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Discuss the US Presidential Election & Education
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Mon Nov 03, 2008 09:00 AM
from the running-out-of-time dept.
from the running-out-of-time dept.
In 24 hours, many of you will be able to vote. So as we come down to the wire, this is really our last chance to talk about the issues. We've already discussed Health Care, the War, and the Economy. Today I'm opening up the floor to discuss education. Perhaps no other issue will matter more in 50 years. Which candidate will make the next generation smarter?
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Discuss the US Presidential Election & the Economy 2369 comments
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With under a week to go, we're opening up discussions on the US Presidential Election. Yesterday we discussed
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Yesterday we discussed the war and how foreign policy will matter in your decision next Tuesday. Today our series of election discussion pieces continues with Health Care. With an obesity epidemic, a failing economy, and ballooning health care costs, which candidate has the best answers to making sure that Americans are able to stay healthy without America being bankrupted in the process?
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Vote (Score:5, Insightful)
Nuff said. (These issues are a stimulus to trigger a voting response, and have NOTHING to do with policies that will exist post-election.)
Re:Vote (Score:5, Insightful)
If you don't vote:
So get off your lazy butts and vote! You are not too busy.
Parent
Re:Vote (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Vote (Score:5, Insightful)
By being given the opportunity to vote, we're invited to participate in our electoral process.
If you decline to vote, then you really have no recourse to complain about the results of that process, do you? You had your chance to be heard and decided you had other things to do.
Parent
Re:Vote (Score:5, Interesting)
Hmm... As someone who's served the country to ensure you have a right to vote I have to agree. You have a right to vote, even an arguably moral reason to vote, but the electoral system is so fraught with insanity that your vote truly means little.
This does not, in my mind, absolve one of their duty to vote. I consider it my duty to vote (and at least bitch enough in the many emails that I send to my congress critters) and hope that the remainder of the citizens feel the same way. It's a false hope, let's not go there. Allow me some shards of hope.
I do discount the opinion of those who don't vote. I don't go so far as to say that they're not entitled to an opinion. I just say that I'm entitled to not listen to their opinion or to not give their opinion as much weight as I would if they'd shown themselves to be an active participant in this so-called democracy.
Voting doesn't do shit in the larger scale other than give us the illusion of having accomplished the task of making our opinion known. This is, to me, true and yet I still vote. I'm all for changing the system but until it is changed I will cast my vote.
On the idea of accomplishing something...
Voting and protesting...
Letters and marches...
Emails and lobbying...
Those haven't done much in the past few years.
A million man march wouldn't even phase Washington D.C. these days. So... I've been thinking, a dangerous act, and I have a solution but we might get arrested.
Get a million people WITH cars together. During rush hour, downtown, when they're breaking for a holiday, drive into the city from the direction you came from and drive as far as you can into it until the gridlock stops you. Get out of our vehicles and stand there or simply sit in your vehicle and hold your horn button down. Do so until we have press coverage.
Parent
Re:Vote (Score:5, Insightful)
If I'm a sheep, I'm arming myself with big guns. If I'm going to die for dinner, I'm taking someone with me.
THAT's the reason for the 2nd amendment.
Parent
Re:Vote (Score:5, Insightful)
Our government's authority is only limited by the ability of people to organize opposition to the government. If a few people, acting as agents of the government, ask companies to violate the law and enable the government to violate the constitution, and those companies say yes, then where is the people's protection? And then newspaper reporters discover this illegal espionage, and the paper's editors choose to suppress the story for a year because "there's a war".
And then five years later, Congress passes a law saying that the companies that did the snooping on the government's behalf get away with it scot free.
The Constitution is only as good as the people enforcing it. If the President can create an emergency that enables him to do what he wants, then the Constitution is irrelavent.
Parent
Re:Vote (Score:5, Insightful)
If you want to change the system, vote for anyone except a Democrat or Republican. Any time another party looks like it might be competitive it will scare both parties into better behavior.
Parent
Re:Vote (Score:5, Insightful)
You might be joking, but if you voted for the person you felt was the best choice, you have nothing to apologize for.
As I look back on my presidential voting record, I've voted 3 times for a third party, and 3 times for one of the two major parties because I felt the election was "too important." As I reexamine my record, the only ones I regretted were the ones that I voted for the mainstream party.
