Willie–1603

First, you are majoring on the minor. Yes, there are a lot of children in one parent homes. Education is not supposed to be a social welfare program, it is supposed to be a program through which people “learn”. You, like the vast majority of left wingers, or liberals, that I have met and interacted with, mix government programs when it comes to social issues. This causes yet more government waste. The estimated 28% of children less than 18 years old that are in a single parent household question is a major reason “for” parent directed education rather than an argument against it. How many of those parents could leave their nine-to-five and raise their children if they had an extra $20,000 per child coming in tax-free from the government? Only a very small percentage would still need additional income; mainly those with only one child. However, if they had a sure income they could move to an area that is more affordable to them or they could work part-time or start a home based business or service of some sort. (Parent directed education also would reduce government spending on prisons and jails if momma was home to watch little Johnny on a full-time basis.)

Joe, our society needs more children, not less. We need to increase our average child per family if we are going to be able to sustain ourselves in the future. Our society is currently geared toward having “less” children per family. Getting government off our backs, rebuilding the family unit, redeveloping the extended family concept, and retracting from the “government as god” mentality is what is needed, not “more” government.

Next issue: You seem to be stuck on the thought that I am advocating “homeschool” as the “only” avenue through which public school could be abolished. Your thinking is flawed and inaccurate. Far from thinking that Homeschool is the only choice, I think the current “homeschool” model is the wrong choice. While it does soundly thump public school on the back of the head, it needs to be embraced by the public at large and improved. I would have loved to have been able to give my children more. Joe, “public school” is getting in the way of real education. I am not advocating “homeschool” as the one answer to education, I am saying that with almost no resources, homeschooling has proven that “public school” isn’t the answer. I am advocating “parent directed education” without government control, direction, oversight, scrutiny, or involvement. (The government involvement cannot be eliminated until the new programs are self-funding and established. The reason we can’t eliminate government involvement is because we need to continue to use the money currently spent on “public education” to rebuild American Education .) I am saying that we should begin to offer parents the option of taking the full amount spent per student per year as a cash payment and be responsible for their children’s education or let them continue to send their children to public school. In time, public school would be replaced almost, if not entirely, by private school, religious schools, industry schools, professional schools, trade schools, virtual schools, Business schools, Homeschool, and other institutions of learning.

The not-so-bright minded parents would not necessarily lose a thing. They could just send little Johnny or young debbie to a school that is suitable for them. However, not-so-bright mom and dad would have a lot of options, including counseling services, to discover how little Johnny and young Debbie are wired and what the best school choice would be for their child.

The children of drug dealers and prostitutes pose a dual problem: one problem of education and the other of “Crime” itself. Your statement presupposes that the “public school” system is a panacea for these children. Fact is, when you get to the base levels of society, public school is a very bad system for trying to help those children. It is not the right function of education to try to solve those children’s real problem, which is bad parents. You can’t educate a child out of a bad family situation. If you want to delve into that area, we most certainly can, but if we are going to talk “education”, let’s keep education focused on “education”.

Joe, we could do so much more to combat poverty and crime by putting more options in the hands of those who have children than we can by instituting more and more money wasting government programs. Interestingly, I did a study of federal government spending this morning. It appears that last year we spent $1,551,000,000,000 on entitlement programs! This figure didn’t even include Federal spending on “public school” (Public school is largely financed through state and local taxes, not federal…at least not through”on budget” appropriations). I don’t think anyone would really grade our government social welfare programs in this country with an “A”. We need to wean the public off the government teet. We have to stop the illusion that “government” is the answer to all of our problems. Government has a place in America, but that place is not above the people. We are a government of the people, by the people, for the people…not a government “over” the people.

Joe, you and I are not engaging in a “debate” here. What we are doing is a question and answer session. I am game for that, but the problem with this exchange is that your side has nothing to offer. If you begin to do anything but ardently support the status quo of public schooling, you immediately start traveling in my direction. You inherently accept what I am saying about the inadequacy of public school as a means to educate our children. At that point, the debate changes to one of “by what degree should we allow parents to direct the education of their children”. You can’t win the argument that public school is the best option to educate children, so you attempt to poke holes in my game by asking questions focused on tricky and touchy subjects like “Children of drug dealers and prostitutes”. What you should be doing, as should everyone in America, is saying, “you know what, the system we are using is flawed, it is wasteful, and it isn’t what government really should be doing, so let’s look at the alternatives with an open and unbiased mind to see if we can find a solution.” The social issues of “children of drug dealers and prostitutes” cannot be solved by education, as if education is the only problem these children face. Sure, we want to make sure that these children have a fair shake in life, but education is not the only issue that has to be dealt with there, and public school is not the department or program through which the overarching problem will be solved.

