S
Scout1441
Guest
I’ll stand by for the answer to this thought provoking question.
- Status
G
GodLovesTheSpek
Guest
My guess is “none”. Probably because of socialistic policies that either killed or banned all dogs in some sort of mis-guided environmental correction and some unwanted, damaging pest flourished.
C
CPA2
Guest
What about the individual’s responsibility to avail himself of those opportunities in order to utilize his skills and abilities to “participate” in the economy? The use of your God-given abilities is a mandate never mentioned by those who perpetuate the myth that there is no public help for the poor, and who favor an ever-expanding, never-ending welfare state.
Part of Catholic teaching is that everyone has an obligation to work, and children are no exception. That is not to say they must engage in paid labor, but to point out that their work is to attend school, study, learn, and do their homework. All children, both rich and poor, are offered immense wealth in the form of education, often at great sacrifice to their tax-paying parents; and for individual students, through willful recalcitrance, to squander that wealth is also a great social injustice. Where does socialist thought recognize that?
There are those who refuse to accept authority. We have all seen them: all their lives, they have defied their parents, defied their teachers, defied civil authorities, defied their employers, defied Church teachings. From the pre-school brat to the man who can’t get a job because he won’t cut his hair because, in his own words, “No one can tell me what to do.” This behavior his completely contrary to our Church’s teaching to respect legitimate authority. The consequences of such behavior are necessarily a low standard of living (who will employ a person who lacks the most basic skills or will not carry out instructions?). This is not to say these types do not need our help; but to blame their condition on a “lack” of social justice (a.k.a., “it’s all society’s fault”) is to misplace the blame and to commit resources to solving the wrong problem.
I reserve particular scorn for the ‘60s generation whose members, by their sheer numbers, sought to defy society, simply for the sake of defiance, by re-designing it after their own image. They are still having a profoundly negative effect on America’s concept of morality. Think of the immense human pride that is required for a single generation to convince itself that it knows more than all the collective knowledge of all of Western Civilization distilled down through 200 generations! Yet, its only accomplishment was to put a different spin on ancient sin in an attempt to give it respectability. The message of that generation to its members was, “You don’t have to care what others think of you; consequently, you don’t have to care about them.” Also, sometime during the 1960s, the American culture passed a “cross-over” point. Prior to that, individuals felt a need to “pull their own weight” and avoid becoming a burden to society, and consequently, there was great social pressure for individuals to work. After that, there was no stigma to sloth; indeed, admiration for the rogue who “beat the system” generated (surprise!) more rogues! They are those who, attempting to avoid personal responsibility, “mine” the system: the welfare queen who drew 32 checks from 32 different welfare offices and lived with her lover in a luxury home and had four luxury cars in the garage.
"In a quest to increase social justice, we must be careful not compound that which we are trying to reduce."
The U.S. military can do its job very well, thank you, with a finite number of dollars. There isn’t enough money in the known universe to satisfy socialist welfare programs.
You don’t know very much about Americans.
I agree. The United States is trying to create a world without God.
Part of Catholic teaching is that everyone has an obligation to work, and children are no exception. That is not to say they must engage in paid labor, but to point out that their work is to attend school, study, learn, and do their homework. All children, both rich and poor, are offered immense wealth in the form of education, often at great sacrifice to their tax-paying parents; and for individual students, through willful recalcitrance, to squander that wealth is also a great social injustice. Where does socialist thought recognize that?
There are those who refuse to accept authority. We have all seen them: all their lives, they have defied their parents, defied their teachers, defied civil authorities, defied their employers, defied Church teachings. From the pre-school brat to the man who can’t get a job because he won’t cut his hair because, in his own words, “No one can tell me what to do.” This behavior his completely contrary to our Church’s teaching to respect legitimate authority. The consequences of such behavior are necessarily a low standard of living (who will employ a person who lacks the most basic skills or will not carry out instructions?). This is not to say these types do not need our help; but to blame their condition on a “lack” of social justice (a.k.a., “it’s all society’s fault”) is to misplace the blame and to commit resources to solving the wrong problem.
