Education is Not a Right

[quote]belligerent wrote:
I never learned a damn thing in 15 years of school. I just don’t belong in a classroom. I’m convinced that I would be far better off today if I had gotten a job at 14 instead of having attended high school. [/quote]

don’t let HH find out…lol.

[quote]Professor X wrote:
rainjack wrote:
Professor X wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
katzenjammer wrote:
apbt55 wrote:
LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
apbt55 wrote:
yet they make fun of a lot of fundamental christians for home schooling.

Freedom means the freedom to fuck up your kids’ minds too.

Hey now, you also need to understand that some christians are actually well educated,

but I wouldn’t only home teach my children, they need to be socialized as well.

I have B.S neuroscience and MS in Biochem have done genomic research for NATO and am currently considered a subject matter expert in my field.

I am also a born again believer, I currently attend a baptist church.

Now you are doing what I am told I should never do, discriminating. I will admit there are alot of christians that are not well educated. There are a lot every creed in this world that are not well educated.

Some of the best educated people I know were home schooled; and many are devoutly Christian.

unpossible

Agreed. There are no Christian doctors, nurses or lawyers.

The moment your IQ goes above 12, you somehow simply know that you are the epitome of being in the Universe.

Then again, maybe people who think like that aren’t as bright as they think they are.

What’s with the high rotation of your avatars? It’s like I don’t even know you anymore.

Some jackass stole my main one and started posting as “Professor xXx”. I changed it so people would know which was me but then he started using my picture as his avatar. The Mods were slow to get rid of him.

It is because of things like that will probably not be posting here much longer. [/quote]

dont leave x your one of the biggest guys here lol

[quote]belligerent wrote:
I never learned a damn thing in 15 years of school. I just don’t belong in a classroom. I’m convinced that I would be far better off today if I had gotten a job at 14 instead of having attended high school. [/quote]

x2.

Not a damn thing. My peers as a whole are a group of slack jawed, stary eyed morons.

I don’t belong sitting in a desk pissing my life away when I could be accomplishing something.

[quote]belligerent wrote:
I never learned a damn thing in 15 years of school. I just don’t belong in a classroom. I’m convinced that I would be far better off today if I had gotten a job at 14 instead of having attended high school. [/quote]

You just demonstrated literacy in writing that sentance. In fact, I didn’t find any gramatical or spelling errors either.

What the fuck is this thread about?

In the last generation, universities in the UK have become available to all students. Universities like Cambridge and Oxford are not accepting the most qualified students of Great Britain, not simply the sons of the wealthy and political elite as was the case in previous generations.

One consequence of treating access to education as a right is that a society can better match capable students with capable institutions.

[quote]zephead4747 wrote:
belligerent wrote:
I never learned a damn thing in 15 years of school. I just don’t belong in a classroom. I’m convinced that I would be far better off today if I had gotten a job at 14 instead of having attended high school.

x2.

Not a damn thing. My peers as a whole are a group of slack jawed, stary eyed morons.[/quote]

Translation: You think you’re a loser, your peers hate you, and you find comfort in wanting to overhaul the whole educational system.

[quote]Otep wrote:
LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
The downward progression in thought all begins with the collectivist idea that education is a right to be granted by the State.

The effect of the State’s compulsory schooling laws is not only to repress the growth of specialized, partly individualized, private schools for the needs of various types of children. It also prevents the education of the child by the people who, in many respects, are best qualified ? his parents. The effect is also to force into schools children who have little or no aptitude for instruction at all. It so happens that among the variety of human ability there is a large number of subnormal children, children who are not receptive to instruction, whose reasoning capacity is not too great. To force these children to be exposed to schooling, as the State does almost everywhere, is a criminal offense to their natures. Without the ability to learn systematic subjects, they must either sit and suffer while others learn, or the bright and average students must be held back greatly in their development while these children are pressured to learn. In any case, the instruction has almost no effect on these children, many of whose hours of life are simply wasted because of the State’s decree. If these hours were spent in simple, direct experience which they were better able to absorb, there is no question that they would be healthier children and adults as a result. But to dragoon them into a school for a formative decade of their lives, to force them to attend classes in which they have no interest or ability, is to warp their entire personalities.