An Army commander has to make difficult decisions during battle, he or she can send in a platoon to destroy a gun emplacement, almost for sure sending that platoon to its death, or he or she can “save the few” by trying to make sure that everyone is taking the same level of risk, and lose thousands because the enemy hammers the battalion with their artillery. Society has to make difficult decisions too, shall we continue to provide the masses with inadequate, flawed education, or shall we sacrifice a few in order to properly educate and equip the rest? I assure you that you will never provide the best education to 100% of society, no matter what you do. (I believe we can certainly get close to providing the best to 100% through the programs I have outlined on this site, though.) I am not suggesting that we leave any child on “the battlefield” of life…but we need to redirect education to provide the best affordable education to each child based on that child’s capability and motivation, and based on “parental involvement”. When “society” funds a project, including “education”, “society” needs and deserves the best ROI (Return on Investment) it can achieve. The best ROI is not achieved by teaching the masses to the lowest common denominator, which is what public school is doing. The thinking that we have to have a system that provides every child, regardless of other influences and issues, with exactly that same level of education is what creates suboptimization, and ultimately loss opportunity for society in general. We will never achieve the utopia of equality in education unless we are really ready for a world wide, one government, communistic state that rules over every facet of our lives. We might then have equality in education, but at what cost? Ultimately that system would fail, and we would be back to the drawing board.

Joe, family is the basic building block of a successful society. Without a strong family core you can’t have a good community. Without good communities you can’t have a good local society. If you don’t have good local societies you can’t have good regional societies. Without good Regional societies you can’t have a good nation. Good nations are build from bottom up, not from top down. You can’t legislate the heart, Joe, and to have a great society you have got to have a good heart. The heart of a society lies in the center of the family, and to me the center of a good family is a reliance on God, not government. But even for the atheist, which I once was, it is not logical to take the position that “family” isn’t a better means of building a society than legislation.

Joe, think about the possibilities my position offers before you start throwing up the mental road blocks. Joe, your questions reveal things to me that you may not realize. I can systematically dismantle all of your argumentative questions, Joe, because I am right…and your line of questioning proves it. You see, when you hone in on the very minor factions of society that may be disenfranchised by my system, you are accepting that the major points are valid. You are a smart man, so if there were flaws in my major argument, you would strike there first. If you could dismantle the major position, you would disassemble the entire argument and render my argument void of basis. The fact that you chose not to strike at the major position reveals that you recognize its strength, so you attempt to strike at areas that will garner sympathy for the small portions of society that my argument might leave wanting. This is natural, but it is not supportable in the grand scheme of things. As society improves and opportunity is increase due to more precise education and less waste in education, all of society will experience a swell in quality of life as a result. While there may be a short period of time where the most disadvantaged might possibly, but not probably, experience a loss of opportunity, I dare say that over a short period of time, under a better system, those disadvantaged will be rewarded with more options and more opportunities than they ever would have had under the current system.

Joe, if the people in your camp would simply admit what the rest of already know you realize, which is that the current system isn’t what we need, we could start to make process in finding the solutions that will give us the best Return on our investment, and that will give all of us the brightest future. I know, that you know, that I am right, I can tell by the questions you ask. Why fight it? What do you have to gain by winning on a position that you know in your heart is flawed?

The answer is, that you are steeped in a mindset that won’t release control of the masses, through the eradication of the public school system because you want the “Public School” system as a platform to “indoctrinate” the next generation into liberalism. Joe, I am not attacking you, its not your fault. This is how you and I and everyone else was raised. We are a product of the “public education” system, even those who went to private school, and we have to actually fight against the urges and tendencies that have been instilled in us through the “entitlement culture” of the 50’s, 60′, 70’s, 80’s, 90’s and now the 2000’s. It didn’t infect all of us to the same degree, and some of us have been in detox for awhile. I admit, sometimes I go into momentary relapse, and start looking for a government teat to suckle, but then I realize that I need to get off the government juice.