I reserve particular scorn for the ‘60s generation whose members, by their sheer numbers, sought to defy society, simply for the sake of defiance, by re-designing it after their own image. They are still having a profoundly negative effect on America’s concept of morality. Think of the immense human pride that is required for a single generation to convince itself that it knows more than all the collective knowledge of all of Western Civilization distilled down through 200 generations! Yet, its only accomplishment was to put a different spin on ancient sin in an attempt to give it respectability. The message of that generation to its members was, “You don’t have to care what others think of you; consequently, you don’t have to care about them.” Also, sometime during the 1960s, the American culture passed a “cross-over” point. Prior to that, individuals felt a need to “pull their own weight” and avoid becoming a burden to society, and consequently, there was great social pressure for individuals to work. After that, there was no stigma to sloth; indeed, admiration for the rogue who “beat the system” generated (surprise!) more rogues! They are those who, attempting to avoid personal responsibility, “mine” the system: the welfare queen who drew 32 checks from 32 different welfare offices and lived with her lover in a luxury home and had four luxury cars in the garage.
"In a quest to increase social justice, we must be careful not compound that which we are trying to reduce."
The U.S. military can do its job very well, thank you, with a finite number of dollars. There isn’t enough money in the known universe to satisfy socialist welfare programs.
You don’t know very much about Americans.
I agree. The United States is trying to create a world without God.
C
CPA2
Guest
In a market economy, the forces of supply and demand rule. Price is the mechanism that regulates resource allocation. Prices are a signal, which directs the behavior of suppliers (sellers) and demanders (buyers). In market capitalism most of society’s resources are privately owned, and the owners of these resources can use them as they please within legal limits.
Incentive is the key difference between capitalism (private ownership of resources) and socialism (state ownership of resources). Private ownership boosts incentive, while public ownership retards it.
The heart of economics is NOT about money – it’s about choices, economic choices people make and how those choices affect businesses and the economy. Economics texts define economics as, “the study of choice under conditions of scarcity.” This condition of scarcity leads to the three problems of resource allocation: 1) which goods and services should be produced, 2) how should they be produced, and 3) who should get these goodies. Deciding on how to accomplish these tasks, is where human behavior (choices) comes into play.
Definitions of economics also focus on the concept of scarcity. In economics, scarcity does not necessarily imply poverty. Instead scarcity means limited, that is, people have limited (or scarce) resources, but unlimited wants.
Incentive is the key difference between capitalism (private ownership of resources) and socialism (state ownership of resources). Private ownership boosts incentive, while public ownership retards it.
The heart of economics is NOT about money – it’s about choices, economic choices people make and how those choices affect businesses and the economy. Economics texts define economics as, “the study of choice under conditions of scarcity.” This condition of scarcity leads to the three problems of resource allocation: 1) which goods and services should be produced, 2) how should they be produced, and 3) who should get these goodies. Deciding on how to accomplish these tasks, is where human behavior (choices) comes into play.
Definitions of economics also focus on the concept of scarcity. In economics, scarcity does not necessarily imply poverty. Instead scarcity means limited, that is, people have limited (or scarce) resources, but unlimited wants.
G
GodLovesTheSpek
Guest
It’s a long post but please read. It is, in part, my primary education experience.
This recollection isn’t pride or bragging or funny or false – it’s a tragedy and a disaster and I hope it never happens again. A real-life example of low quality education in a poor, isolated, ill-prepared region of the USA created, in part, by a “forward-thinking” catastrophe. Believe it or not, it’s all true:
In the first and second and part of the third grade, I received quality education (yes I do remember). Even kindergarten was good.
In the middle of the third grade, I moved and was placed in a county education system in a poor rural area. The schools were old (teens, 20’s 30’s?), steam heat only (in a hot and humid area), desks were just as old as the buildings, rusty, covered with decades of writing and carving. Some of the elementary schools still had old, oxidizing sports trophies from previous decades when the buildings were high schools. The gymnasium was unused and falling apart. It was all in the tense atmosphere of a school system that had been integrated the year before. Racially motivated fights were common, Jack Chick tracts flowed freely. This is where the story begins…
In the third grade I was “corrected” by being instructed to not look at the books for the big kids but to look at the thin, kiddie books full of colorful pictures and simple words. I was puzzled why they did this. In retrospect, I suspect that they thought I couldn’t be reading those big kids books but just looking. Wrong. I humored them for a few weeks and for whatever reason they didn’t seem to notice or care when I went back to the “big kids” books. This struck me as very strange. Even then I realized there was a storm on the horizon but had no idea.
