Republicans have control

[Guest MR. COOLING]

NoCalMike-dont even pay attention to the dribble coming out of these conservatives mouths, they are coming from PRIVILEGED position...guaranteed.  I will ASSUME they are white upper-middle class citizens who never spent a day in poverty in their life.  They can talk all they want about those leeching off the system, but any qualitative or quantitative study I have ever read insures that any two parent family or single parent family WANTS to be out there working, and that many two parent families return to the system with in six months, but single parent families cant rebound because of lack of a support system and resources.  And dont give me this shit about compassion because I am from a single parent family who thankfully never had to resort to social assistance, but that is just because my mom was educated and could survive out there, and even still we could barely maintain our lower middle class position.  So in essence if u are born into poverty, have a kid, father leaves, u are fucked no matter what your wishes are.  So maybe we should look at increasing minimum wage to provide the incentive to work, so that u can actually make more money working then receiving social assistance for those who have no education like most in poverty, remember put yourself in those persons shoes, and dont speak from your privileged highhorse, oh and please dont retort with that "this is America, you can make it if you try b.s, that points to oprah saying every black woman can be powerful and influential if they put their mind to it, and there are no systemic barriers". Its time to fucking clean this board up, and I havent even gotten to the HHH conspiracy theorists yet.

 

My mum and dad were both born in Labour households, both born in Council Houses. Both left school early (15 my dad, 16 my mum) but today they own a succesful business, have a big house, etc. Now they worked for it and they are proud of what they have achieved through hard work. Unlike most left-facists who are mostly middle class and never lived in poverty they don't see why they should give up THEIR money that THEY work hard for to help some 16 year old fuck up who got pregant and who the father of the child is some drugged up moron and that is why they vote for the Tories, because the Tories (under Thatcher) did not lecture the working class, did not look down their nose at the "ordinary" people and get their kicks by helping, sorry controlling them but the Tories set them free. Free of state control in their homes, free from the state taking almost all their money on the pretense that the state can spend it better. Right Wingers trust people, they trust that people are intelligent and can spend their money better than the state unlike Left-Facists who demand the power to control peoples lives because they know best.

 

W.W.I COOLING

[Guest MR. COOLING]

Why is it such a bad thing in the eyes of a liberal to be rich?

Because liberalism is a mental disorder. They can't stand the fact that some people can attain more than others. It's jealousy of the highest order. That's why liberals ALWAYS take the side of the victim, even if it contradicts their core beliefs. It is wrong to achieve more than others.

 

What liberals don't seem to get is that the poor or lower class people in the U.S have a life FAR better than just about ANY middle class person in 95% of the countries in the world. Running water? Electricity? A car? Choice of food that is readily available? All these things are available to almost even the poorest of working Americans.

 

No this is wrong. Liberalism, true Liberalism is the doctrine of the right. The belief that people should have control of their own lives, that people should have free speech no matter what they say, that people who work hard should be rewarded and that the state should be as small as possible and a meritocracy. This is true liberalism, a communial liberalism not the left-fascism of the neo-socialist who have bastardize the liberalism of Gladstone, Chamberlain and Asquith to help them balkanize the west so they can divide and rule.

 

W.W.I COOLING

[Guest Tyler McClelland]

I agree with you, Cooling, with everything but the state should be as small as possible.

 

Liberalism refers to the fact that government should place its hand in wherever the public fails and try to fix problems in an effort to put forth a better society, where Conservatives lie on the hopes that everything will sort itself out, allowing for more economic freedom. Neither of them are "Satan" as some of you have put it, it all comes down to closed-mindedness on both sides by not accepting that in some ways, each side has a point.

[Guest EricMM]

And the sad thing is, if EITHER side got the slightest bit of honesty and decency, and pure integrity, either sides policies could probably work out.

 

Politicans in general suck and that's that.

[Guest Some Guy]

I agree about politicians but I don't agree that both sides policies will work. Expanding teh welfare state has been proven to be a bad idea, increasing taxes has proven to hurt the economy, price fixing has been proven to actually decrease the quanity of things(gas in the 70s and energy in Cali), many leftist ideas have been proven failures yet they are still thrown out there as viable options.