The reason you continue to advocate the current system is because, if you don’t, you have to begin to question everything else as well. Joe, it really isn’t about liberals and conservatives, it is about who is going to be in charge of our lives, us or the government. Each side of the isle wants to control certain areas of the other side’s life…I am willing to admit that, Joe, are you? Depoliticizing as much as we can, by kicking government out of as many areas of our lives as we can, will bring the left and the right closer together. The lines will become blurry and undefined at first, but they will still be there. But in time, we could end up with a government that doesn’t interfere in the everyday lives of the American People, and that does its job well. Joe, I think if you drop the liberal agenda from your mind set, and really focus on what will deliver the best results, you can’t argue that choice in education provides a better hope for quality education than no choice in education.

How do you suggest we deal with the estimated 28% of children less than 18 years old that are in single parent households? Also, how do you deal with the children whose parents are the ones with the “not-so-bright minds”? Some kids are smarter than their parents by the 5th grade. To go to an extreme, drug dealers and prostitutes have children too, do you think they should be given a chance to rise above that? Isn’t one of the things so great about our country is the opportunity?

Next question.

Butch

Read my last post to Joe. I believe that government is the wrong answer to your challenges, I just think it is the only one available that you know how to tap into. I think we need a better solution for you and others with special needs.

We can have a private “Grid” if we want one…if we have enough desire we can have practically anything we put our collective minds to. Government cannot stop the masses, not here, not in china, not anywhere, if the masses have enough determination to be free of government oppression. We are like the proverbial frog in the pot..if you put a frog in a pot of water that he can jump out of and slowly turn the heat up, supposedly (I have never tried this) the frog will sit in the pot and boil to death, but if you drop him in a pot of hot water he will jump out immediately. We are the frog that was dropped in the pot of cold water and had the heat gradually turned up…we are boiling and we don’t even know it.

Look at the national debt and tell me that we are not boiling.

Yesterday I got to thinking, and it occurred to me that it might make sense to have a “national debt tax”. A tax that cannot be used for anything except paying down the national debt. Everyone has to pay it, perhaps like a national sales tax, but it cannot be spent on anything except paying down the principle on our national debt. We could potentially pay down the national debt in 5 to 10 years. Wouldn’t it be nice not to have a national debt again? We need a national war on debt in America. We can’t leave this country in its current state…can we? Would you tighten your belt to get this country out of debt? I would! I would gladly do it! I would be willing to reduce my lifestyle in order to get the country out of debt if everyone else would do the same! I would even be willing to put the squeeze on the rich in order to pay down the debt, and that runs counter to my way of thinking. They should be gladly willing to put in some extra money to get the country out of debt. (except those that make money because we are in debt. They would probably fight it.) The rich would get richer if the masses didn’t have such a negative financial drain as is our national debt.

As for your question at the end of your last post, Lori, I am doing it. I am trying to show Joe that government is not the answer. I understand that a lot of people have been tuning in to this exchange. They can’t argue against what I am saying because it is the truth. We really can get government off of our backs, but we have to be willing to play the part of “Citizen” in order to do it. If the left were to lay down its secular agenda, and the radical right were to lay down its religious agenda, we would certainly find more common ground than we would find differences. Then, if we were to depoliticize as much as possible, we would have much less waste as a result of the swinging of the political pendulum. We could work to accomplish something rather than working to win a political contest.

You see, I happen to trust God’s ability to be in charge, I don’t need “government” to be in charge. I need government to do its job and stay where I put it.

When we started homeschooling our children I was in the Navy. I was flat broke, we lived in a trailer (mobile home), I had a truck and a small car. We mostly had what I call “stick furniture” (because half of our furniture was made of 2 x4 and 2 x 6’s, we had no savings, and we were going deeper and deeper into debt each year. Joe, I would venture to guess that most people who actually tune in to Radiofree are in a much better position than we were when we started. When I got out of the Navy, I went right into commissioned sales where I had no benefits. I worked very, very hard to learn sales and I clawed my way up. My wife taught the kids and I focused on making sure we had the money we needed.