-Murray N. Rothbard
exerpt from “Education: Free and Compulsory”

I was going to pick apart this essay piece by piece…
[/quote]
Good luck, it is logically argued and absolutely true. State mandated education is intended to turn out unquestioning “patriotic” robots. It is just one more tool in the State’s fog creation arsenal.

[quote]
An educated populace is a public good. It makes economic sense to subsidize it, at least, if not completely nationalize it (as has been done almost universally).[/quote]

Yes it is good to have more educated people than less but only if the quality is any good. Education is not a public good because it is not a tangible good. We are all individuals who are suited to different levels of technical aptitude. Some people are better of taking a job instead of cluttering up classrooms and distracting the children with a greater potential to excel.

You don’t need calculus or chemistry to push a broom or work a drive-thru window. At some point we need to cut our losses and just forge ahead – better sooner than later.

[quote]Journeyman wrote:
In the last generation, universities in the UK have become available to all students. Universities like Cambridge and Oxford are not accepting the most qualified students of Great Britain, not simply the sons of the wealthy and political elite as was the case in previous generations.

One consequence of treating access to education as a right is that a society can better match capable students with capable institutions.
[/quote]

You’ve got that the wrong way round. Since the abolition of local authority grants and the introduction of larger loans and tuition fees universities in the UK have become full of molly-coddled, home counties, petis-bourgeoisie with their own cars, and mobile phone contracts paid for by their parents, who are incapable of understanding that the words “there”, “their” and “they’re” are not interchangeable.

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
Otep wrote:
LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
The downward progression in thought all begins with the collectivist idea that education is a right to be granted by the State.

The effect of the State’s compulsory schooling laws is not only to repress the growth of specialized, partly individualized, private schools for the needs of various types of children. It also prevents the education of the child by the people who, in many respects, are best qualified ? his parents. The effect is also to force into schools children who have little or no aptitude for instruction at all. It so happens that among the variety of human ability there is a large number of subnormal children, children who are not receptive to instruction, whose reasoning capacity is not too great. To force these children to be exposed to schooling, as the State does almost everywhere, is a criminal offense to their natures. Without the ability to learn systematic subjects, they must either sit and suffer while others learn, or the bright and average students must be held back greatly in their development while these children are pressured to learn. In any case, the instruction has almost no effect on these children, many of whose hours of life are simply wasted because of the State’s decree. If these hours were spent in simple, direct experience which they were better able to absorb, there is no question that they would be healthier children and adults as a result. But to dragoon them into a school for a formative decade of their lives, to force them to attend classes in which they have no interest or ability, is to warp their entire personalities.

-Murray N. Rothbard
exerpt from “Education: Free and Compulsory”

I was going to pick apart this essay piece by piece…

Good luck, it is logically argued and absolutely true. State mandated education is intended to turn out unquestioning “patriotic” robots. It is just one more tool in the State’s fog creation arsenal.

An educated populace is a public good. It makes economic sense to subsidize it, at least, if not completely nationalize it (as has been done almost universally).

Yes it is good to have more educated people than less but only if the quality is any good. Education is not a public good because it is not a tangible good. We are all individuals who are suited to different levels of technical aptitude. Some people are better of taking a job instead of cluttering up classrooms and distracting the children with a greater potential to excel.

You don’t need calculus or chemistry to push a broom or work a drive-thru window. At some point we need to cut our losses and just forge ahead – better sooner than later.[/quote]

Charter Schools,

Completely agree, it is a major initiative in larger businesses now.

You don’t try to build on your weaknesses
When your strengths have a much more exponential potential for growth.

Sounds like you are against the socialistic approach to education.

Oh yeah but Obama doesn’t want to give you a tax credit or a voucher if you send your child to a private school.

[quote]apbt55 wrote:
Oh yeah but Obama doesn’t want to give you a tax credit or a voucher if you send your child to a private school.

[/quote]

Yes well I don’t want to give him any of my paycheck either so I guess we are even in that regard.

It would be awesome if everyone just decided spontaneously to evade paying their taxes.

So here’s my problem here, lifty. It seems as if you’re arguing two different things. The first is that our education system serves the goal of political and social indoctrination.

[quote] lifty wrote:
State mandated education is intended to turn out unquestioning “patriotic” robots. It is just one more tool in the State’s fog creation arsenal. [/quote]

Elsewhere, you advocate that public, mandated education is bad because some people were just born inferior and should not have resources wasted on them trying to make them better.