[Guest Tyler McClelland]

Energy in Cali as regards to when?

 

Your boy Cheney has a lot to do with that, friend.

[Guest evenflowDDT]

I agree about politicians but I don't agree that both sides policies will work. Expanding teh welfare state has been proven to be a bad idea, increasing taxes has proven to hurt the economy, price fixing has been proven to actually decrease the quanity of things(gas in the 70s and energy in Cali), many leftist ideas have been proven failures yet they are still thrown out there as viable options.

...and so is spending more money on the military than public education. There are ideas from both belief systems that remain popular and remain pushed despite the fact that they don't work.

[Guest MikeinSC]

MIKE! Welcome back.

 

Don't be such a stranger next time. With Marney gone, I feel I'm holding the fort down almost by myself. Having another voice in the fight against The Evil Left is always welcome.>>

 

 

Make you a deal.

 

You find a way for this board to stop revoking my rights to post here and I might be here a little more often.

-=Mike

[Guest MikeinSC]

<<<Yes, Eric MM, I was talking about corporations such as Nike/Ford/GM etc....setting up plants and production lines in Mexico or some other country that has NO LABOR LAWS, and they can take advantage of hardworking people in order to turn a bigger profit.>>>

 

 

So, businesses can dare to---GASP---MAKE MONEY?!?!?

 

Curse them!

 

Curse them all to heck!

 

Darn you!!

 

Maybe if union workers didn't demand such high wages for the half-assed work they do, it'd be less of a problem.

 

 

<<<So when they leave a small town/area all dried up and there is no economy left, what do you expect to happen, everyone open up a lemonade stand?>>>

 

 

If an entire town is dependant on ONE company, than the town is in DEEP trouble.

 

 

<<<And the simple fact of the matter is, 90%

of "illegal" immigrants are here to WORK, not to leech. Stop listening to people like Michael Savage and O' Reily, when they say "terrible illegals here to abuse blah blah blah" they just don't know what the fuck they are talking about. Last warehouse I worked in, I am sure of it that there was a good percentage of illegals, and quite frankly they were great workers, and came to america for a better life. Do you think a mexican person passing a test which asks them who the 8th president of the united states was is going to make him/her a better worker? Please. >>>

 

 

Guess what?

 

It doesn't matter.

 

We have the RIGHT to say who CAN and who CANNOT come in to our country to live.

-=Mike

 

...Should we ignore the Mexicans who shoot at our border patrol?

[Guest Some Guy]

I agree about politicians but I don't agree that both sides policies will work.  Expanding teh welfare state has been proven to be a bad idea, increasing taxes has proven to hurt the economy, price fixing has been proven to actually decrease the quanity of things(gas in the 70s and energy in Cali), many leftist ideas have been proven failures yet they are still thrown out there as viable options.

...and so is spending more money on the military than public education. There are ideas from both belief systems that remain popular and remain pushed despite the fact that they don't work.

Military spending helps to keep us alive, numerous studies have shown that after a certain point money makes no difference in education quality. That's just another example of a failed leftist idea. "Just throw money at it and sprinkle in some "tolerance" and a hint of "diversity" and everything will work out just fine." Guess what, it doesn't work. Tossing endless amounts of money at public schools doesn't make the students any smarter. Getting good teachers, who are held accountable for the quality of education that they provide is what works. But the Dems are slaves to teacher's union so no dice for them on education. Too bad.

[Guest DrTom]

Make you a deal.

 

You find a way for this board to stop revoking my rights to post here and I might be here a little more often.

No problem, but I'd have to know what problems you were having with your old account to do anything about it.

[Guest DrTom]

That's just another example of a failed leftist idea. "Just throw money at it and sprinkle in some "tolerance" and a hint of "diversity" and everything will work out just fine." Guess what, it doesn't work.