Here's what you can expect with either McCain or Obama: at least $4 trillion more in debt by the end of the first term (McCain worse than Obama) and increased income redistribution (Obama worse than McCain).
As far as education goes, since that's the topic at hand, I don't believe taking money from people to pay for other people's college education is exactly "fair." I support vouchers, but that's a state matter, so neither candidate (even if they supported it, which Obama doesn't) can actually do anything about vouchers. Obama also hates home-schooling, which goes right along with what a lot of slashdotter's seem to believe.
Both will make energy cost more. Nuclear is expensive. Obama is now promising to "bankrupt" any coal power provider if they wanted to build a new coal power plant.
I'm not going to say they are the "same," but frankly, there isn't much of a choice.
Parent
Re:Vote (Score:5, Insightful)
Not a believer in the whole "one person, one vote" thing huh?
No, not in a federation. You have to make the federation appealing to states with low populations or they won't join (which we did). Now that they've joined, it's not really fair to change the rules without protecting their interests.
There's already a system to "protect" smaller states; the Senate.
And there's "already a system to protect smaller states"; the electoral college. Both have been there since the beginning. Why is the Senate a good idea and the electoral college a bad one?
Parent
Re:Vote (Score:5, Insightful)
No, if I don't vote it will make no difference whatsoever. I live in a state that will definitely go Democratic. Unlike 2 years ago, there is no one running for office that is contested. Given our electoral system, my vote cannot do anything other than possibly give an independent candidate enough votes to receive election funding and a place on the ballot next time. Unfortunately this time, there is no Ross Perot to get my vote.
I will vote, as my civic obligation. But if I chose to not vote, please do not assume it is because I am too lazy to do so. It has nothing to do with it, and none of your points make any sense to me.
1. My opinion really doesn't count anyway, my vote can't help anyone get elected unless I change residence to a more independent state.
2. The two party system gives me every right to complain
3. Every time I vote for a candidate I regret it anyway, cause all we get is more of the same - bigger government, more taxes & more intrusion. Ross Perot got my vote twice and I have regretted he didn't win each time. I can't remember the name of the independent candidates the last two times, and regrettably we ended up with W.
Parent
Re:Vote (Score:5, Informative)
Bob Barr / Wayne Root: Libertarian Party
Charles Baldwin / Darrell Castle: / Alaskan Independance Party, Reform Party
Cynthia McKinney / Rosa Clemente: Independent, Green Party
Ralph Nader / Matt Gonzalez: No Party Affiliation
You can check the facts yourself at VoteSmart.org [votesmart.org]
Parent
If I don't vote I can't complain? (Score:5, Insightful)
Silly me. I thought the First Amendment allowed me to bitch until my heart is content.
I'm tired of hearing that I can't complain if I don't vote. Who made up this mantra? The people who want you to vote for them.
And the masses have bought it. They think they really have a say in what happens in government. Ha!
By choosing not to vote I *am* making my statement: I don't like the candidates or the system.
Enough with Groupthink.
Parent
Re:If I don't vote I can't complain? (Score:5, Insightful)
Until "Neither" appears on the ballots not voing is a perfect valid way to voice your opinion, sadly it hard to tell if people are protesting or being lazy sometimes.
Parent
Re:Vote (Score:5, Insightful)
So vote if you'd like, but don't fool yourself into thinking you're morally superior because you did, or that you really had an effect. In Wyoming, your vote is about 1 in 150,000 of a share in electing 3 electors, who are a 3 in 538 share of electing the president. And that's the best you can do. Every other state is worse.
Parent
Re:Vote (Score:5, Insightful)
Your opinion doesn't count.
So vote, it doesn't matter who or why, just go to the polls so you get a sticker which gives your uninformed opinion the weight it didn't have before.
you're not entitled to complain
See above.
you'll have several years to regret it
But who cares? You voted, you're free to complain.
Vote if you actually agree with one of the candidates.
Voting for the "lesser of 2 evils" is still voting for evil.
Voting outside of the 2 main parties isn't throwing your vote away.
If you do go to the polls and don't know anything about any of the presidential / local candidates, don't vote for that position.
If you do go to the polls and don't know anything about the state and local measures, don't vote for that question.
Casting an uninformed vote is worse than being informed and making the decision not to vote. At least the non-voter didn't waste any time at the polls casting votes they didn't truly believe in. And the uninformed voter truly wasted their vote.
There's still time to actually read up on the candidates and their positions.