Joe, it wasn’t easy. In fact, it was very, very difficult. Not much worthwhile in this world comes “easy”. And don’t think that my wife and I didn’t have battles over the one income thing either. I wanted her to get a job, Joe. I wanted a nice house, nice cars, nice things…”She” wouldn’t budge. Not an inch! She was right. It took me a very long time to figure out that she was right and I was wrong. In fact, it took a devastating tragedy in my life to figure that out.

I had invested myself into building a business, it was going great, I was on my way to mega-wealth, literally, when the manager, one that I had invested everything in to get him to a certain place where he could play a vital role, used his unique access to my sales force to turn them against me. He ended up taking them with him and started another business. It was a tragic event in my life. It devastated me, Joe. Crushed me. I went through a massive depression over it. I grieved over my loss just like I would if my best friend in life had just died. I mean I really took it hard. I went through about 4 years of depression, 3 of which were massive. It wasn’t just about the loss in the business, once I started dealing with things I found that there was an awful lot of “junk” that I had to deal with. Finally, after 4 years in hell, I recovered.

Joe, I am the type of guy that when I go through adversity I actively search for the opportunity, I know it is there, it’s always there. Opportunity is most often cloaked in a black cloud. I don’t like losing, but I can’t stand losing without finding opportunity. I believe that sometimes you have to take one step back to take two steps forward. As long as you keep the ball going down the field, if you have to take one step back to take two steps forward, you need to do the Texas Two Step right into the end zone, Joe. Whatever it takes!

Here is what I found out in that black cloud of my life called depression.