Indeed it doesn't. Ever since the late 1960's, we've spent more and more money on the homelessness problem, and it hasn't even begun to go away. The Department of Education has been getting more and more money, and delivering less and less results. It's not about how much you spend; it's how WISELY you spend. Liberals love to moan when Republicans reduce the funding in some social program, but if they've found a way to do more with less, I fail to see what the problem is. It's quality, not quantity, and until the Left learns that -- and ditches the tax-and-spend mentality that comes with it -- their policies will continue to be little more than a cruel joke.

[Guest Tyler McClelland]

How do you figure that quality spending is being given by conservatives, though?

 

In fact, a ton of money is wasted in the military simply because of what can be described as utter pork-barrelling. I'll admit that overfunding schools isn't working, but privatizing schools and giving vouchers won't help that... that just encorages students to abandon the public schools and go to private ones where overcrowding will AGAIN occur. It's a bandaid and won't work in the long run.

 

The only thing that will truly help schools is accountability (such as the system in Virginia and other states, where students have to take a statewide tests and teachers are held accountable for their scores). However, we will never have that as a nationwide program simply because states will not allow their institutions to be run by the federal government... an idea which is strongly supported by conservatives.

 

Seriously, you absolutely, positively cannot blame liberals solely for education and a variety of other issues. Both sides are failing miserably for purely POLITICAL reasons... they want votes, not results.

[Guest NoCalMike]

The Democrats and Republicans just don't care about the working man, sorry but they just don't.

[Guest Vern Gagne]

Does anyone have any stats on how school vouchers have worked?

[Guest EricMM]

I would like to know that too.

 

I have been HEAVILY against school vouchers for the reason that there will always be more public schools than private, with more kids going to them, so public schools should be where the money is going.

 

I agree that shitty teachers are the worst kind of influence, but I think that just because it's a private school doesn't mean it's a good school. I know it depends on affluence of the county, but my county's schools provided a better education in many areas such as computer programming (for all students) than most of the private schools in the area.

[Guest DrTom]

Both sides are failing miserably for purely POLITICAL reasons... they want votes, not results.

Sure, and that's been the case for a lot of years now. My problem with the Left, though, is they think they can solve myriad social problems simply by opening the government's ample checkbook. It's not that simple, and it never has been. Our answers to a lot of problems could be described as band-aids. We tend to attack symptoms instead of diseases, then celebrate because there was no sneezing for a day.

 

The accountability system is good in principle, though I can see the states not wanting the federal government to control education. I don't want them to control education, either. Since we're talking about education, though, states have to do SOMETHING on their own to reverse the terribel trends of recent years. Hold teachers and administrators accountable, fire the incompetent ones, stop pandering to kids' supposed self-esteem issues and give them the grades they earned, even if that means (gaps!) holding them back a grade because they didn't learn anything. Public education has become such a bloated bureacracy across the country that I'd be in favor of eliminating the DOE and teachers' unions, and starting over. Tabla rasa.

 

Vouchers are a temporary solution, but as long as parents are empowered to get their kids a better education than public school are providing, I'm all for them.

[Guest evenflowDDT]

Tossing endless amounts of money at public schools doesn't make the students any smarter. Getting good teachers, who are held accountable for the quality of education that they provide is what works. But the Dems are slaves to teacher's union so no dice for them on education. Too bad.

I don't know how the schools are run in Boston, but over here there aren't any bad teachers (there are bad substitues, but not bad teachers) because teaching is such a low-paying profession that the only reason anyone would get into it is because they really want to do it. No matter how much love a teacher has for their work or how "good" they are can fix the fact that many of the textbooks are out of date and newer technologies such as DVD/computers aren't widespread, particularly in urban schools. These are things that can indeed be solved by money. And all this talk of waste - the army's been proven to waste more money than any other expenditure and yet they just get more and more. The army isn't a necessity - let me explain, obviously AN army is a necessity for any language, but an overbloated, overspending army isn't protecting us from anything (of course this might be because there's nobody attacking us on a large-scale, nor has there ever been in the last century).

 

By the by, I'm curious, since increasing spending on public education would be just a band-aid, then what IS the solution?

 

To me, vouchers aren't a solution because they don't cover the full costs and because private schools still have the final say in who does and doesn't get in, so the only people vouchers could really help are maybe middle-class students who are on the "threshold" of being able to afford it.