Look at the state and local level as well.
Find a copy of your local ballot and at least read the questions you'll be voting on. Research them further, they're rarely written clear enough to be informed solely on the 1 or 2 sentence description.
Parent
Re:Vote (Score:5, Funny)
Voting for the "lesser of 2 evils" is still voting for evil.
Vote for Cthulhu! [theelderparty.com] Why settle for a lesser evil?
Parent
Re:Vote (Score:5, Insightful)
So, IF you must be an uniformed voter, and are going to vote. Vote third party. Since you don't know who you are voting for anyways, you were already going to throw your vote away. Since there is not yet a chance for the third party candidates to win, you do not run the risk of accidentally electing a kook, AND you help to put a scare into the two primary parties.
Heck, if you were not going to vote because you don't like either candidate, vote third party for the same reason.
Parent
Re:Vote (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's say I go to a restaurant, the only place to eat in town, and there are two dishes on offer. One is a rotten fish, full of maggots. The other is a burger made from cow shit. If I walk out, do I not have the right to complain about being hungry?
Parent
It's the teachers, and the parents. (Score:5, Insightful)
The federal government really isn't the appropriate place to deal with any kind of primary educational policy.
Re:Great plan you have for being competitive w/ Ch (Score:5, Insightful)
It is not the government's job to plan things for us. It is hilariously bad at it, anyway. It is the government's job to protect our liberties so we can do things ourselves.
We are perfectly capable of organizing our own local educational systems. Some of them won't be as good as others, but they can learn from the ones that are successful.
Having the government plan it, and run it, will just guarantee that the quality continues to degrade universally.
Parent
McCain... (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't see him actively supporting homeschooling as well, and we know he's going to be against vouchers.
The biggest problem, however, will NEVER be government involvement. I don't care who is in power, but the ONLY real influence on children's education is PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT. It doesn't matter what teachers, principals, politicians, and everyone else does if a parent doesn't care about how well their kid is doing in school - it's nearly too great a hurdle to overcome.
I think that the only thing that I have ever seen that may do something is a performance-based state-sponsored tuition program (like Louisiana TOPS or Georgia HOPE) which is directly tied to secondary school performance with college tuition on the line - there are a LOT of parents in those states that I know of who pushed their kids to get good grades simply because there was a near-free college tuition at stake (it's what paid for my own tuition at Louisiana Tech).
Re:McCain... (Score:5, Informative)
MAYBE Obama will get rid of NCLB, but I don't see him getting away from the typical left position of supporting the teachers' unions goals and just throwing money at education without real standards.
He plans on reforming it, not eliminating it. From his site [barackobama.com]:
Reform No Child Left Behind: Obama and Biden will reform NCLB, which starts by funding the law. Obama and Biden believe teachers should not be forced to spend the academic year preparing students to fill in bubbles on standardized tests. He will improve the assessments used to track student progress to measure readiness for college and the workplace and improve student learning in a timely, individualized manner. Obama and Biden will also improve NCLB's accountability system so that we are supporting schools that need improvement, rather than punishing them.
What I emphasized does seem to align with your assessment of throwing money at the problem. Those are the best details I can come up with so don't ask me how he plans to improve accountability ... I wish he had thrown out some metrics or requirements that he was aiming for. But if he did that, we might be able to hold him to it!
Parent
How do you grade performance? (Score:5, Interesting)
Tell me, how do you "grade" teachers? Why can't you simply go to your PTA meetings and your teacher in service meetings and be a responsible parent and know what your children are doing?
The reason i don't want teacher "appraisals" outside of what a school district does in and of itself is because some people would rate teachers poorly because they're not christian enough, not moral enough or not forcing "family values" enough or other non public educational focused education based issues.
Start by giving teachers livable wages, start by funding real programs that put books, science and math into students hands. Start challenging and teaching kids AT school. Get away from homework, let kids live a life after school and make school about learning.
BTW, if the middle class is doing better, so will the schools. Fix it from the bottom up, not top down.
Obama'08
Parent
You're a... wrong person (Score:5, Informative)
(Note my restraint)
In most districts, schools have a mandatory 165-180 day school year. With holidays and spring break, this makes for a school year of at least 9 months and often closer to 10. I know of no teacher that gets 4 months off for summer vacation. I have to believe you're just totally lying. Add to this, the fact that most teachers require a couple weeks to prepare for the start of the school year.
