← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Centinel
Thread ID: 16029 | Posts: 28 | Started: 2004-12-18
2004-12-18 18:29 | User Profile
[QUOTE=DakotaBlue]There was a story out of Oklahoma that was encouraging. For the first time in memory, the town voted down its school board's bond issue which was supposed to pay for a new school. Why? Because the Supt. of Schools decided after talking with the school's attorneys, that the manger scene had to be removed from the final performance of Silent Night in the Christmas play or they might be open to a law suit. As it turned out, they decided to leave up the menorah and the symbols associated with that joke of a black holiday. The parents went nuts and it's about time. They just didn't go far enough. They should have shut down the school for days and voted the entire board out of office. Then let the Supt. decide who he should consult first about school protocol.
That still isn't going far enough for my tastes. I won't be satisfied until K-12 education at taxpayer expense is extinct.
Most of the fights over content in the public square (schools, libraries, NPR, PBS, etc.) could easily be resolved by abolishing these institutions as taxpayer-funded entities. And the real benefit is that government and the ACLU would have no say private schools' business.
2004-12-18 19:00 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Centinel]That still isn't going far enough for my tastes. I won't be satisfied until K-12 education at taxpayer expense is extinct.
Most of the fights over content in the public square (schools, libraries, NPR, PBS, etc.) could easily be resolved by abolishing these institutions as taxpayer-funded entities. And the real benefit is that government and the ACLU would have no say private schools' business.[/QUOTE]
Vouchers would do the trick, I think. It would put enough distance between the state and individual religious choices to pass muster under the current SCOTUS reading of the thing. And we'd be able to keep the benefits of state funded education.
2004-12-18 19:06 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Walter Yannis]Vouchers would do the trick, I think. It would put enough distance between the state and individual religious choices to pass muster under the current SCOTUS reading of the thing. And we'd be able to keep the benefits of state funded education.[/QUOTE]
The minute vouchers are introduced for parochial education the ACLU with a menagerie of Jewish and leftist organizations in tow will be howling about their taxes funding religious education.
And just watch and see what happens when Muslims and Wiccans take advantage of the system to set up publicly-funded schools. The same Religious Right that agitated for vouchers will be hypocritically posturing against them for "those people."
The bottom line is that Government Funding = Government Control.
"Government is not reason. It is not eloquence. It is a force, like fire; a dangerous servant and a terrible master." -- George Washington
2004-12-19 04:23 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Centinel]The minute vouchers are introduced for parochial education the ACLU with a menagerie of Jewish and leftist organizations in tow will be howling about their taxes funding religious education.
And just watch and see what happens when Muslims and Wiccans take advantage of the system to set up publicly-funded schools. The same Religious Right that agitated for vouchers will be hypocritically posturing against them for "those people."
The bottom line is that Government Funding = Government Control.
"Government is not reason. It is not eloquence. It is a force, like fire; a dangerous servant and a terrible master." -- George Washington[/QUOTE]
You correctly point out political realities, but the converse is also true. There's no way we will ever end all state funding of education. That's just a non-starter.
Vouchers would be the least offensive way of arranging the inevitable.
The homeschool movement is a marvelous thing - one of the healthiest movements around today. But the constitutional arguments protecting homeschooling are really the same as those allowing vouchers. The question is how far the state's reach should be. If vouchers are enough to grant the state regulatory authority, then why not using the mails to receive materials or the roads to take the kids on educational excursions? The courts will dream up whatever theory they want in light of the political realities. Never underestimate the craveness of our judicial system.
As the political balance of power shakes down right now, the SCOTUS allows a lot of latitude for vouchers, and rightly so. There's really no difference between that and a seminary student getting his GI Bill money. There will be a move to change that, but it won't be so easy. The public schools are the great engines of neo-Marxist indoctrination, and defunding them will immediately decrease the power and reach of our Marxist overlords. If vouchers would help end the public schools - even if it means tolerating Wiccan schools - then I'm for it.
Which isn't to say that your ideas aren't right on the money. It's just that the political realities are such that we can't hang our hats on a totally self-financed educational system.
Walter
2004-12-19 05:42 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Walter Yannis]You correctly point out political realities, but the converse is also true. There's no way we will ever end all state funding of education. That's just a non-starter.
True, which for reasons that indicate the basic deficiencies in libertarian ignorance of social and cultural realities and even ideals.