1) Wealth is fleeting. It can be here today and gone tomorrow. One day your are rich and on top of the world, the next day you are broke, lying on your face with the whole world sitting on your back. If you are depending on wealth to validate you, you are asking for heartache and disappointment.
2) Drawing your identity from “what you do”, rather than “who” you are, is a recipe for despair.
3) Most people really aren’t that interested in what “you” are doing, they are interested in what “they” are doing.
4) There are an awful lot of people out there who are suffering from depression and other issues…an awful lot of them. It really breaks your heart when you realize just how many people are suffering in a country as wealthy as ours and with all the opportunity we have,
5) Depression and anxiety are very, very debilitating things. Being in a body cast wouldn’t be as debilitating to me as going through a depression debilitated me, Joe.
6) When I was laid bare, and I was laid bare, when the thing that I was working on was taken from me, I had to do some real soul searching. I had to learn what was important in life and what wasn’t important in life. It wasn’t easy to let go of what I was trying to build, Joe, especially when the guy who took my well-trained sales force used them to launch a business that made him very, very wealthy. I think it would have been much easier to take had he gone broke, but if he had, I wouldn’t have learned my lesson. All those years I invested to get to that point in life only to have someone else reap the reward! Joe, that guy is divorced now, has a miserable time trying to see his children, and has ruined his life. He leaves a trail of destruction behind him everywhere he goes. I was very, very angry at God for letting that happen to me…in time I came to realize that what God was doing was saving me from a greater loss. Had I continued down the road I was on I would have been the one divorced. I would have lost my family, Joe. In a lot of ways, it had already happened. We were living in the same house and we looked like a family, but I was so busy and so wrapped up in what I was building that I didn’t have the time to focus on my family. At ballgames I would have the phone to my ear dealing with business issues. At family events I would have to step outside and deal with business issues. When I wasn’t on the phone, I was dealing with issues inside my head. I was always some place else. God blessed me in ways I couldn’t have imagined. But I had to be willing to let go of the wheel and let Him drive; Which wasn’t easy for a control freak like me. I had to learn that my wife and my children are more important than money, wealth, or status. I learned that there were people who had nothing in this world except family that were happier than I was, more fulfilled than I was, and had more peace than I had. I learned that there are people who had a lot more money and wealth than I had who were much more miserable than I was. I had to accept that if both of those things were true, and they were, then “money” or “wealth” must have little to do with happiness. (When you are in a major depression what you are looking for is a way to be happy. At least that is what I was looking for.) What else matters in life if you are unhappy and unfulfilled? So I figured out a way to take a little break in life, Joe. I went to the opposite extreme and I found a way to semi-retire. (this too had its price) I went from not spending hardly anytime with my family, to practically spending all of my time with my children. God blessed me with an opportunity to actually live with my family full-time and work part-time. What a wonderful experience it has been. Now, I know that it isn’t practical for everyone to be able to do what I have been able to do, but I can tell you that being here when the kids get up and being able hug them first thing in the morning, getting hugs throughout the day, and then putting my children to bed at night and getting a hug good night has been an amazing experience.
7) I learned that we have the wrong focus in America. We focus on things, position, material, wealth, achievement, success, status, fame, fortune, acceptance by others, approval, and being more well off than the next guy. I know now that all of those things are fluid, meaning you can have them one day and the next day they are gone.
I learned that before someone says “I can’t afford to take “personal responsibility” for educating my children, if they want to be honest, they have to first take a personal assessment. They need to ask themselves, “what am I putting before my children on my list of things important”? Are they willing to live in less house? I did. Are they willing to drive a lesser car? I did. Are they willing to give up family vacations? I have. Are they willing to give up nice furniture? I did. Are they willing to give up the things in life that are necessary for them to give up in order to put their children first? I did. It wasn’t easy for me, but I did it. As a result, I believe that God honored that in my life and returned to me a life I couldn’t have imagined, Joe. Not that I am wealthy, because I’m not…I have been wealthy once, and I will get back to it again, but for a time, all that had to wait. Joe, as you might imagine, you are not the first person to tell me that the idea of them being personally responsible for their child’s education is “unrealistic”.
9) I learned that people need to make a choice regarding where they want to invest their time. What is more important to them, their children or things? People need to take an assessment of their time and determine what they spend their time on now, and if that is the best use of their time?
10) I learned that in order to have a different lifestyle, they have to figure out what their current lifestyle is, figure out what they want their lifestyle to be, then develop a plan for the transformation. Perhaps it requires selling the house and getting an apartment. Perhaps it requires selling the house and getting a “mobile home”! Prehaps it requires selling the second car. Perhaps it requires selling everything. But perhaps it would only require a “little” change. Being a one income family doesn’t have to be just “one” income. I know, I know, that doesn’t make sense. But what I am talking about is in the “traditional” sense of the word “income”. There are lots of ways that a family can work out the issue of income. Perhaps a family business that can be worked at anytime of the day would meet the need. For the vast majority of families with two incomes, by the time they pay child care, after school care, taxes, lunches, extra gas, etc., the second person working is not really making that much net income for the family coffers (What they are really doing is helping to fuel the government machine through additional taxes). In most cases, but not all, a couple hundred dollars per week is all that has to be made up for and they could be “one income”, meaning one person leaving the home full-time. Most people could make the decision to live a lesser life style and make the transition. They may have to live in less of a home, drive less of a car, give up eating out, give up having a phone, give up cable television, turn the heat down in winter and the air down in summer…or give up air conditioning altogether. They may have to give up vacations. They may have to give up retirement accounts. Joe, I am telling you that the vast majority of people who say that they “can’t” be personally responsible for their children’s education are really saying that they “won’t” be personally responsible for their children’s education. But then there are those who really “can’t” do it right now. Those people have to work towards being able to do it. They need to develop a plan, then focus on the plan and make it happen. It may take 5 years, it may take 7 years, it may even take 10 years to get to the point where they can do it…but I believe that the vast majority, the very vast majority, of families “Can” take personal responsibility for their children’s education…if they want to…the trick is making them “want” to.

Side note: I would not recommend depression to anyone. It is a hell on earth. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy…but I might wish it on my best friend. That doesn’t make sense does it? Depression is a terrible, miserable, unbearable thing to deal with…but if you deal with it, you find liberty. If my best friend were walking around with a bunch of junk he wouldn’t let go of any other way, I would wish that he go through depression to force him to break free of the junk that infects him. It would be a very difficult thing to do, wishing depression on him, but I would do it. If you are going through depression, the road out starts with forgiveness. (No Charge for that one) I wouldn’t wish depression on my worst enemy because, well….they are my enemy. I want my enemy to be held back by all of that junk. I can pray for him, God says that I am to pray for my enemies…but I don’t necessarily have to pray that he go through depression. Maybe I could pray that he be inflicted with depression. Notice I didn’t say that he “go through depression”. You gotta watch those words. One leaves him in depression and the other takes him through it. Clever isn’t it?

Now, down to business.