However, that doesn't really count here, since in most cases they're not paid for it.
I also knew a teacher who taught three classes and a study hall. He was getting paid $18K a year. Most teachers have a mandatory 7 hour work day with a 30 minute lunch. However, its common for teachers to spend 2-4 hours of time after the end of the school day preparing for the next.
I know a few teachers who'd love to show you where to put your head for implying that they were too lazy to try and get a second job to fill out those last four hours of spare time they have a day.
I suspect the real problem here is that you simply don't have a clue what you're talking about. You cherry picked an example which made you bitter and never used another neuron to think about it.
Parent
Intelligent Design (Score:5, Informative)
... belongs in the philosophy class, not science. Science is a set of facts seeking a conclusion to support them- Intelligent Design is a conclusion seeing a set of facts to support it.
In a philosophy or comparative religions class? Absolutely- go nuts! Be sure to include a whole bunch of other religious theory, including Hindu creation myths etc. Would be a fun class.
But as science? ... Do not want.
Re:Intelligent Design (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Not the Federal Government's Job (Score:5, Insightful)
Do Over? (Score:5, Insightful)
Can we vote for a do over all the choices suck?
Err.. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's easy, just think logically. (Score:5, Insightful)
Why can't McCain properly defend his education policy? It is the most important issue facing our nation, and it is where McCain is leaps and bounds ahead of Obama!
We have the best private education system in the world. We have the best college education system in the world, both public and private. We have one of the worst public school systems in the developed world. Why? What's the difference between our tremendously successful college system and private system, and our horrendous public school system? Guess what, it's NOT MONEY. Per-student spending in public schools is almost DOUBLE what it is in private schools! Surprised? You certainly didn't hear that in tonight's debate. Only the absolute top most elite private schools cost more per student than we spend on our public schools, and the difference is not much, just 10-20% more. And students at those elite schools get WAY more in return for that extra 10-20%. Oh, and public school teachers earn more than private school teachers, so that's not it either.
So what's the difference between how our public, government-run schools operate, and how our colleges and private schools operate? Here are the differences:
1. No teachers unions in private schools and colleges.
2. School choice: private schools and colleges must compete for your dollars. Public schools don't; the government decides which school you must attend, based on what neighborhood you live in.
Let's go into #1.
The teachers union is the most dangerous organization on the planet. They are more of a threat to our nation than Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea combined. They are ruining the education of our children and destroying our only hope of maintaining our prosperity and peace.
The teachers union has made it impossible to fire teachers for poor performance. To be fired, a teacher basically has to break the law or molest a student. They can't be fired for simply being a terrible teacher. It's gotten so bad that at public schools across the country, bad teachers are paid full-time salaries to simply sit in the teachers' lounge all day and not teach! Schools are forced to do this because they don't want these bad teachers anywhere near their students, but they haven't done anything that the union says they can be fired for.
In private schools and colleges, teacher pay is based on performance. In public schools, because of teachers union demands, pay is based on seniority (i.e. how long they've been working there). You can't pay good teachers more and bad teachers less, and therefore you can't attract and reward the best teaching talent. Public teachers as a whole lose the motivation that drives the private sector to work harder and better: more money.
Finally, the teachers union is 100% opposed to school choice. Why? Because it would force all public teachers to work harder and compete for their job, just like everyone does in every job in the private sector.
And this leads directly into Point #2.
It is school choice, in the form of vouchers, that will save our public education system. The way our system works now, schools tell the government how many students they have each year, and the government funds them with X amount of dollars per student. The way school choice will work is this: instead of the government giving those dollars to the school, that money will be given directly to the parents in the form of a voucher. The parents can then take that voucher and use it to send their kids to any school they want, public or private.
What affect will this have? Competition. The same thing that makes our private schools and colleges perform so well. They'll have to wise up, stop wasting money, become more efficient, and start teaching better, or else they'll start losing students. Parents will choose to send their kids to better-performing schools.
Cue the teachers union yelling "But you'll be taking money away from already struggling schools!". Of course, that's the point, and that's a good thing - because the struggling schoo
Re:It's easy, just think logically. (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:It's easy, just think logically. (Score:5, Insightful)
Talk about hyperbole.