The homeschool movement is a marvelous thing - one of the healthiest movements around today. But the constitutional arguments protecting homeschooling are really the same as those allowing vouchers. The question is how far the state's reach should be. If vouchers are enough to grant the state regulatory authority, then why not using the mails to receive materials or the roads to take the kids on educational excursions? The courts will dream up whatever theory they want in light of the political realities. Never underestimate the craveness of our judicial system.
Great argument Walter. To which I might even add that there is some assumption you are going along, that the government needs to prove some economic link/tie-in to to government money to be able to assert its regulatory authority over private schooling. This just isn't true
Which isn't to say that your ideas aren't right on the money. It's just that the political realities are such that we can't hang our hats on a totally self-financed educational system.
Walter[/QUOTE]
Well I'll go out on a limb and myself say I don't think any libertarian ideas on education are really on the money. They are really just indulgent escapism IMO, which allow libertarians to shirk their own at best ambivalent social attitudes toward education, children, and society in general.
2004-12-19 05:50 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Okiereddust]Well I'll go out on a limb and myself say I don't think any libertarian ideas on education are really on the money.[/QUOTE]
Absent a voucher, would you keep your kids in public school, or take on a second job if need be to give them a good parochial education?
I don't have any illusions about making government education conform to the ideals of Christian conservatives, not in today's climate anyway. But Christians owe it to themselves to separate somewhat from the jew-distorted secular (multi)culture, especially in the realm of their children's education, even if it means sacrificing some material luxuries.
2004-12-19 06:17 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Centinel]Absent a voucher, would you keep your kids in public school, or take on a second job if need be to give them a good parochial education? Well that's a personal decision. Actually from a practical standpoint from what I've heard many parochial schools aren't exactly paradises themselves.
I don't have any illusions about making government education conform to the ideals of Christian conservatives, not in today's climate anyway. But Christians owe it to themselves to separate somewhat from the jew-distorted secular (multi)culture, especially in the realm of their children's education, even if it means sacrificing some material luxuries.[/QUOTE]Personally I would in some cases second your recommendations. I don't see though why Christians or other opponents of modern progresive education shouldn't have options other than to impoverish themselves financially. Practically this liberytarian viewpoint seems to dovetail with liberals argument that makes opponents of progresive/state education second class (at best) citizens.
On the same note, I value my right to vote as a Christian, so much so that if the government instutruted a special poll tax on Christian conservatives, I would say that for democracy its worth making sacrifices. But for a person to argue that such had some justification for it (Christians need to be willing to make sacrifices) would in my mind destroy such person's credibility.
2004-12-19 06:26 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Okiereddust]I don't see though why Christians or other opponents of modern progresive education shouldn't have options other than to impoverish themselves financially. [/QUOTE]
Well, in a school district where enough of them jumped ship, ballot measures to increase taxes for public education would likely fail repeatedly, just like they do when retirees comprise a significant chunk of the voters.
2004-12-19 06:44 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Centinel]Well, in a school district where enough of them jumped ship, ballot measures to increase taxes for public education would likely fail repeatedly, just like they do when retirees comprise a significant chunk of the voters.[/QUOTE]That's just speculative interpolation, from voters theoretical interests to the geling of a concrete program. Such is miles apart, and to equate the two seems to indicate a rather naive faith in the processes of voting equating democracy.
Practically, a lot of them have already jumped ship, re: the great home schooling movement. Are you satisfied with the political outcome?
2004-12-19 06:49 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Okiereddust]Practically, a lot of them have already jumped ship, re: the great home schooling movement. Are you satisfied with the political outcome?[/QUOTE]
I don't know if enough of them have in any certain locale to affect the tax rolls yet. For the ones who have left, the money going into public education isn't nearly as important anyway as freeing themselves from its corrosive indoctrinations.
It's ridiculous (and IMO equally naive) to complain that you shouldn't have to give up any money beyond taxes you already pay for your kids to get a public education devoid of cultural Marxism (if that's even possible) while you can't affect that issue in the short-term without taking the initiative to pay (in time and/or money) for the type of education you want your kids to have.
The alternative is to bitch about wanting vouchers that may never come while your kids still go the public school system with the NEA setting the agenda.
