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  #241  
Unread 12-29-2012, 10:34 AM
Janice D. Soderling's Avatar
Janice D. Soderling Janice D. Soderling is offline
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What would be the long-term effect that generation after generation of children grow up with the notion that armed personnel guarding a school is a natural circumstance? Well, for one thing it would create a national lowest common denominator of fear (not security) and adjust the common sense indicator to think, well, if schools, why not armed guards everywhere, until the entire country resembles an occupied nation.

It also fosters the idea, already sadly prevalent in the America of today, of "me and us" and "the rest —the Other" as it were, making it easy to foment hatred for and fear of specific groups.

Tim might be a pretty good shot when he is sneaking up on partridges or hanging out at the shooting range, but I'll wager that as a pensioner he has neither the reflexes nor the eyesight that would allow him to outdraw and outshoot a younger, practiced, cocked-and-primed perpetrator, who has the advantage of surprise and plan. His talk is macho bullshit. The county is overfull of self-deluded macho bullshitters.

In an article in Time Magazine (Dec. 3), Joel Klein made a point that had completely bypassed me. What do we talk about when we talk about socialism?

Quote:
The fantasy that the Obama coalition supports "socialism" was raised, mournfully, by William Bennett, who cited a 2011 Pew poll. The poll exists. Blacks, young people and liberals all copped to more positive feelings about "socialism" than "capitalism." But I wonder, What do these people think socialism is?

I checked the dictionary. And socialism languishes there, just as it always has: "a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state." Is that what 49% of young people favor? I don't think so. If it is, count me on Bennett's team. That sort of socialism has been an utter failure, and regulated capitalism has been the greatest eradicator of poverty in the history of the world. But I suspect--and this would be wonderfully ironic, if true--that all those blacks and young people got their definition of socialism from Rush Limbaugh and the other wing-nut foghorns: socialism is when the government helps people out.
What we've decided in this election is that most people are comfortable with a regulated free-enterprise system in which the government helps provide education and health care for everyone and financial support for those who need it most, especially the elderly. What we'll continue to debate is how extensive those regulations and supports should be. But there is no question--except in the minds of the deluded--that any of our truly basic freedoms, especially the freedom to make money, are threatened in any significant way.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2129804,00.html#ixzz2GSHIw9A8

I looked in my on line Encarta dictionary. Yep, it says:

Quote:
Socialism 1. a political theory or system in which the means of production and distribution are controlled by the people and operated according to equity and fairness rather than market principles 2. a political movement based on principles of socialism, typically advocating an end to private property and to the exploitation of workers, 3. in Marxist theory, the stage after the proletarian revolution when a society is changing from capitalism to communism, marked by pay distributed according to work done rather than need.

That is as antiquated as defining Christianity as what it was before the First Council of Nicaea.

I daresay that though the dictionaries (most of them) now include the long-banned word "fuck", none of them would dare to update the definition of socialism to its modern meaning and risk a nation-wide boycott of purchase by school boards.

The Oxford (GB) has essentially the same definition, but with an explanatory note:
Quote:
The term socialism has been used to describe positions as far apart as anarchism, Soviet state Communism, and social democracy. However, it necessarily implies an opposition to the untrammeled workings of the economic market. The socialist parties that have arisen in most European countries from the late 19th century have generally tended toward social democracy.
Opposition to the "untrammeled workings of the economic market" is what the Occupy movement was all about. The "untrammeled workings of the economic market" is what puts schools, health care, prison, apothecaries, roads, and other parts of public welfare into the hands of "for profit" groups and out of the hands of the citizenry.

Well, I sez to myself. Now I understand where Skip is coming from. He's been reading the dictionary.

Put that money earmarked for the armed guards in public schools (American definition of public schools) into pay scales for teachers that does not insult their vocational choice and raises the teaching profession to a respected line of work. Equip those schools with good educational aids, nourishing meals, and textbooks that are not sponsored by business (that's a whole new thread, folks) in buildings with good ventilation, heating/air conditioning, and made of safe materials . Teach children critical thinking rather than providing indoctrination and inculcation. Prohibit sectarian schools of all colors and brands. Freedom of religion has nothing to do with shutting a child off from reality. I could go on and on about that, but I won't.

Gun control is only part of a much-needed clean-up. But it is as good a place as any to start thinking about what the authors of the Constitution intended. What they did and did not foresee.

And consider how to infuse, or reinfuse, the idea of government of the people, by the people, for the people.

The alternative is a nutter country, over-confident, ill-informed, and prone to see the simplistic solution to violence as being more violence.
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  #242  
Unread 12-29-2012, 11:38 AM
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Janice D. Soderling Janice D. Soderling is offline
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A PM from a friendly indicates that it would be wise to have a footnote to the remark

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Prohibit sectarian schools of all colors and brands. Freedom of religion has nothing to do with shutting a child off from reality

Basically that is my standpoint. It has nothing to do with the quality of the education and I did not mean to suggest that.

My ideal is the French school system which dares to ban the burkas, and also bans jewelry such as the cross and the star of David. With respect to all who think differently, that's my lodestar. School is (should be) a place where children learn mutual respect. Religion inculcation belongs belongs to the clerical sphere.

Quote:
Secular education is the system of public education in countries with a secular government or separation between religion and state.
An example of a highly secular educational system would be the French public educational system, going as far as to ban conspicuous religious symbols in schools.
In 2009 a new body was formed, the Australian Secular Lobby, to promote secular education in Australia.
Ideally, all students would have (as in Sweden) mandatory classes in "Religion" to become acquainted with the basics of all the world religions in order to promote critical thinking.
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  #243  
Unread 12-29-2012, 11:58 AM
Skip Dewahl Skip Dewahl is offline
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"critical thinking" will stop dead in its tracks, I bet, when it comes to the bios of the founders of world religions. Fear will see to that by political correctness, which should be capable of maintaining hypocrisies to keep you safe.
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  #244  
Unread 12-29-2012, 12:13 PM
Janice D. Soderling's Avatar
Janice D. Soderling Janice D. Soderling is offline
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Critical thinking is a type of reasonable, reflective thinking that is aimed at deciding what to believe or what to do. It is a way of deciding whether a claim is always true, sometimes true, partly true, or false.
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  #245  
Unread 01-04-2013, 09:50 AM
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Allen Tice Allen Tice is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Tim Murphy View Post
Roger, I paid the bill. I still don't have health insurance. Yes, Switzerland is a wonderfully law-abiding society, considering that every man is armed. Or is that BECAUSE every man is armed?
January 3, 2013 : http://abcnews.go.com/International/...6#.UOb3_Y5Dugy

A deep education of sorts, this thread.
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