Why should I be responsible for your child's "education?"

[teverton1]

[Trajan]

1. Because mass ignorance is not a reasonable alternative ...

This thread has a decided Libertarian slant ... Taking a stand against public education is certainly NOT a Liberal/Progressive position ....

Did you know that DU is for Democrats and Liberals ???

Did you read the forum rules ?

[XemaSab]

2. If the little fuckers next door weren't in school

they'd be breaking into my house, that's why. :P

Also, I got a public school education for "free", and now I'm paying it back. Think of it like a student loan.

[depakid]

3. Libertarian stupidity

or parody?

Hard to tell with Americans these days.

[rockymountaindem]

4. Because everybody else's kids are going to take care of you when you're old

... if you don't die of foolishness beforehand.

If you want to live in a country with no government services, go live in Somalia.

[Mister Ed]

5. And what about those damn roads? Why should I pay for the roads I don't drive on?

:sarcasm:

[OffWithTheirHeads]

7. and if your house is on fire and you can't afford to pay for folks to help

put it out, fuck you, you looser. You deserve to have it burn down cause you are lazy! Your on your own motherfucker because it's survival of the fittest in Republofaschist land and God bless America cause I'm sure Jesus didn't really mean to provide food for all those homeless, welfare Queens with that loaves and fishes stunt. Fuck em! Let em starve like the real Jesus would do if he was born at a time to understand the free market.

[Hissyspit]

6. Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution gives Congress the power to impose taxes to "provide for

the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States."

[OffWithTheirHeads]

Oh shit! There we go with "Welfare" again

Happy new year Hissy! I see some of us are still up.

[Lasher]

8. Look out, the Paulards have escaped again.

[elleng]

9. No Freedom Without Education

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
--Thomas Jefferson to C. Yancey, 1816.

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/6529/notebook/jefferson_quotes.html

[ima_sinnic]

10. b/c I don't want the world around me to end up like you: totally moronic

because your ignorant, small-minded neal boortz foolishness proves that, for some, public education is a total WASTE of taxpayer dollars.

Meanwhile, as a senior, I'm grateful for the education I received, and for the community that made it possible without thinking twice about it--because they knew the obvious benefit for everyone of a well-educated younger generation, as I do now.

oh, and what a great idea as we come into a depression! people can't even afford food now, and are losing their homes. The homeless shelters are overflowing and you think people will be able to pay school fees? riiiight.

If you're so resentful of being a contributing member of society, why don't you go to virtually any so-called third world country in the world? --just for a taste of what it's like to live in a place where virtually nobody pays taxes--and receives virtually nothing in return, including decent roads, clean drinking water, and well-trained, equipped, and conscientious emergency/rescue workers and police. You know, a place where you can barely think beyond basic survival from day to day. Just your kind of place, eh?

[ima_sinnic]

11. the pigs who promote this are the ones who benefit from an ignorant populace

I mean, really, how can the suckers be plundered and looted by scams like the "war on terror" if they can read and seek knowledge beyond CNN and talk radio?

Notice how education has severely declined over the last 40 years--to be dealt the coup de grace of No Child Left Behind (how cute that that fits so perfectly with the dominionist Left Behind bullshit!--and how fucking CREEPY--sheesh)--but anyway--just consider yourself a victim of the now anemic and more and more impoverished education system--as we all are now its ultimate victims--as the greed-head republican extremists and propagandists have diverted our tax dollars away from public services to their own private pockets and pretty much succeeded in making our government a failure while brain-wiping you to believe that ignorance and petty small-mindedness is somehow a good thing.

[juno jones]

12. A world without public education...

We had that a hundred years ago or so.

Try reading 'The Victorian Underworld' by Kellow Chesney or 'You Can't Win' by Jack Black and experience a world where a signifigant portion of the population couldn't read and spent their time begging, stealing and prostituting themselves. Far more than who resort to that now. A world where a woman's single garment would be seized by brothel keepers so she couldn't escape. A world where boys were stunted and deformed by chimney sweeping. A world where children got no education and died in horrible accidents in factories and mines. Check out the NYC slum pictures of Jakob Riis. You and your ilk are not taking this country back to that horrid place.

America, love it or leave it.

You have some artistic talent, try not to pervert it in the service of propaganda.

[wellstone dem]

13. Because "we all do better when we all do better."

Thank you Paul Wellstone for explaining it all so well.

[stray cat]

14. Who paid for your k-12 education? Mommy and daddy or tax payers?

[Libertyfirst]

15. hell, even my libertarian BIL realizes the necessity of public education. n/t

[davefromqueens]

16. wow what a silly argument

Perhaps I can apply the following:

I am responsible for paying for building roads, EXCEPT any road you travel on. You Mr. Libertarian shall have to pay a toll every 20 feet. In fact you shall not be allowed off your private property to go to the supermarket for all land around you shall be deemed private.

Oh and I am responsible for paying for firefighters who put out fires at people's home. But when it is your home and only your home, I'll shall insist that the firefighters remain in the back room and play some more poker. Why should I be responsible?

And on and on I can go. But hopefully, by now, you see the fallacy and ridiculousness of your argument.

[applegrove]

17. Because when you get old it makes sense to have hundreds of thoussands of

well educated people behind you to help support your retirement and health care costs.

[ulysses]

18. keep posting.

You should be fun. :D

[YvonneCa]

19. What a selfish point of view! Are you lost? I already welcomed...

...you to DU. Home of some pretty wonderful, community-minded Democrats. :) What great, thoughtful responses !

[PVnRT]

20. What is this shit doing on DU?

Head back to FR, ass.

[montanto]

21. RIP Tev, we hardly knew ye.

[2Design]

22. yes we should all help educate the future and public schools is a good thing n/t

[Hopfrog]

23. But seriously, folks

I think the question is germane and the full answer goes kinda sorta like this....

Let's say we had a government (not to slam all the anarchists out there, but hypothetically speaking...let's say we had a government.) We wouldn't want the government to get too powerful. We'd want to keep it in check. And we'd only want to break it out for the high priority issues.

OK.

What are the high priority issues? Well, if this were the stone age, we would probably say that it was having the biggest collection of sharp rocks on sticks, and a lot of big guys who could poke people in the eye with the sharp rocks on sticks real good. And all right, this isn't the stone age, but national defense is still a pretty high priority for government.

But in fact, this is the information age. The dividing line between societies whose kids build spaceships, and societies that think their kids are industrious because they're making tourist souveirs out of garbage, is entirely based on education. So it seems to me there are only two positions we can take. Either we say, hey folks, this is the 21st century, and we have a government, so our government better put education at top priority, or we say screw it, let's not have a government after all. But there is no argument that we should have a government, and the government should work on the really important things, like sewer systems and mail delivery, but not education.

That isn't to say that our PS system is great...not at all. But hey, when we throw money on a war, we put twenty different kinds of troops on the ground (and sea and air) and we pay crazy geeks to sit around in Virginia making up new weapons, and we pay contractors as if money was raining down from god. But in the 21st century, information is obviously going to be more important than military power, if it isn't already. So let's think that way about our schools...