That is a rather large generalization. Not all districts are the same. In some districts, a teacher can be fired for any reason. One of the problems is that there are not enough teachers. If someone is performing poorly, you can't just fire them because there is no one to replace them. Why? Because no one will take the job for the pay. I've personally known many individuals who love children and love to teach. Financially they could not afford to live on a public teacher's salary and had to pursue other employment. That is everyone's loss and that really is the root cause of the problem.
If we have learned anything in history, it is that many complex problems like education are not easily solved by a panacea. School vouchers is just one thing we can do. But they won't solve the problem if you don't actually address root cause of the problem. Eight years ago, the solution was standardized testing. Then Governor George Bush said "Look what it has done for Texas." Having lived in Texas, I can say that solution has done more to harm education than help it. When they tied school funding to standardized testing, it had the opposite effect of raising the standard of education. Given limited resources and funding, schools have started teaching the test as opposed to general education.
Parent
One that will NOT help science... (Score:5, Insightful)
Really? Education? (Score:5, Insightful)
Over the last 30 years I've watched well-funded lobby groups essentially take over the entire political process. Since these groups are generally better funded when connected to commercial interests, the political process has once again become beholden to big industrial concerns (it was even more so 100 years ago). It's not that lobby groups are bad, pre se, its that they are, by definition, lopsided; they present a single view of the world that may or may no be countered by the "other side" of the issue. As elections become more and more expensive, this process has accelerated to its own quasi-democratic existence.
Obama managed to use Dean's model to rally the individual for his funding. He's still beholden to large groups, but so much less so than any presidential candidate over the last decade or so. This is a wonderful opportunity to mute down the influence of lobby groups, because he won't be committing political suicide by doing so.
And no-one's talking about it. It's completely off the radar.
Maury
Re:Make them Pay (Score:5, Insightful)
How long before we can do the same with Democrats?
Parent
Re:Make them Pay (Score:5, Informative)
They may have originated with those banks, but because Fannie and Freddie were buying up those mortgages and they had an implicit government guarantee. If Fannie and Freddie didn't exist, those private investment banks would not have had an irresponsible gov't entity to sell their questionable loans to, so they would have had to scrutinize their borrowers more.
Parent
Re:Looking from afar... (Score:5, Insightful)
Looking at it from this side of the pond, it is not quite so clear. Compared with socialist-leaning political types we see in Europe, Obama is seen as a very centrist politician. However compared with the usual types of politicians we are used to in this country, it will be a significant shift toward the left if Obama gets the presidency and the Democrats keep control of congress. While this may be only a 2 year shift in power, looking at what happened to Bill Clinton and the Democrats previously, it is nevertheless makes me very nervous to think what might happen in those 2 years.
There is no candidate or their party that represents my more libertarian views on the world. Small government is not represented by either major party, personal gun ownership is shakily represented by the Republicans, and freedom of self-expression is shakily represented by the Democrats (for some history on the changes to what that party represents - look at what the Democrats did to the students in Chicago in the early 60s).
Obama may look right to you. However, I feel he represents the lesser of two evils between him and Senator Clinton. McCain would have been perfect 10 years ago. Now he just seems like a bitter old-man-puppet, who picked a hot "young" thing as his running mate and now will make all of us pay the price of a Democratic President due to his inability to pick a good VP candidate.
It is with pride that I go to the polls tomorrow, especially as a non-native citizen allowed the priveledge to vote via my naturalization. It is with some amount of shame that I pick a candidate that I agree less than 50% with on my topics of interest (including McCain, Obama, Bob Barr and Bill the Cat).
Parent
Re:Looking from afar... (Score:5, Interesting)
That is, frankly, because your libertarian views are stupid.
No, seriously. "Libertarianism' is a scam invented by the rich, who want the government to only do things that benefit them and no one else. (Like run a police force and court system, to keep people from stealing their shit or living on their land for free.)
They hide this by making claims about the 'original' purpose of government, which is, in fact, exactly that, to protect the rich, although they won't come out and say that.
More to the point, they then make the rather absurd claim that they should get this while paying as little taxes as possible.
While a large percentage of Americans haven't figured out the premise of the party and have a sort of grudging respect for it as the underdog, under no circumstances do they actually want to implement those policies.
Thus libertarians who actually show up and debate on their views for the general election get smashed, and that normally applies to the primaries too, although we saw a fun exception with Ron Paul doing pretty good with some viewers because the GOP has gone so spectacularly off the rails in a different way.