2004-12-19 07:14 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Centinel]It's ridiculous (and IMO equally naive) to complain that you shouldn't have to give up any money beyond taxes you already pay for your kids to get a public education devoid of cultural Marxism (if that's even possible)
So, obviously non-Marxists, as second class citizens, [B]should[/B] have to pay more, and should quit their bitchin. You seem clear enough on that.> while you can't affect that issue in the short-term without taking the initiative to pay (in time and/or money) for the type of education you want your kids to have. Practically I don't have kids, and I don't see a substantial number of people who are willing to make such great financial sacrifices to really make a mass impact. Those of us involved in paleo fundraising know its not easy getting peopleto make sacrifices.
The alternative is to bitch about wanting vouchers that may never come while your kids still go the public school system with the NEA setting the agenda.[/QUOTE] Or maybe not have kids, because you can't afford private schools. Of all libertarians the racially conscious libertarians should occasionally think about what they're suggesting. Not all whites are, or should have to be, financial supermen.
2004-12-19 08:32 | User Profile
Interesting discussion.
Remember that we are fighting an ideological enemy: neo-Marxism in its many forms. Our enemies have, since the cultural revolution of the 1960's (at least, depending on when you think it started), taken over many of our key state institutions, the boardrooms of our corporations (especially in the media), and unions. They even seized control of many purely private institutions, such as the Conference of Catholic Bishiops. These institutions are now in enemy hands and form the plinth of their power. Our fight must be directed toward bringing those institutions down, because when they fail our enemies fall.
Vouchers constitute a direct attack against one of the most strategically vital institutions of the enemy: the state-funded neo-Marxist indctrination camps called the public schools and the painfully PeeCee public teachers' unions. Our ideological enemies HATE vouchers, because they know it would mean a major loss of direct access to maleable young minds for their propaganda, and as well would sever a major financial artery that feeds the brain of the neo-Marxist beast (lots of taxpayer supported jobs and union dues for payola to those who support their agenda).
Vouchers are really a knife pointed at their heart. They know it, too, which is why they fight every voucher plan tooth and nail.
And there are major marketing advantages. We have a good chance with vouchers, not least because we can capitalize on the enemy's multi-gazillion dollar advertising investment in the "choice" slogan. They designed that propaganda brand name and invested unbelievable amounts into it in order to justify state support of infanticide and sodomite marriage. It constitutes years of work and untold financial investments for them. The voucher idea allows us to swoop in and use the whole mindless "choice" ad campaign slogan (and that's what it is) and steal the public relations benefit of all that vast investment on the cheap.
We can steal their brand. "Hey, all we're saying is "choice!" Give us the right to choose! Why should the state get to tell me how to educate my children?! Hands off!!" And yada yada yada.
And it plays really well in Peoria.
In short, vouchers allow our side to remove our children from neo-Marxist indoctrination camps while using the Marxists' own advertising investment against them. We're turning their own cannon on them.
And like I said, I think that SCOTUS will uphold a major voucher scheme. There will be abuses, and it won't mean we've won the war, but it will be a victory of strategic importance. Maybe even the turning point. We'll be able to remove our children from much of their influence (they'll still have television) without having to pay twice for it. It will go a long way to stopping the bleeding of wealth transfers from the white middle class to supporting Jews and their allies in the MultiCult.
I'm foursquare behind vouchers.
2004-12-19 09:08 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Walter Yannis]I'm foursquare behind vouchers.[/QUOTE]Unforunately Walter, not too many people are. Teachers Unions have had great success defeating vouchers initiatives pretty much everywhere.
I think a lot of the libertarian opposition to them is sort of based on this. Libertarians (and people in general) sometimes make up reasons why that which is difficult politically isn't a good idea anyway.
2004-12-19 16:54 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Centinel]That still isn't going far enough for my tastes. I won't be satisfied until K-12 education at taxpayer expense is extinct.
Most of the fights over content in the public square (schools, libraries, NPR, PBS, etc.) could easily be resolved by abolishing these institutions as taxpayer-funded entities. And the real benefit is that government and the ACLU would have no say private schools' business.[/QUOTE]
To get your attention, and because IMO it's true, your view on vouchers is stupid and you stand as our enemy. I'll respond to each of your posts in this thread to explain that to you.
For starters, you're only half right that the ACLU et al. would have no say in a private school's business. But, they do. The government already has its nose in the door because private schools serve the public. There's no shortage of regulation of and restrictions on non-government organizations.
So, keeping taxpayer money out of it does not keep the government out of it. And, the more popular public school alternatives are, the harder "the bad guys" will fight to control these alternatives, taxpayer money or not.
Currently, private schools are insignificant. At least as far as their influence on society goes.