[quote] lifty wrote here:
Some people are better of taking a job instead of cluttering up classrooms and distracting the children with a greater potential to excel.[/quote]

I fail to see how the first point applies to science and math classes. Remember, you’re arguing against mandated public education, not America’s mandated public education.

In the second point, I would challenge you to develop a method of determining whose gonna grow up to be rocket scientists and whose gonna grow up to be janitors before any effort is invested into the education process. It sounds like what you’re advocating is a caste system, where the wealthy send their kids to school because they can afford it and the poor who can’t, don’t, and thus continue a cycle of inter-generational poverty.

This strikes me as betraying the ideals of a meritocracy.

Now, I agree with you in the larger sense, that education is not a right. It is not the governments responsibility to provide education. But it can and should, in the interests of developing the intellectual capacities of it’s citizens. To put bluntly, it is an investment a smart government will make, and a poor government will not.

I don’t know about the US, but in Finland education is a right. “Everyone has the right to basic education free of charge”.

[quote]Otep wrote:
So here’s my problem here, lifty. It seems as if you’re arguing two different things. The first is that our education system serves the goal of political and social indoctrination.

lifty wrote:
State mandated education is intended to turn out unquestioning “patriotic” robots. It is just one more tool in the State’s fog creation arsenal.

Elsewhere, you advocate that public, mandated education is bad because some people were just born inferior and should not have resources wasted on them trying to make them better.

lifty wrote here:
Some people are better of taking a job instead of cluttering up classrooms and distracting the children with a greater potential to excel.

I fail to see how the first point applies to science and math classes. Remember, you’re arguing against mandated public education, not America’s mandated public education.

In the second point, I would challenge you to develop a method of determining whose gonna grow up to be rocket scientists and whose gonna grow up to be janitors before any effort is invested into the education process. It sounds like what you’re advocating is a caste system, where the wealthy send their kids to school because they can afford it and the poor who can’t, don’t, and thus continue a cycle of inter-generational poverty.

This strikes me as betraying the ideals of a meritocracy.

Now, I agree with you in the larger sense, that education is not a right. It is not the governments responsibility to provide education. But it can and should, in the interests of developing the intellectual capacities of it’s citizens. To put bluntly, it is an investment a smart government will make, and a poor government will not.[/quote]

The argument I am trying to make is two-fold:

  1. Education is not a right – you seem to get that point so I will leave it at that.

  2. Government is actually incapable of providing quality education on any level because it does not know better than parents what will suit their children. In a public school setting teachers cannot focus on the individual needs and aptitudes of children. I will state for the record that the first and foremost needs of any child to progress in school is a solid foundation of reading, writing, and arithmetic.

Most children vary in aptitude in regard to all of these skills. I happened to be much better suited to math and needed tutors for the other two when I got to high-school because I was sort of left behind in the system. During grade school my parents were of the opinion that the teachers knew better than they did how to educate so they never questioned the system. To them, I was doing bad because I neither cared nor wanted to make an effort, etc. Had my parents been directly paying for my education maybe they would have started asking questions to the school why I was doing so poorly. In public schools it is always either the parents or the child who is to blame because teachers are “incapable” of being horrible at their jobs.

Furthermore, public school curriculum is geared toward making good little citizens who are incapable of questioning the system. For example, when we become adults we see the injustices of government and we silently complain, shaking our fists on our way to the polls but we are incapable of conceiving any other way society could possibly organize itself. This is, in part, thanks to mandated civics courses.

We are taught to feel guilt when we don’t wish to participate in the corrupt system. We incorrectly are made to believe that we deserve the government we get when in all actuality there is no such government that anyone deserves. They are all evil and they all tend toward corruption – democracy being the worst form of government ever.

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
Otep wrote:
So here’s my problem here, lifty. It seems as if you’re arguing two different things. The first is that our education system serves the goal of political and social indoctrination.

lifty wrote:
State mandated education is intended to turn out unquestioning “patriotic” robots. It is just one more tool in the State’s fog creation arsenal.

Elsewhere, you advocate that public, mandated education is bad because some people were just born inferior and should not have resources wasted on them trying to make them better.

lifty wrote here:
Some people are better of taking a job instead of cluttering up classrooms and distracting the children with a greater potential to excel.