[Guest Tyler McClelland]

The only solution is accountability and construction of more schools to reduce overcrowding... but that's a state thing and the federal government can't do a damn thing about it. Vouchers is a valiant attempt at accountability, but it won't work because of the reasons previously stated (in my opinion, of course).

[Guest big Dante Cruz]

It's interesting. So many states ascribe to the idea that if they get lesson plans from teachers regarding what they're teaching that it makes the teacher better. Writing things down makes a person better on the task. So explain to me how the whole "taking notes and failing a class" thing works.

 

To be real honest, I've seen people who didn't deserve to pass classes be given enough to get by because their parents came in to scream at the teacher. I've even heard "Why did you give my child this grade?! I'll have your job you pathetic excuse for a teacher!" Hmmmm, nevermind the fact that your kid got suspended for drug possession and you bailed them out of jail for the same thing.

 

Quite frankly, teacher evaluations aren't quite right. You can't observe for one day and get a good idea of how things go on. Sorry, doesn't happen. You can't give teachers "sensitivity training" and "diversity training" and expect them to reach their full potential by inhibiting not only their teaching/grading methods, but by also eliminating content? Look at Amerian History. You can't tell everything the way it was because it happened in the past and telling something the way it is always offends somebody.

[Guest Tyler McClelland]

That isn't what accountability implies.

[Guest evenflowDDT]

What does accountability imply? And how is it supposed to work?

[Guest Tyler McClelland]

Accountability implies statewide tests for students to take at the end of every core class and it works by removing the school's accreditation in the case that a certain percent of students don't pass the test. It's a standardized, statewide exam and the system is currently in place in Virginia and several other states (I know Virginia for sure since I resided in that state for eighteen years).

 

In addition, it ensures the right to fire teachers whose students do not pass the test at a certain rate.

 

There are downsides to this (including the old "teaching to the book" problem), but the upsides outweigh them by an enormous emount.

[Guest evenflowDDT]

Does accountability work?

 

Although I have nothing against getting rid of "bad teachers", my problem with just blaming and firing teachers is that there aren't enough new teachers (since it's not a viable, high-paying profession) to take their place, and it would just make classes larger and less manageable for "good teachers".

 

Also, let's say there's an urban school where 75% of the students attending don't care, cut, etc., when they obviously fail the accountability tests, how is it fair to the other 25% that are trying "to get out" to cut accreditation? Also, won't that make some of the problems of old textbooks, outdated technology, "bad teachers", etc, even worse?

 

If accountability has solutions for these problems and they find some way to make it work without "teaching to the book" becoming a huge issue it actually doesn't sound like too bad of a system. After all, it's not too much different from Exit Exams.

[Guest Some Guy]

There are also teacher tests for accountabilty. A teacher would have to be recertified every few years to their knowledge of basic subjects (math, english, science, etc.. This would be like a HS equivilency level) and their knoweldge of teh subjetc they teach. Just to make sure they know what they're doing. I've had teachers who didn't seem to have a fucking clue as to what they were talking about.

 

But that doesn't really cover it all. The main problem with teachers is not whether they know the subject, I'm sure very few don't, it whether they actually teach that subject and how they teach it. I've had Profs in college who sit Indian style on their desks adn talk about everything except what the class is about and then wonder why the kids don't do well. This is a big problem, especially in my school. I've also had teachers whose accents were so thick that it's hard to understand them and who mispronounce words like "Democratic" (Dee mock cratic), "Individual" (In div i da vul, is how he pronounces it), etc...

 

Unfortunately that is an impossible problem to fix because when the boss comes in they buckle down and teach to their capabilities and not enough students complain.

[Guest Tyler McClelland]

If 75% of your school fails the tests, the school loses accreditation and students can go to a different school while that school is restaffed, etc.

 

The system works marvelously in Northern Virginia, where I was from. My schools' only problem was with overcrowding in classes and that can be solved by building more schools... imagine that. And what does buidling more schools require?

 

MONEY?!?