2004-12-19 17:09 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Happy Hacker]The government already has its nose in the door because private schools serve the public. There's no shortage of regulation of and restrictions on non-government organizations.
Can you provide any concrete examples (with hyperlinks to sources) of government dictating the curricula of private K-12 schools that don't accept public funding?
2004-12-19 17:11 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Centinel]The minute vouchers are introduced for parochial education the ACLU with a menagerie of Jewish and leftist organizations in tow will be howling about their taxes funding religious education.
Yes, the bad guys would be howl about taxpayer money going to religious institutions. Let the howl. Vouchers would not be allowed to pay for religious materials. But, private schools can easily raise that money privately.
A concern is that schools that take vouchers would be forced to accept everyone and provide a purely secular education to those who choose. This is something that we will have to fight in a voucher system. Still, it's not going to be that big a problem. What militant atheist or jew is going to want to send their children to a private christian school, even if the school is required to provide a secular education? Even if it happens, let the kid go to study hall while the rest of the school is in chapel.
So far, it appears, that the courts will accept vouchers going to private religious schools. And, even if this door is closed, it will be trivial for private schools to still provide a paleo-conservative education and even have joint agreements with religious institutions. For example, the children can be dismissed for a period to cross to the adjoining property for a chapel service during school hours.
Should all this fail to work out, schools can still reject vouchers and operate as they do now. Vouchers are a win-win situation.
And just watch and see what happens when Muslims and Wiccans take advantage of the system to set up publicly-funded schools. The same Religious Right that agitated for vouchers will be hypocritically posturing against them for "those people."
I hardly see how public education could be any worse than it is now. Already, everything good about America is bashed. Students are taught that whites are evil and that non-whites built America. Christianity is totally banned. Even the word Christmas is no longer allowed in schools.
Even if the ADL was given formal control of public schools, what more could they do? They wouldn't impose Jewish instruction because Jews are not proselytizers. Their religion is racial. They'd prefer to keep their religious doctrine away from gentiles.
Let the Muslims and Wiccans set up their own schools. So what if 1% of the population goes to Muslim and Wiccan schools, if 90% of the population is freed from the current ADL school system? Besides, why do you think America is freely letting in Muslims and bowing to the demands on Wiccans? It's because the public school system, that you effectively want to preserve, teaches the American public that is is bigoted to want to preserve the American culture.
2004-12-19 17:15 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Okiereddust]So, obviously non-Marxists, as second class citizens, [B]should[/B] have to pay more, and should quit their bitchin. You seem clear enough on that.
How does shelling out money for a product of higher quality quality in the private sector when there are already government provided/subsidized versions automatically make one a "second class citizen?"
Are you a second-class citizen for driving a private vehicle instead of using public transportation? Or using private health insurance instead of Medicare? Or buying your own books instead of using the public library? (Assuming the library even carries some rare titles you might be interested in.)
2004-12-19 17:26 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Centinel]Absent a voucher, would you keep your kids in public school, or take on a second job if need be to give them a good parochial education?
Private schools may be much cheaper than public schools, but to the person wanting to take advantage of a private school, they're very expensive. And, there are no tax breaks as there is for college and daycare. 90% of the public has decided that private schools are not affordable. If you are concerned enough to sacrifice to afford private school for your children, I don't think you'd have to worry too much about the government corrupting your child with vouchers.
I don't have any illusions about making government education conform to the ideals of Christian conservatives, not in today's climate anyway.
This gets to the heart of why I called your view stupid and destructive. It's the public schools that create the climate you complain about. Schools control the direction of a nation. And, you must love the direction this nation is going. :angry: You oppose the most realistic way to change the course of this nation.
Have you never thought about how much time a child spends serving school? A child wakes up and dresses for school. Gets home at 4pm. Watches some TV, eats dinner, spends an hour doing homework. Maybe goes out for some school-related extracurricular activity, comes home, goes to bed. On Sunday, a shrinking minority of students might spend two hours and a nearly worthless church. And, that's just how you like it!
As long as the government has complete control of that much of the time of 90% of the children, everything else you do is worthless.
But Christians owe it to themselves to separate somewhat from the jew-distorted secular (multi)culture, especially in the realm of their children's education, even if it means sacrificing some material luxuries.[/QUOTE]
You can still do that, and hundreds of thousands of more can join their fellow Christians in pulling their kids out of completely government controlled schools, if they had vouchers. And, then maybe we can start to see the direction this country is headed change.