I fail to see how the first point applies to science and math classes. Remember, you’re arguing against mandated public education, not America’s mandated public education.

In the second point, I would challenge you to develop a method of determining whose gonna grow up to be rocket scientists and whose gonna grow up to be janitors before any effort is invested into the education process. It sounds like what you’re advocating is a caste system, where the wealthy send their kids to school because they can afford it and the poor who can’t, don’t, and thus continue a cycle of inter-generational poverty.

This strikes me as betraying the ideals of a meritocracy.

Now, I agree with you in the larger sense, that education is not a right. It is not the governments responsibility to provide education. But it can and should, in the interests of developing the intellectual capacities of it’s citizens. To put bluntly, it is an investment a smart government will make, and a poor government will not.

The argument I am trying to make is two-fold:

  1. Education is not a right – you seem to get that point so I will leave it at that.

  2. Government is actually incapable of providing quality education on any level because it does not know better than parents what will suit their children. In a public school setting teachers cannot focus on the individual needs and aptitudes of children. I will state for the record that the first and foremost needs of any child to progress in school is a solid foundation of reading, writing, and arithmetic.

Most children vary in aptitude in regard to all of these skills. I happened to be much better suited to math and needed tutors for the other two when I got to high-school because I was sort of left behind in the system. During grade school my parents were of the opinion that the teachers knew better than they did how to educate so they never questioned the system. To them, I was doing bad because I neither cared nor wanted to make an effort, etc. Had my parents been directly paying for my education maybe they would have started asking questions to the school why I was doing so poorly. In public schools it is always either the parents or the child who is to blame because teachers are “incapable” of being horrible at their jobs.

Furthermore, public school curriculum is geared toward making good little citizens who are incapable of questioning the system. For example, when we become adults we see the injustices of government and we silently complain, shaking our fists on our way to the polls but we are incapable of conceiving any other way society could possibly organize itself. This is, in part, thanks to mandated civics courses.

We are taught to feel guilt when we don’t wish to participate in the corrupt system. We incorrectly are made to believe that we deserve the government we get when in all actuality there is no such government that anyone deserves. They are all evil and they all tend toward corruption – democracy being the worst form of government ever.[/quote]

Only one point to disagree with, I don’t believe Demcracy is the worst form of government, just the version currently being used in our country. This jazzed up special interest everyone is special and gifted and the world owes them something version.

I think if run correctly a truly capitolistic democracy can work very well, but children need to learn in their own way not to be little sheep of the educators or the government.

As seen in history, how many totally idiotic politicians are there, and how many are forced out of office and not at the next election cycle.

The government is supposed to work for the people and for too long we have been working for the government. And it is about to get 10x worse, hope I am worng about that.

[quote]kaaleppi wrote:
I don’t know about the US, but in Finland education is a right. “Everyone has the right to basic education free of charge”.[/quote]

Which is tyranny wearing the cloak of human rights.

It takes the idea of God-given UNALIENABLE rights and perverts them.

Let me give you an example:

Let us say I declare that I do have the right to live my own sexuality. As long as that is a negative right you´d probably agree with it, meaning I can fuck whomever I want unless I infringe on the rights of others, i.e. rape them.

That right would in no way require anyone else to do anything, except to leave me alone.

But let us now say that I declare that to be a positive right, that the state has to supply sexual partners so that I can live my “right” to my own sexuality.

Now some women might disagree, insisting that they have the inalienable right to do with their bodies whatever want, but well, that is too bad, because I have rights too, and so we will have to compromise.

Since there are more ugly fucks that cannot get laid than attractive women, how do you think such a vote would turn out?

And yet we have accepted that the once unalienable right to own private property has been very much alienated to finance “rights” like education.

That does of course kill the heart of the natural and therefor human rights idea, everything can be voted on, the state is your God and the will of the majority trumps everything else.

[quote]apbt55 wrote:
Only one point to disagree with, I don’t believe Demcracy is the worst form of government, just the version currently being used in our country. This jazzed up special interest everyone is special and gifted and the world owes them something version.

I think if run correctly a truly capitolistic democracy can work very well, but children need to learn in their own way not to be little sheep of the educators or the government.

As seen in history, how many totally idiotic politicians are there, and how many are forced out of office and not at the next election cycle.