Beginning in the 4th grade we were introduced to a new, exciting, revolutionary way of teaching called “IPI”. Individually Prescribed Instruction. What a great idea! Students setting the pace of education! Learning materials developed after years of study and research! The IPI instruction was split for reading/writing and mathematics. Each skill had levels A-G (with “A” being the lowest level and “G” being the highest level) and each level with sublevels pertaining to algebra, fractions, multiplication, reading, using articles and verbs correctly, etc. The plan was to take the teaching out of the teachers hands and put the education in the pre-fabricated workbooks leaving the teachers to “prescribe” education, perform discipline and do administration. An outside person was brought in to grade the “tests” from the printed answer books! The teachers did very little teaching. We had red and green flags for “help” and “prescription”, respectively. The prescription was based upon the grade of the tests for each prescribed assignment (still following?) Sound OK so far?
What a complete utter travesty of education!!! (steam blowing out my ears)
There was an initial evaluation test to determine beginning levels. Most of the already poorly educated students took the initial test and landed mainly in the “A” and “B” levels. Imagine the poorly-educated parents (educated in the same system) delight when the already underachieving students report cards showed all “A’s” and “B’s” for readin’ , writin’ , and 'rithmatic. I had to explain to my well-educated parents what on earth was going on when I came home with “F’s” and “G’s”. Now the poorly-educated students had some “smarts” : Do very little, don’t put up the red flag and come home with “A’s” and “B’s”!!!
A small group of us who did extremely well formulated a plan: What would the teachers do if we “learned” so fast that we would complete the entire curriculum (it was designed to last through the 7th grade, I think) before its planned end? 4th grade, remember. The race was on. It became a furious competition to see who would finish first.
Unfortunately, the poorly performing performing students were happy to perform poorly – they didn’t get a whippin’ at home for bad grades. They were robbed of their basic education at a time in their life when it was so important to get it.
In the 5th Grade, still in the midst of the ongoing IPI disaster, I was chastised in front of my entire homeroom by my homeroom teacher with these words: “(name) it has come to my attention that you have been reading books outside your level. Please return to your prescribed level”. AGAIN?!? (third grade, remember?) All the students turn their head and look at me. Reading outside my level? Those words burn me up after many, many years with a combination of shock and embarrassment that I can still feel. I recall that incident vividly and it left a deep scar. I said “Yes ma’am” without incident. I went back to the “correct” level for a few weeks and then proceeded.
It’s a fact that I wasn’t “following orders”. The impression of a broken education system was being cemented.
The race was still on and picking up steam. We went so fast during the 5th grade, they taught us how to “prescribe”. Yay! (sarcastically) We were actually running the show. Unbelievable. Now armed with this privilege we totally outstripped the system blazing through the program and we completed the IPI early in the 6th grade in unimaginably short time (to them). (no, I wasn’t the one to complete it first – rats!) The system had to bring in a special, outside instructor to keep us entertained for the remainder of the year, with the “novel” idea of letting us create our own country and determining how we would manage it, protect it, etc.
This situation happened at other county elementary schools as well. Oooops! What to do for 7th grade?
END OF PART 1
This recollection isn’t pride or bragging or funny or false – it’s a tragedy and a disaster and I hope it never happens again. A real-life example of low quality education in a poor, isolated, ill-prepared region of the USA created, in part, by a “forward-thinking” catastrophe. Believe it or not, it’s all true:
In the first and second and part of the third grade, I received quality education (yes I do remember). Even kindergarten was good.