2004-12-19 17:31 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Centinel]I don't know if enough of them have in any certain locale to affect the tax rolls yet. For the ones who have left, the money going into public education isn't nearly as important anyway as freeing themselves from its corrosive indoctrinations.
Yet, you don't want to encourage 90% of the population to free themselves from the public education's corrosive indoctrinations.
The alternative is to bitch about wanting vouchers that may never come while your kids still go the public school system with the NEA setting the agenda.[/QUOTE]
Vouchers already exist in many places and it wouldn't take much more public support to get them to exist in more places and be open to more students where they already exist. However, contrary to what you seem to think, it's not the Religious Right that is the driving force behing vouchers. Many of them have your same stupid, destructive attitude that vouchers are bad because they're good. That while vouchers might attacked hundreds of thousands into freer schools, but that same incentive might draw you away from what you have now.
Several years ago, there was a major voucher initiative given to the voters in California. The reason it didn't pass was because the Religious Right did not support it.
2004-12-19 17:40 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Happy Hacker]Several years ago, there was a major voucher initiative given to the voters in California. The reason it didn't pass was because the Religious Right did not support it.[/QUOTE]
That's a dubious argument. The Religious Right has virtually no clout in California politics anyway--not when their populations in the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys are stacked against urban liberals in the Bay Area and the Southland. However, the NEA and other people involved in public education (that would obviously oppose vouchers as a threat to their jobs) are vastly numerous in the state's voter rolls.
2004-12-19 18:42 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Centinel]That's a dubious argument. The Religious Right has virtually no clout in California politics anyway--not when their populations in the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys are stacked against urban liberals in the Bay Area and the Southland. However, the NEA and other people involved in public education (that would obviously oppose vouchers as a threat to their jobs) are vastly numerous in the state's voter rolls.[/QUOTE]
Nobody wants their kids to go to school with violent little Negroes and Mexicans. They may talk the talk about celebrating diversity, but when their kid's safety is in issue then instinct takes over.
Did Bill and Hillary let their little angel attend the anomic DC public school system? Hell no they didn't. They sent their kid to the hoity-toity Sidwell Friends school. And they paid a political price for that (although blacks apparently have short memories).
Vouchers are great because it lets all the sheeple who want everybody to think they have very nice opinions about our melanin-rich brothers and "celebrating choice" even as they kick the skids out from under the multicult. It's a point that Evangelicals and others agree with them on.
It's just smart politics.
2004-12-19 21:42 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Centinel]How does shelling out money for a product of higher quality quality in the private sector when there are already government provided/subsidized versions automatically make one a "second class citizen?"
Are you a second-class citizen for driving a private vehicle instead of using public transportation? Or using private health insurance instead of Medicare? Or buying your own books instead of using the public library? [/QUOTE]So when Christian Conservatives don't liked being forced to the back of the bus, your answer is "well just buy yourselves private limos"?
This sounds too much like the "well let them eat cake" line. Marie Antoinette was too young and innocent to know better, libertarians can't use that excuse.
2004-12-19 22:38 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Walter Yannis]Nobody wants their kids to go to school with violent little Negroes and Mexicans. They may talk the talk about celebrating diversity, but when their kid's safety is in issue then instinct takes over.....
It's just smart politics.[/QUOTE]Well the politics you point to as you say are the issue here. And its more complex. Most people when they have kids just move to the suburbs. People still like to believe in their own "neighborhood schools".
Which is where I think the libertarian arguments of people like Centinel come in. Basically people in this country are very sensitive towards preserving some of the few communitarian institutions we have left. Libertarian arguments of "just let the public square rot, that we we don't have to argue about what shape it should take" are nice sounding on internet boards, but don't resonate among the general public.
2004-12-19 23:19 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Okiereddust]So when Christian Conservatives don't liked being forced to the back of the bus, your answer is "well just buy yourselves private limos"?
This sounds too much like the "well let them eat cake" line. Marie Antoinette was too young and innocent to know better, libertarians can't use that excuse.[/QUOTE]
What right do they have to suck on the taxpayers' tit any more than the welfare recipients they so ardently--and if they're voucher advocates, hypocritically--criticize?
Both groups are benefitting from the forced redistribution of wealth, which, apart from breeding resentment on the part of productive members of society also works to destroy any sense of voluntary charity (including tuition assistance), since the government has already lightened wallets at the office.
