similar to the guy who used to be something that now embarrasses him and has become the absolute opposite trying to atone for past sins. That's all. Nobody owns THE truth because it doesn't exist.  Here's what I'm getting at - I was asked to explain why I perceived certain things in a certain way.   So I tried to do so by trying to outline what I perceive to be a pattern. I was very clear about the fact that the few events I mentioned were not a comprehensive list, nor were the sources I provided the only sources where one could read about such events.   So what does Rob do?   He says one of my sources is disreputable (without providing any proof) and seems to think that means the entire pattern thereforecould not possibly exist.   That's what I'm saying is the whole problem with the modern conservative mindset - it does not engage those who disagree with them but rather seeks to burn them.   It says "don't get your truth from them - you can't trust them.   Only get your truth from us."   There's a word for that attitude: cult. Was I making things up or not?You chose not to address a single thing I said in response to a point-by-point analysis of your first source.  The only response I got out of you was that I was somehow "missing the point and that "<font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Democrats came around and started thinking of others besides themselves, and they came out on top because of that.  Meanwhile, today's Republican party keeps insisting it's not racist..."This is a sweeping generalization rooted in bitter decisiveness and a holier-than-thou attitude, not facts. You are insisting that the pattern I have laid out is not an existing pattern because the pattern was different before the period of time when I said this pattern started to emerge.  This is illogical, and that's the reason I said you're missing the point. There was a pattern?  Don't know why I even bother with you - you won't see it no matter what I put right in front of you face.  Which is why I'm done - the burden of proof is not on me.  The burden of proof is on you to prove me and the majority of millennials wrong:http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/ten-brutal-findings-from-the-republican-partys-report-on-young-voters-20130604As you can see, I'm not the only one who has come to this conclusion.  You just refuse to see it as even being a possibility and thus any evidence I present to you will be deemed false. No sir.  I wasn't trying to prove a point.  You were.  Ergo, the burden of proof is on you.http://https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/burden-of-proofI don't have to prove anyone wrong.  You have to prove yourself right.

If I am right and the majority of millenials believe the GOP is racist, then if you don't want us to believe it the burden of proof is indeed on you....

Thanks for your lengthy reply Rob, I really appreciate it. 

Why does Geoff think we here in the libertarian thread care what millenials think about the GOP anyway?

Epignosis wrote: dtguitarfan wrote: Epignosis wrote: dtguitarfan wrote: Epignosis wrote: dtguitarfan wrote: Epignosis wrote: dtguitarfan wrote: The T wrote: So is any mindset. Mind you Geoff, I was quite the stalinist before (well, not really) but I always had libertarian leanings in personal freedoms. I challenged my own views by checking others' and thus I became more of a proper libertarian and even then my views were not definite, since I used to be more anarchic for a while. It IS possible. You also said you changed your views but the way you argue (or politicize the debate, more clearly), it would seem you are similar to the guy who used to be something that now embarrasses him and has become the absolute opposite trying to atone for past sins. That's all. Nobody owns THE truth because it doesn't exist.  Here's what I'm getting at - I was asked to explain why I perceived certain things in a certain way.   So I tried to do so by trying to outline what I perceive to be a pattern. I was very clear about the fact that the few events I mentioned were not a comprehensive list, nor were the sources I provided the only sources where one could read about such events.   So what does Rob do?   He says one of my sources is disreputable (without providing any proof) and seems to think that means the entire pattern thereforecould not possibly exist.   That's what I'm saying is the whole problem with the modern conservative mindset - it does not engage those who disagree with them but rather seeks to burn them.   It says "don't get your truth from them - you can't trust them.   Only get your truth from us."   There's a word for that attitude: cult. Was I making things up or not?You chose not to address a single thing I said in response to a point-by-point analysis of your first source.  The only response I got out of you was that I was somehow "missing the point and that "<font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Democrats came around and started thinking of others besides themselves, and they came out on top because of that.  Meanwhile, today's Republican party keeps insisting it's not racist..."This is a sweeping generalization rooted in bitter decisiveness and a holier-than-thou attitude, not facts. You are insisting that the pattern I have laid out is not an existing pattern because the pattern was different before the period of time when I said this pattern started to emerge.  This is illogical, and that's the reason I said you're missing the point. There was a pattern?  Don't know why I even bother with you - you won't see it no matter what I put right in front of you face.  Which is why I'm done - the burden of proof is not on me.  The burden of proof is on you to prove me and the majority of millennials wrong:http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/ten-brutal-findings-from-the-republican-partys-report-on-young-voters-20130604As you can see, I'm not the only one who has come to this conclusion.  You just refuse to see it as even being a possibility and thus any evidence I present to you will be deemed false. No sir.  I wasn't trying to prove a point.  You were.  Ergo, the burden of proof is on you.http://https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/burden-of-proofI don't have to prove anyone wrong.  You have to prove yourself right. If I am right and the majority of millenials believe the GOP is racist, then if you don't want us to believe it the burden of proof is indeed on you.... Being right is independent of what other people believe.  There are 250,000 people registered Libertarian who would say your beliefs on government are wrong.  That doesn't make us right, because that's a bandwagon fallacy. That said, the GOP didn't interview the majority of the people born between 1980 and 2000 in their survey.  If you read the methodology, they surveyed two groups of 800 registered voters between the ages of 18 and 29.   So you have not proven that the majority of people born between 1980 and 2000 believe the GOP is racist.  You have failed to prove this.  Majority means "more than half."

HAHAHA!  I never said the majority makes me right.  You keep reading into my words which is why I am done with you.  I really don't care what you think any more Rob, because you're too damn stubborn to even listen to anyone else who has an opposing view.  It's not possible in your mind that you could be wrong.  My point was that I am comfortable with you thinking I'm wrong because I believe tide is moving in the direction I want it to go, one way or another.  If you're a lost cause, that doesn't mean the causes I'm fighting for are.  So I really don't care what people like you who are living in a paradigm where everything I say couldn't possibly be right think any more.  I will continue to try to sway people of course, but when it becomes apparent that I'm not being listened to because the people I'm talking to have already formed conclusions that they are unwilling to challenge - I will simply say "we'll see what happens...."