In the middle of the third grade, I moved and was placed in a county education system in a poor rural area. The schools were old (teens, 20’s 30’s?), steam heat only (in a hot and humid area), desks were just as old as the buildings, rusty, covered with decades of writing and carving. Some of the elementary schools still had old, oxidizing sports trophies from previous decades when the buildings were high schools. The gymnasium was unused and falling apart. It was all in the tense atmosphere of a school system that had been integrated the year before. Racially motivated fights were common, Jack Chick tracts flowed freely. This is where the story begins…
In the third grade I was “corrected” by being instructed to not look at the books for the big kids but to look at the thin, kiddie books full of colorful pictures and simple words. I was puzzled why they did this. In retrospect, I suspect that they thought I couldn’t be reading those big kids books but just looking. Wrong. I humored them for a few weeks and for whatever reason they didn’t seem to notice or care when I went back to the “big kids” books. This struck me as very strange. Even then I realized there was a storm on the horizon but had no idea.
Beginning in the 4th grade we were introduced to a new, exciting, revolutionary way of teaching called “IPI”. Individually Prescribed Instruction. What a great idea! Students setting the pace of education! Learning materials developed after years of study and research! The IPI instruction was split for reading/writing and mathematics. Each skill had levels A-G (with “A” being the lowest level and “G” being the highest level) and each level with sublevels pertaining to algebra, fractions, multiplication, reading, using articles and verbs correctly, etc. The plan was to take the teaching out of the teachers hands and put the education in the pre-fabricated workbooks leaving the teachers to “prescribe” education, perform discipline and do administration. An outside person was brought in to grade the “tests” from the printed answer books! The teachers did very little teaching. We had red and green flags for “help” and “prescription”, respectively. The prescription was based upon the grade of the tests for each prescribed assignment (still following?) Sound OK so far?
What a complete utter travesty of education!!! (steam blowing out my ears)
There was an initial evaluation test to determine beginning levels. Most of the already poorly educated students took the initial test and landed mainly in the “A” and “B” levels. Imagine the poorly-educated parents (educated in the same system) delight when the already underachieving students report cards showed all “A’s” and “B’s” for readin’ , writin’ , and 'rithmatic. I had to explain to my well-educated parents what on earth was going on when I came home with “F’s” and “G’s”. Now the poorly-educated students had some “smarts” : Do very little, don’t put up the red flag and come home with “A’s” and “B’s”!!!
A small group of us who did extremely well formulated a plan: What would the teachers do if we “learned” so fast that we would complete the entire curriculum (it was designed to last through the 7th grade, I think) before its planned end? 4th grade, remember. The race was on. It became a furious competition to see who would finish first.
Unfortunately, the poorly performing performing students were happy to perform poorly – they didn’t get a whippin’ at home for bad grades. They were robbed of their basic education at a time in their life when it was so important to get it.
In the 5th Grade, still in the midst of the ongoing IPI disaster, I was chastised in front of my entire homeroom by my homeroom teacher with these words: “(name) it has come to my attention that you have been reading books outside your level. Please return to your prescribed level”. AGAIN?!? (third grade, remember?) All the students turn their head and look at me. Reading outside my level? Those words burn me up after many, many years with a combination of shock and embarrassment that I can still feel. I recall that incident vividly and it left a deep scar. I said “Yes ma’am” without incident. I went back to the “correct” level for a few weeks and then proceeded.
It’s a fact that I wasn’t “following orders”. The impression of a broken education system was being cemented.
The race was still on and picking up steam. We went so fast during the 5th grade, they taught us how to “prescribe”. Yay! (sarcastically) We were actually running the show. Unbelievable. Now armed with this privilege we totally outstripped the system blazing through the program and we completed the IPI early in the 6th grade in unimaginably short time (to them). (no, I wasn’t the one to complete it first – rats!) The system had to bring in a special, outside instructor to keep us entertained for the remainder of the year, with the “novel” idea of letting us create our own country and determining how we would manage it, protect it, etc.
This situation happened at other county elementary schools as well. Oooops! What to do for 7th grade?