The government is supposed to work for the people and for too long we have been working for the government. And it is about to get 10x worse, hope I am worng about that.[/quote]

I base my opinion on the fact that democracy is the only form of government that blames its citizens for the problems its government creates. Under an absolute tyranny, while there is no freedom it is a more honest system. Tyrannical regimes still have to be careful not to overstep a line because they are in the minority and could be overthrown by an incensed populace. In a democracy all evils are instituted by the will of the people and therefore they are somehow seen as more legitimate. In a tyranny everyone sees the injustice being done and there is no confusion of its horribleness.

In a sense capitalism is the only way to justly organize society because it is based entirely on property rights. Our entire material quality of life can only come about by the property that we can freely produce and exchange. More over, every penny in our pocket has its own vote and none that “serve society” will be completely disenfranchised. Capitalism offers an infinite variety of choice whereas government offers only one – and makes it mandatory.

[quote]orion wrote:
kaaleppi wrote:
I don’t know about the US, but in Finland education is a right. “Everyone has the right to basic education free of charge”.

Which is tyranny wearing the cloak of human rights.

It takes the idea of God-given UNALIENABLE rights and perverts them.

Let me give you an example:

Let us say I declare that I do have the right to live my own sexuality. As long as that is a negative right you´d probably agree with it, meaning I can fuck whomever I want unless I infringe on the rights of others, i.e. rape them.

That right would in no way require anyone else to do anything, except to leave me alone.

But let us now say that I declare that to be a positive right, that the state has to supply sexual partners so that I can live my “right” to my own sexuality.

Now some women might disagree, insisting that they have the inalienable right to do with their bodies whatever want, but well, that is too bad, because I have rights too, and so we will have to compromise.

Since there are more ugly fucks that cannot get laid than attractive women, how do you think such a vote would turn out?

And yet we have accepted that the once unalienable right to own private property has been very much alienated to finance “rights” like education.

That does of course kill the heart of the natural and therefor human rights idea, everything can be voted on, the state is your God and the will of the majority trumps everything else.

[/quote]

You don’t like it, but it is still a right according the finnish constitution. And not only that, it is also an obligation. So saying that education is not a right is not universally true.

Do you believe in God, Orion? That was a surprise.

[quote]kaaleppi wrote:
You don’t like it, but it is still a right according the finnish constitution. And not only that, it is also an obligation. So saying that education is not a right is not universally true.
[/quote]

Education is not a right and it is universally true that it is not. One might say that education cannot be denied but it cannot be obliged. Moreover, you cannot oblige someone else to provide it to someone else. It can only ever be a contractual obligation thus it isn’t a right.

[quote]kaaleppi wrote:
orion wrote:
kaaleppi wrote:
I don’t know about the US, but in Finland education is a right. “Everyone has the right to basic education free of charge”.

Which is tyranny wearing the cloak of human rights.

It takes the idea of God-given UNALIENABLE rights and perverts them.

Let me give you an example:

Let us say I declare that I do have the right to live my own sexuality. As long as that is a negative right you´d probably agree with it, meaning I can fuck whomever I want unless I infringe on the rights of others, i.e. rape them.

That right would in no way require anyone else to do anything, except to leave me alone.

But let us now say that I declare that to be a positive right, that the state has to supply sexual partners so that I can live my “right” to my own sexuality.

Now some women might disagree, insisting that they have the inalienable right to do with their bodies whatever want, but well, that is too bad, because I have rights too, and so we will have to compromise.

Since there are more ugly fucks that cannot get laid than attractive women, how do you think such a vote would turn out?

And yet we have accepted that the once unalienable right to own private property has been very much alienated to finance “rights” like education.

That does of course kill the heart of the natural and therefor human rights idea, everything can be voted on, the state is your God and the will of the majority trumps everything else.

You don’t like it, but it is still a right according the finnish constitution. And not only that, it is also an obligation. So saying that education is not a right is not universally true.

Do you believe in God, Orion? That was a surprise.[/quote]

I don´t, but I believe that I own myself.

That is something I cannot prove of course, but since anyone claiming to own me, or that declares “rights”, that imply that he owns me, runs into the same problem, it is good enough for me.

Then, if the Finnish constitution declares that the sky is green that does not make it so.

Education is not, and cannot be a right.

If you read through the “rights” in your constitution you will find that they contradict themselves.