 

What does hiring new teachers require?

 

MONEY???

 

Ahh... that's right.

[Guest MikeinSC]

Make you a deal.

 

You find a way for this board to stop revoking my rights to post here and I might be here a little more often.

 

 

No problem, but I'd have to know what problems you were having with your old account to do anything about it.>>>

 

 

I try to post on my old account and I get, and this is a quote, "you're not permitted to use this board"

-=Mike

[Guest MikeinSC]

I agree about politicians but I don't agree that both sides policies will work. Expanding teh welfare state has been proven to be a bad idea, increasing taxes has proven to hurt the economy, price fixing has been proven to actually decrease the quanity of things(gas in the 70s and energy in Cali), many leftist ideas have been proven failures yet they are still thrown out there as viable options.

 

...and so is spending more money on the military than public education. There are ideas from both belief systems that remain popular and remain pushed despite the fact that they don't work>>>

 

 

Well, I COULD mention that national defense is expressly mentioned in the Constitution as a gov't function.

 

I don't really recall public education being mentioned once.

-=Mike

[Guest RobJohnstone]

MIKE! Welcome back.

 

Don't be such a stranger next time. With Marney gone, I feel I'm holding the fort down almost by myself. Having another voice in the fight against The Evil Left is always welcome.>>

 

 

Make you a deal.

 

You find a way for this board to stop revoking my rights to post here and I might be here a little more often.

-=Mike

Marney was a conservative? HA . She balked at me supporting Pat J Buchanan and his economic beliefs. He is one of the better conservatives out there. Anyhow to the subject at hand...

 

Looking back into history in modern TV times, it seems as if democrates and republicans seem to have the same agenda on lots of things. It hasn't seemed to matter what party is in office or which party runs congress, we still get plagued down with bullshit. The head liberal officials in office are real jackass' though. I wonder who votes for people like daschle, clinton, gore. Just today on Limbaugh, Gore said the second he saw the plane hit the WTC, he knew it was Bin Laden. Jesus dude, if he was such a threat that you knew it was him, you should have taken him when they offered him. Politics as a whole suck because the media is run by liberals anyway, forcing most of the people in the world to take a liberal stance. We need more protectionists in office to look out for our country first instead of aiding other countries or signing shitty treaties like NAFTA and GATT. I doubt that will happen though because most people don't grasp the concept of protetionism and just throw it out. All I am saying is that it worked for us for alot of years. It made us the strongest nation in the world. We became a free trade country once we got the big time liberals(Wilson, FDR) in office trying to make us a socialist country by having growing income taxes and forcing us into debt that we can no way pay off. Oh well... you know I read somewhere that americans will never embrace socialism, but if you call it something else (liberalism) they will, that could be very true.

 

--Rob

[Guest MikeinSC]

<<<How do you figure that quality spending is being given by conservatives, though?

 

In fact, a ton of money is wasted in the military simply because of what can be described as utter pork-barrelling.>>>

 

 

No argument here---but again, it IS mentioned in the Constitution as a gov't service. It can be defended on that line alone.

 

 

<<<I'll admit that overfunding schools isn't working, but privatizing schools and giving vouchers won't help that.>>>

 

 

We base this upon...what?

 

When has competition made things WORSE?

 

Quite frankly, I have no faith in anything run by unions IMPROVING whatsoever.

 

 

<<<.. that just encorages students to abandon the public schools and go to private ones where overcrowding will AGAIN occur.>>>

 

 

Except that private schools can say "no" and toss out thugs and miscreants.

 

 

<<<It's a bandaid and won't work in the long run.>>>

 

 

At this point, a band-aid is needed.

 

 

<<<The only thing that will truly help schools is accountability (such as the system in Virginia and other states, where students have to take a statewide tests and teachers are held accountable for their scores).>>>

 

 

And you don't think that they'll fudge the scores a little?

 

 

<<<However, we will never have that as a nationwide program simply because states will not allow their institutions to be run by the federal government... an idea which is strongly supported by conservatives.>>>

 

 

The federal gov't doesn't do much of anything well. Why trust them with education?

-=Mike