END OF PART 1
G
GodLovesTheSpek
Guest
BEGINNING OF PART 2:
The school year ended and IPI was finally put out of its misery. I guess it was because they had a number of students that were consolidating into larger junior high schools with nothing “prescribed” for the coming school year. (Thanks be to God) Science and History during those years was traditional but students underperformed in those areas because their reading skills were so low. The horrible results of the “experiment” reverberated throughout the entire system for many years as these unfortunate souls were promoted through the grades by a “special education program”. The county had hired teachers who didn’t know their subjects (more later), but knew how to discipline students with a good paddlein’ in the rear end in front of every student with the “teacher” swinging at full force with the paddle in a two-handed method reminiscent of holding a baseball bat (any lawyers reading?).
Unfortunately the misery did continue long after the beast had been killed. More misguided mistakes. Because of the huge disparity of education between the students and the aforementioned “special education program”, friends became separated because they weren’t in the same classes and the poorly educated just fell further behind with results that constantly reared its ugly head over the coming years and maybe to this day. As the students became separated by education, another segregation occurred that was never dealt with that had social implications.
In the 7th Grade I had an intense (but civil) discussion with our “Astronomy Educator” trying to convince this person that the Sun was more than one-million miles from Earth (approx. 93-mil). I failed to convince.
To give some fair balance there were some good teachers in the schools and we knew who they were and we tried our best to get them and keep them.
At this point, the under-educated students were ill-served with “damage control” and disciplinarians and the virtually self-taught students (we liked the library) became increasingly convinced they were smarter than the teachers (keep that pride in check!) and that wasn’t a good situation either because we were virtually left to our own devices to obtain a “real” education while “school” was kind of a running joke. (“inmates running the asylum” comes to mind, for some reason) Few advanced courses in this budget-strapped system. After quickly completing tests with plenty of time on our hands we would flip the mimeographed (remember that?) tests over and cover the blank back of the sheet(s) with paragraphs and diagrams of additional information not-covered, not-tested and/or how to apply it to science, world events, history, etc. For this we received extra credit and were “rewarded” scores greater than 100. Oh oh. The race was on again! The competition was to achieve the highest average! Report cards showing averages of 106 and 110 or 115 were not unheard of amongst the group. This new competition went all the way through high school.
While in high school I was selected to read a final exam to a student because the student couldn’t read (product of IPI). My sister had learning problems because of IPI, in my view.
In high school I was grading finals for the “Coach/History Educator” and was instructed to mark as correct any answer that even could be remotely construed as even being close (not to mention many were virtually illegible or unreadable because of the IPI “education”) “give 'em the benefit of the doubt” was the instruction – if it wasn’t readable mark it as correct.
Ever watch “Jaywalking” on the Jay Leno show? Funny? Nope. Imagine most of an entire high school. A horrible tragedy inflicted on children by the well-meaning “system” because the system thought they had a better way.
Thank you for reading. I think of the old school days often and wish I had the courage then to say something. I knew something was tragically wrong but was absolutely terrified to utter anything. Sometimes it only takes one person to try to do the right thing to correct a terrible wrong. Some people are blessed by God with an opportunity to do it. I had that opportunity during grade school and completely failed. I get an “F”.
It isn’t good enough to be just “smart”.
God bless.
The school year ended and IPI was finally put out of its misery. I guess it was because they had a number of students that were consolidating into larger junior high schools with nothing “prescribed” for the coming school year. (Thanks be to God) Science and History during those years was traditional but students underperformed in those areas because their reading skills were so low. The horrible results of the “experiment” reverberated throughout the entire system for many years as these unfortunate souls were promoted through the grades by a “special education program”. The county had hired teachers who didn’t know their subjects (more later), but knew how to discipline students with a good paddlein’ in the rear end in front of every student with the “teacher” swinging at full force with the paddle in a two-handed method reminiscent of holding a baseball bat (any lawyers reading?).
Unfortunately the misery did continue long after the beast had been killed. More misguided mistakes. Because of the huge disparity of education between the students and the aforementioned “special education program”, friends became separated because they weren’t in the same classes and the poorly educated just fell further behind with results that constantly reared its ugly head over the coming years and maybe to this day. As the students became separated by education, another segregation occurred that was never dealt with that had social implications.
In the 7th Grade I had an intense (but civil) discussion with our “Astronomy Educator” trying to convince this person that the Sun was more than one-million miles from Earth (approx. 93-mil). I failed to convince.