Joe, we are spending about 1 trillion dollars each year on “public education” in this country. Do you think that we have to start with zero dollars? The only reason we have to start with zero dollars is because the left wing nuts have taken over the school system. They actually believe that the government “can’t” spend money that is used in a way that helps religion. They are wrong.

“The establishment of religion clause means at least this: Neither a state nor the federal government may set up a church. Neither can pass laws that aid one religion, aid all religions, or prefer one religion over another. Neither can force a person to go to or to remain away from church against his will or force him to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion… . Neither a state or the federal government may, openly or secretly, participate in the affairs of any religious organizations or groups and vice versa. In the words of Jefferson, the clause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect ‘a wall of separation between church and state.’”

There are four tests of the “establishment clause”, and they are the Lemon test, the Lemon test redux, the endorsement test, and the neutrality test.

You can go look them up on the internet, so I will spare you the explanation here, but to get to the point, government can spend money for the purpose of education, and such expenditure “can” be of aid to religion if the purpose of the expenditure is for education. Government couldn’t spend the money if the purpose was to aid religion and as a by-product of that aid children end up being educated, but the reverse is perfectly legal.

In other words, if atheists had equal access to the money to educate their children, and through their education atheists are able to lie to their children and tell them we “evolved” from lower life forms, the government could make money available to the public so parents could educate their own children.

With that in mind, would you help me write the paperwork to petition the government to send me a check for the $840,000 they didn’t have to spend to educate my children so far and to get them to send me the $40,000 per year they aren’t spending on my children each year for the next several years?

Joe, let me give you a little history. When people started homeschooling their children, society at large and the government said, “your children will be uneducated”, some would say “your children will be stupid”. Government tried very hard to stop homeschooling. Then, when tests were taken, homeschoolers mopped the floor with both “public education” and “private” schools. I mean they rung their bells. It wasn’t even close. It was a bloodbath. So, people could no longer argue that homeschooling would produce stupid, uneducated children. Then they started trying to make parents who are homeschooling have degrees. However, they found out that there was little difference in the results between children of parents who graduated college and those who just graduated high school, and in fact, even parents who didn’t graduate from high school were doing much better at educating their children then “public school” was. So, the government and society couldn’t use that excuse anymore…at least not with a straight face. Then, they said “what about socialization”? Your children won’t be “socialized”. Homeschool parents had a great laugh over that one. Our children are “socialized” out the gills! Unless you mean “socialized” as in “they won’t become good little socialists”, in which case they are right. Tests were conducted and it was found that homeschoolers were way more “socialized” than their counterparts in Public and private schools. So they couldn’t use that one anymore. The public school quiver was out of arrows, so they threw the bow at us. They said “well, if you educate your children at home we won’t get the money we would have gotten to educate your children, which hurts the other children because there is less money available for the system”. AND THE TRUTH SHALL SET YOU FREE!!! Joe, it is about the money! It’s about power! It’s about control! It is about security for a certain group of people. It’s about influence! It is about “socialization” as in “making good little socialists”. But what it isn’t about is “education”!! And the proof is what came out when they ran out of arrows. The public education system in America is still trying to get paid for educating “homeschool” students. They want the money and really could care less about the child!

There is a war going on in America, it is a war over who owns the child. The state wants control over your children. The state wants us to be incubators of children…not parents. Don’t think I am right? Go read the treaty of the child that Mrs. Clinton almost was successful in getting the United States into . It would have taken away your parental rights and given them to the United Nations! Folks, you better wake up if you don’t realize you are in a war. What did Hitler do? He developed the “Hitler Youth”. Folks, it only takes one generation to change the world! Infect the hearts and minds of children and you can rule the world! Teach children to think for themselves and you can overcome anything.

I see secularism as the religion of the left. Not that there aren’t people on the left who don’t believe in God, but I believe that the left predominantly replaces Yahweh, Allah, Buddha and other gods of world religions with “Uncle Sam”. That may sound harsh, but that is what I see and how I feel. That is why the ACLU pushes so hard to put the “God is unwelcome here” sign outside the school doors. It isn’t because they don’t want children to learn religion, it is that they want the children to learn the religion of secularism. “Uncle Sam” has become the god that provides to the secularists.

I think the case could be made that secularism has “evolved” into a religion, especially since it is teaching lies as truth (their basic argument against religion), and that now government is aiding one religion, “secularism” and inhibiting all other religions.