Something I'd relish knowing is how many voucher advocates on FR, OD and in the neoconservative press are actually government employees or contractors--people who essentially are a drain on the economy in that they don't add value to it and never have to sweat things a small business owner does like workers' comp and payroll taxes. Betcha it's more than a few.
2004-12-19 23:29 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Centinel]What right do they have to suck on the taxpayers' tit any more than the welfare recipients they so ardently--and if they're voucher advocates, hypocritically--criticize?
Both groups are benefitting from the forced redistribution of wealth, which, apart from breeding resentment on the part of productive members of society also works to destroy any sense of voluntary charity (including tuition assistance), since the government has already lightened wallets at the office.
Something I'd relish knowing is how many voucher advocates on FR, OD and in the neoconservative press are actually government employees or contractors--people who essentially are a drain on the economy in that they don't add value to it and never have to sweat things a small business owner does like workers' comp and payroll taxes. Betcha it's more than a few.[/QUOTE]Whine whine. And you're saying you don't benefit from the "forced redistribution of wealth". You don't drive on public roads, I presume, and you'll return your social security.
Its iluminative why you single out voucher supporters for being especially hypocritical, just for wanting equal rights. Your libertarian puritanism obviously trumps any common sense here.
2004-12-20 00:17 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Centinel]Can you provide any concrete examples (with hyperlinks to sources) of government dictating the curricula of private K-12 schools that don't accept public funding?[/QUOTE]
That you emphasize curricula shows that you concede that outside of curricula that the government is meddling plenty. And, that which is outside is no small thing. For example, efforts to require even home schooling parents to have teacher credentials can do a lot of damage even without the government telling a private school or home schooling parent what they can and cannot teach.
I'd be hard pressed to give you links concerning the government dictating curricula to public schools. But, the multcultural climate and laws having nothing directly to do with dictating curricula have done the damage just the same, while leaving school boards nominally free to decide curricula themselves.
I have not argued that private schools have their hands tied. I have even argued that with the additional strings that might come with vouchers, private schools will retain a great deal of freedom over public schools.
I have only pointed out that there need be no taxpayer money for the bad guys to think that how private schools operate is the bad guy's business. For example, a private graduate school (the ICR) lost accreditation for teaching Creationism, yet it recieved no public funds. They did regain accreditation after a lawsuit.
2004-12-20 00:29 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Centinel]That's a dubious argument. The Religious Right has virtually no clout in California politics anyway--not when their populations in the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys are stacked against urban liberals in the Bay Area and the Southland. However, the NEA and other people involved in public education (that would obviously oppose vouchers as a threat to their jobs) are vastly numerous in the state's voter rolls.[/QUOTE]
The NEA went to full scale war against the California voucher proposal, right on your side. Why don't the "bad guys" see vouchers as an oppertunity to control the private schools, as you see it?
For the voucher proposal in California, 2 of 3 people who identified themselves are protestants or cathlics in exit polls voted against vouchers. The most "conservative" counties in all the state voted against vouchers. And, many of these people gave the same reason you're giving about fear of the government controlling private schools.
2004-12-20 00:44 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Centinel]What right do they have to suck on the taxpayers' tit any more than the welfare recipients they so ardently--and if they're voucher advocates, hypocritically--criticize?
Hypocrisy is your de facto defense of 90% of the public using welfare public schools. I'm not too concerned with the people outside of the public schools, and you'd also do better to focus on those who already attend public schools - for free, on my dime.
I'm not addressing the welfare aspect, mostly because that's not a realistic goal. I'm only advocating making it harder for the government to use the education welfare system to indoctrinate the public masses with every value that is destroying America.
As far as welfare goes, vouchers would actually reduce the amount of "welfare" being given out. Vouchers cost taxpayers less. And, in many cases, private schools would probably charge parents for extras rather than the taxpayers.
And, after vouchers are accepted, it would be a small step to allow tax breaks in lieu of vouchers. See, moving in a positive direction. But, you resist that move in a positive direction exactly because it is a good thing (makign public education less obnoxious). That's insane!
Something I'd relish knowing is how many voucher advocates on FR, OD and in the neoconservative press are actually government employees or contractors--people who essentially are a drain on the economy in that they don't add value to it and never have to sweat things a small business owner does like workers' comp and payroll taxes. Betcha it's more than a few.[/QUOTE]
Do you think government employees are more likely to support vouchers??? I've seen zero evidence of that.