To give some fair balance there were some good teachers in the schools and we knew who they were and we tried our best to get them and keep them.
At this point, the under-educated students were ill-served with “damage control” and disciplinarians and the virtually self-taught students (we liked the library) became increasingly convinced they were smarter than the teachers (keep that pride in check!) and that wasn’t a good situation either because we were virtually left to our own devices to obtain a “real” education while “school” was kind of a running joke. (“inmates running the asylum” comes to mind, for some reason) Few advanced courses in this budget-strapped system. After quickly completing tests with plenty of time on our hands we would flip the mimeographed (remember that?) tests over and cover the blank back of the sheet(s) with paragraphs and diagrams of additional information not-covered, not-tested and/or how to apply it to science, world events, history, etc. For this we received extra credit and were “rewarded” scores greater than 100. Oh oh. The race was on again! The competition was to achieve the highest average! Report cards showing averages of 106 and 110 or 115 were not unheard of amongst the group. This new competition went all the way through high school.
While in high school I was selected to read a final exam to a student because the student couldn’t read (product of IPI). My sister had learning problems because of IPI, in my view.
In high school I was grading finals for the “Coach/History Educator” and was instructed to mark as correct any answer that even could be remotely construed as even being close (not to mention many were virtually illegible or unreadable because of the IPI “education”) “give 'em the benefit of the doubt” was the instruction – if it wasn’t readable mark it as correct.
Ever watch “Jaywalking” on the Jay Leno show? Funny? Nope. Imagine most of an entire high school. A horrible tragedy inflicted on children by the well-meaning “system” because the system thought they had a better way.
Thank you for reading. I think of the old school days often and wish I had the courage then to say something. I knew something was tragically wrong but was absolutely terrified to utter anything. Sometimes it only takes one person to try to do the right thing to correct a terrible wrong. Some people are blessed by God with an opportunity to do it. I had that opportunity during grade school and completely failed. I get an “F”.
It isn’t good enough to be just “smart”.
God bless.
C
CPA2
Guest
Social Security is a Ponzi scheme. A Ponzi scheme is illegal, unless the government does it. Why? Social Security can survive only so long as more money is paid into the system than is paid out in benefits.
But with millions of Baby Boomers, like myself, set to begin collecting benefits over the next decade, those days are severely numbered.
**In fact, Social Security is expected to begin taking in less money than it pays out as early as 2017. And by 2041 — just 24 years later — it will only be capable of paying out 78% of promised benefits. **
Social Security comes from the Socialist platform of 1928. President Franklin Roosevelt and the Democrats adopted the socialist idea of Social Security, minimum wage and eventually the Democrats adopted the entire Socialist platform. We are now paying the price for those delusionary socialist ideas.
But with millions of Baby Boomers, like myself, set to begin collecting benefits over the next decade, those days are severely numbered.
**In fact, Social Security is expected to begin taking in less money than it pays out as early as 2017. And by 2041 — just 24 years later — it will only be capable of paying out 78% of promised benefits. **
Social Security comes from the Socialist platform of 1928. President Franklin Roosevelt and the Democrats adopted the socialist idea of Social Security, minimum wage and eventually the Democrats adopted the entire Socialist platform. We are now paying the price for those delusionary socialist ideas.
C
CPA2
Guest
Wow! I had no idea.BEGINNING OF PART 2:
The school year ended and IPI was finally put out of its misery. I guess it was because they had a number of students that were consolidating into larger junior high schools with nothing “prescribed” for the coming school year. (Thanks be to God) Science and History during those years was traditional but students underperformed in those areas because their reading skills were so low. The horrible results of the “experiment” reverberated throughout the entire system for many years as these unfortunate souls were promoted through the grades by a “special education program”. The county had hired teachers who didn’t know their subjects (more later), but knew how to discipline students with a good paddlein’ in the rear end in front of every student with the “teacher” swinging at full force with the paddle in a two-handed method reminiscent of holding a baseball bat (any lawyers reading?).