On that basis, I believe that it would be perfectly justified for state governments to develop programs that put the $20,000 per year they are currently spending in the hands of parents, for them to spend as they see fit, even if they spend it to pay for their living expenses. I know, I know, that is way to radical for you. But look at the fruit on the tree, parents have done a smash-up job teaching their own children when compared to “public” and “private” schools, why not put the money where the results are coming from? If the average American family has one child in school, they would get $20,000, if they had two children in school they would get $40,000! How many moms in America could come home from work and raise their own children if they were getting $40,000 to do it? Do you really think that free enterprise wouldn’t step up to provide those parents with cutting edge technology and materials to help those parents teach their children? Do you think campuses wouldn’t start popping up everywhere? Do you think there wouldn’t be innovation and invention? Go ahead, take that $20,000 per child and give it to parents and watch how fast the public school system crumbles. The “public school” system couldn’t justify itself if you put parents in control of the money. Joe, homeschoolers trounce both private and public school in pretty much every area, so much so that certain events, sports, programs, etc are excluding homeschoolers, not because they are stupid, but because the have a tremendously unfair advantage! We do that while sacrificing second incomes and with less than $1,000 per family spent on materials each year! Just imagine what we could do with $40,000 to $80,000 per year! My God!

You might say “you still have government taking money from one and giving it to another”! AND YOU WOULD BE RIGHT! I didn’t say that we would stay in this arrangement. We could develop a long-term plan to phase out government tax collection for education purposes and we could phase out what government pays parents to educate their own children. In theory, it would take about 20 to 30 years to phase out government involvement in education, but in practice, it would take about 5 to 10 years to get to the point where government “Could” be phased out of education. The reason for that is that technology would step in and replace the teacher standing in front of the room very quickly. (By 16 years old children should be out working for a living, not sitting in a classroom. I believe that, with better systems, children could be fully educated with more knowledge than they would get in the current system, including a college degree, by the time they are 16 years old. They need to be productive earlier in life. The current system doesn’t put them to work, really put them to work, until they are 22 to 25 years old! That is ridiculous! They should have a PHD by the time they are 22!) And churches, temples, synagogues, and mosques would quickly develop “private schools” to replace “public schools”. Parents would band together and pool their resources to develop campuses. Groups would be able to get bank loans to build shared campuses because the government would back the loan with the parents’ annual payments. Secularists would be able to erect their schools too. Once the schools are built and paid for a huge chunk of the costs go down. Some of the public schools could be converted for use by parents to use for educating their children.

Parents would need to be advised that after a certain period of time, payments would steadily decrease until there are no more payments. Society would be forced to make the transition, but it wouldn’t be hit with a sudden transition. People would “have” to be personally responsible for raising and educating their own children. But I don’t believe that they would be alone. I believe that there are plenty of people willing to lend a hand. I believe the seniors would be more than willing to be involved. I believe businesses would be more than willing to be involved. I believe that wherever government vacates, parents, family, technology, free market, religion, charity, and society will step in and fill the void.

We have to be willing to make the hard choices, somewhere between making great sacrifices (as most homeschoolers have) and government fully paying for education (By taxing us out the wahzo) there is a balance that we can reach that will enable personal responsibility to take root…but when it does take root, I don’t think we will quickly return to viewing government as our solution.

Today, we have the proverbial “tail wagging the dog”, militant secularists, which I believe are the real minority in this country, are controlling education, and through education, are controlling the family. We need to turn that on its head. They can build their militant secularist schools and we can build our Christian schools, and Muslims can build Muslim schools, and Buddhists can build Buddhist schools, and we can teach our children math, social studies, English, science etc with a Biblical view, and Muslims can teach their children from a view point from the Koran, and secularists can continue to lie to their children about evolution.

Joe, it really can be done. We can simply take what we are currently spending on education and use it to replace itself. Every dollar not spent on education through government spending will create many more dollars in the capitalist system, which would give industry the incentive to help parents end “public education”. It would be much quicker to tear down public education than it was to build it.

Let me start by saying that I agree with everything you mention in your post to me. Yes, I am on the conservative side of politics and am against abortion. I have 2 children and one only needs to look upon the face of a sleeping child to realize all that is good in the world (even if that child is a terror while awake).