Unfortunately the misery did continue long after the beast had been killed. More misguided mistakes. Because of the huge disparity of education between the students and the aforementioned “special education program”, friends became separated because they weren’t in the same classes and the poorly educated just fell further behind with results that constantly reared its ugly head over the coming years and maybe to this day. As the students became separated by education, another segregation occurred that was never dealt with that had social implications.
In the 7th Grade I had an intense (but civil) discussion with our “Astronomy Educator” trying to convince this person that the Sun was more than one-million miles from Earth (approx. 93-mil). I failed to convince.
To give some fair balance there were some good teachers in the schools and we knew who they were and we tried our best to get them and keep them.
At this point, the under-educated students were ill-served with “damage control” and disciplinarians and the virtually self-taught students (we liked the library) became increasingly convinced they were smarter than the teachers (keep that pride in check!) and that wasn’t a good situation either because we were virtually left to our own devices to obtain a “real” education while “school” was kind of a running joke. (“inmates running the asylum” comes to mind, for some reason) Few advanced courses in this budget-strapped system. After quickly completing tests with plenty of time on our hands we would flip the mimeographed (remember that?) tests over and cover the blank back of the sheet(s) with paragraphs and diagrams of additional information not-covered, not-tested and/or how to apply it to science, world events, history, etc. For this we received extra credit and were “rewarded” scores greater than 100. Oh oh. The race was on again! The competition was to achieve the highest average! Report cards showing averages of 106 and 110 or 115 were not unheard of amongst the group. This new competition went all the way through high school.
While in high school I was selected to read a final exam to a student because the student couldn’t read (product of IPI). My sister had learning problems because of IPI, in my view.
In high school I was grading finals for the “Coach/History Educator” and was instructed to mark as correct any answer that even could be remotely construed as even being close (not to mention many were virtually illegible or unreadable because of the IPI “education”) “give 'em the benefit of the doubt” was the instruction – if it wasn’t readable mark it as correct.
Ever watch “Jaywalking” on the Jay Leno show? Funny? Nope. Imagine most of an entire high school. A horrible tragedy inflicted on children by the well-meaning “system” because the system thought they had a better way.
Thank you for reading. I think of the old school days often and wish I had the courage then to say something. I knew something was tragically wrong but was absolutely terrified to utter anything. Sometimes it only takes one person to try to do the right thing to correct a terrible wrong. Some people are blessed by God with an opportunity to do it. I had that opportunity during grade school and completely failed. I get an “F”.
It isn’t good enough to be just “smart”.
God bless.
I was fortunate to attend three Catholic schools from the 1st grade through the 12th grade.
You have an opportunity to do something now about the broken government education system. Go to the “Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice on the Internet.” I get their free magazine. Get involved. You can do more now than when you were in school! www.friedmanfoundation.org/newsroom/ShowNewsItem.do?id=80410
Let’s put an end to this government education lunacy!
T
tjm190
Guest
Hmmm… It’s already been explained to you multiple times that-
The bailouts were necessary to keep an entire sector of our economy from going away for decades
The bailouts have been/are being paid back
The bonuses were guaranteed in the employee’s contracts
Aside from a possible lawsuit has they failed to pay, what is an employee’s incentive not to go work elsewhere after such a massive pay cut?
S
sedonaman
Guest
I already know how you do it: for socialism to work [and I use the term “work” loosely], you have to take away peoples’ rights.
S
sedonaman
Guest
Shades of counting dimples in ballots in FL for the “correct” candidate !!! When I went to school, if there was any doubt, you got the question wrong, and rightfully so because the idea of a test is to put a burden on the student to produce a correct answer. The method you describe puts the burden on the school to prove he’s wrong.
S
sedonaman
Guest
I’ll stand by for the answer to this thought provoking question.
Well, I don’t really know even though I lived there at the time. I’m not sure it is even knowable, but if it is, it would be in a report buried somewhere the national archives, or wherever congress keeps its reports.OK you got me. How many and what’s the point
There were people going door-to-door asking residents if they had any pets. Citizens got curious and asked the city what was going on, and the city said it was taking a pet census. Asked why it was wasting money on a pet census, the city replied that they got a grant from congress to do it. When the city was told to stop wasting the money, it said the census had to be conducted because congress appropriated the money for that purpose, and that purpose alone, whether or not some problem existed to warrant it. “Send the money back” was the citizen response. “We can’t do that because if we do, congress will just send it to another state.
Years later, I stumbled across a book that independently verified the existence of this program, which was statewide. Other states probably got similar grants. Besides being a dilution of democracy*, it was a monumental example of the violation of subsidiarity, and as such, it was a socialist make-work “jobs” program. In the end, no one benefited from this expenditure, except maybe the actual counters of pets, and I have my doubts about that because they could have been doing meaningful work instead.
*A separate story in itself.
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Scout1441
Guest
You provided a good and sadly a typical example of goofball government programs with little purpose except to spend money. Tis a shame that the principle of subsidiarity is not required knowledge of those seeking executive or legislative positions in government.
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Seeker100
Guest
Total Nonsence! In Canada, it is everyone’s right to a good education and top of the line medical treatment. This is a right of every Canadian citizen. We don’t throw our sick people out of the hosptials and onto the street because they can’t pay.
I saw the movie Sicko by Michael Moore. It was so awful to see the sick people being taken out of hosptials because they could not pay. To see confused and ill people walking down the street in their hospital gowns was just so heart wrenching. I don’t know what is wrong with so many Americans who are against Obama’s social programs. There just seems to be a total deadness of zero feelings.
By not leting Obama put in place social programs, that benefit everyone, the human rights of the American people are trampled!
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CPA2
Guest
You do not seem to comprehend Milton Friedman’s conclusion in his book, Free to Choose.
“The two ideas of human freedom and economic freedom working together came to their greatest fruition in the United States…We have been forgetting the basic truth that the greatest threat to human freedom is the concentration of power, whether in the hands of government or anyone else. We have persuaded ourselves that it is safe to grant power, provided it is for good purposes.”
“We are again recognizing the dangers of an over-governed society, coming to understand that good objectives can be perverted by bad means, that reliance on the freedom of people to control their own lives in accordance with their own values is the surest way to achieve the full potential of a great society.”
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GodLovesTheSpek
Guest
If/when the EU and Canada decides that Atheism is the more efficiently run belief system thus is best for the common good of the economy and therefore best for the people, one might think differently. The “happiest” country Sweden is amongst the highest percentage-wise in non-believing people of the world. The EU, as a whole, is amongst the locations of the world with the highest concentration of non-believers and they’re so happy.
The Deceiver has done its work well. Religion has been traded for worldly comfort.
Reading material: ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_225_report_en.pdf
The situation is much worse in China and the Russian Federation.
The USA will welcome our worldwide friends – if they get out in time.
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Seeker100
Guest
You are correct that the greatest threat to human freedom is the concentration of power whether in the hands of government or anyone else. Very very true! (you surprise me) This is why Obama’s social programs are so needed. Giving everyone health care and education, is giving individuals power, thus spreading it out, instead of letting it concentrate further with the wealthy. Withholding power from the lowest of your society is a crime against the Lord.
Commumism is an overly governed society and we all know that that form of government does not work. Nobody wants that.
Social programs however to help give everyone a right to live however distributes power more evenly throughout society so that it can be healthy and vibrante.
Canada and Europe are excellent examples of this.
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Seeker100
Guest
I have no idea how atheism has anything to do with the topic at hand.
If you want to do the will of the Lord support Obama bring in social programs to give everyone their human right to medical treatment and education.
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fish90
Guest
With respect, supporting Obama without objection would be evil. The evil of abortion will continue.
Why do we always look for the government to solve problems? Do we have a crisis in health care or our culture?
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Seeker100
Guest
The evil of abortion continues with or without Obama. It is very evil that it is being used as an excuse to stop the good that Obama is trying to accomplish.
The government has a responsibility for various aspects of society. In Europe and Canada the governement for the most part fulfills its role.
In the United States however the lack of government for so many years has resulted in not only a health care crises, but a crises in all areas of society including education, law enforcement, and banking. No developed nation on earth is in such a mess in so many areas. Obama is here to fix things.
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