I also have to side with Joe on a few things. It’s one of my dreamworlds that we would have the government not controlling so many issues. As a nation, we’ve been programmed to think we need the government controlling us. Those of us that admit we’ve been fed misinformation are the minority. I’ll go by the Ron Paul numbers and say we are maybe 9% of the population at most. So, I am struck with a harsh reality that I will have an uphill battle in reducing the government’s controls. I’ve taken a losing side just for the sake of what was right in the past and am not afraid to continue to do so.

Homeschooling is great if you can do that but I don’t consider it feasable for everyone. I also don’t agree in a public school system and would prefer more private school options with smaller class sizes and unstructured time and curriculums. In my own case, my son has special schooling requirements and neither I, my husband (who stays home with our childen) nor our school system is qualified to handle those issues. Unfortunately, the only working school costs $600 a day. We’ve opted to send him to public school under a special contract with the school system, partially teach him at home and bring in special tutors in order to meet his needs in an affordable way.

As for the GRID. I am a computer security person by trade. Our current internet is one security issue away from full goverement control and any future projects are sure to have more monitoring features built in. I am in the middle of a good book right now. “The Future of the Internet and How to Stop it” by Jonathan Zittrain. The book talks about the ultimate government control of our internet if the current trends of fraud, spam and hacking continue. I’ll be glad to lend it to you when I’ve finished it. If we could complete the GRID, I would be the first in line to use all of its benefits.

If you think there is more that our small minority can do to bring back the original design of the United States, I will be more than willing to listen.

Lori

When I say that it is “unrealistic” to do the things you’re referring to, I reference the fact of the social and economic differences among families. You are in the minority in what all you can do. I want you to comment on those social and economic differences amongst families today and how those parents that both work, or those families with only one parent who has to work two jobs to support her children, can do what you’re proposing. I just don’t see it being possible. Throw in the fact that you want families to purchase the GRID (something I don’t believe in) and it only helps argue my point that what you’re proposing is unrealistic.

Thanks for the surrender. I wouldn’t have thought that you would have conceded so easily.

You probably don’t even know that you surrendered, do you?

Observe:

You said:

“Ok Butch, I’ve been thinking long and hard about our little debate about what role the government should play and what our tax dollars should go towards. I’ve created two or three outlines of possible responses that I could give you on how I feel and the arguments I can make to defend my opinions. After creating these outlines and on the cusp of writing a long, detailed explanation of my views on the issue, it hit me. I can provide a summary in a very short, concise statement:

The thought of wanting people to become responsible for their own actions and for private entities to step up to the plate and provide those services that you feel as though the government should not provide is unrealistic.”

You also said:

“It is unrealistic to expect all parents to take what you call “personal responsibility” and educate their children. ”

You also said:

“You (meaning me) think that parents should take an active role in the education of their children and {you, meaning me} talk about how great of an experience your family has had with home-schooling. My argument against that is that you are in the minority, and you always will be.”

Joe, you took the position that I am “wrong” because what I propose is “unrealistic”. What is absent is the argument that I am “wrong” because I am “wrong”. You stated that you thought long and hard on this, which I take as meaning that you really searched for answers, your best answers, and you wrote out several outlines for your response, and were about to write a long dissertation on why I am wrong and you are right, and you came to the conclusion that the best way to answer me, I assume you would use your best argument, especially when you use it to form a short and concise response, was to say that the reason I am wrong is that my position is “unrealistic”. In other words, based on your response here, at the same time that you disagree with me on the basis that what I propose is “unrealistic”, and since you offer no other reasoning to prove that I am wrong, you are saying that if my position “were” realistic, it would be ideal.

Joe, I think we have had a break-thru. Now, all we have to do is make the “impossible”, “possible”, and that’s easy. We certainly have a lot of examples of how to do that. Shall I list them?

x-rays
Television
Radio
printing presses
motor cars
engines
trains
boats
planes
satellites
lasers
telephones
guns
missles
space travel
atomic bombs
democracy
computers
e-mail
video
electricity
video games
radar
sonar

These were all “unrealistic” to most people. It is always amazing how many people are willing to tell those who are doing something that it “can’t be done”.

Shall I continue with more examples? I will if you want me to, but I think you get the point.

Joe, now that we are on the same side, let’s start a club of reformed liberals and let’s do something great together.