But if Ron Paul had show up against Obama, he would have been crushed. Probably more than McCain, even with the advantage of being able to actually present himself as separate from the Republican Party and without making such a dumb VP choice.
Parent
Re:Looking from afar... (Score:5, Insightful)
I would suggest to libertarians that they moved to a libertarian country and see for themselves. No big government messing in your business, no taxes, guns for everyone. If you are smart enough, strong enough, hard working you can have everything.
Examples of heaven on Earth: Congo Democratic Republic, Afghanistan, Somalia, Colombia, Kosovo.
You will live happy as can be, at least until the next warlord/druglord murders you to get your place.
Parent
Re:Looking from afar... (Score:5, Insightful)
Compared with socialist-leaning political types we see in Europe, ...
You have some curious notions, I think. A bit like saying that the Archbishop of Canterbury leans towards Satanism because he is not as far to the extreme right as the average American Creationist. And the funny things is, quite a lot of Americans I know seem to agree with a lot of Socialist ideas, as long as it isn't called Socialism. As far as I can see, you Americans are distributed politically exactly like people in Europe, only you call it something different, because you have grown up fearing the words "socialism" and "communism".
I don't think European scepticism about McCain has as much to do with him as with Sarah Palin; she may have put the "hot in hot", as I heard recently, but she's also put the "alas" into "Alaska". You are probably right - it doesn't matter much whether it is one or the other; except for the threat of Palin getting into power. Because to a great extent, the situation in the world is going to dictate which decisions the next president will make, if he has any common sense. McCain has, Obama has, Biden has, but I am not sure what Sarah Palin has.
I don't know what it is with you guys about "small government"; I mean, you do want public roads, education for all as well as judicial system, police and military, don't you? I doubt that many would prefer all those things to be privatised. And you cling to your guns like a drug addict to his next fix; it isn't even as if people who wanted to own a gun wouldn't be able to. I mean, if I want to own a gun in UK, I can do so legally; it is just not something you can buy in the local car boot sale.
Parent
Re:Looking from afar... (Score:5, Informative)
Palin's stance on creationism? You mean that evolution should be taught exclusively in science class, as it is in Alaska? And that there's nothing wrong with discussing alternative views, in an appropriate context, without putting them in the curriculum? What's wrong with that?
I'm a scientist. I think that intelligent design and creationism are hogwash. But because of America's foundation in religion, they are concepts that anyone will come across outside of school. I think they should be discussed, at the teacher's discretion, especially if a student brings up the question, but should not be mandated in the curriculum.
Palin said in one interview "teach both... don't be afraid of information". The next day she went on to clarify her position by saying that they shouldn't be part of the curriculum, but it's ok to discuss them if a student brings it up. Actually here's the exact quote: "I don't think there should be a prohibition against debate if it comes up in class. It doesn't have to be part of the curriculum."
Parent
On Creationism (Score:5, Insightful)
As Much as Creationism seems to strike a chord with some people, I've never actually understood why.
I've always looked at creationism historically, as in a "This is what a guy 2-3 thousand years ago though how the universe was made when science rarely existed and wasn't as important as religion" kind of way. That being said, it's not too far off from creationism considering the religious source and the age of the text other than the 7 days thing, but realistically what's 7 days to God? a billion years? 10 minutes? who knows.
Based on that, I believe that it should be taught in schools, but only as an historical reference to how we led to the current evolution theory. Similar to how Spontaneous generation is taught in schools as a previously accepted theory until a new theory proved it was incorrect.
Parent
Re:Looking from afar... (Score:5, Funny)
It should be known (the media is hiding the fact), that there is a special second polling day for registered republicans. This is to help alleviate lines. This Wednesday is a special extra day o voting only for you.
Don't let the unscrupulous liberal media get away with hiding this fact, stand up for your right to vote without lines on Wednesday November 5th!
Remember this special day is for registered republicans only, democrats and independents must vote tomorrow.
Parent
Re:Looking from afar... (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's be honest here. Unless Palin is actually teaching the class her outlook on evolution has zero to do with her relation to education. Infact, keeping her in as a governor is probably more likely to get creationism pushed on more students than her being a vice president. On the federal level all she's going to do is go on and on about budgets. That's it.
If every intelligent person voted, these elections would never be too close to call.
Intelligent by who's standards? If your idea of intelligent is the normal Slashdot "everyone who thinks like me" kind of thing than I'm sure you're right. As for me? I know tons of vastly intelligent people who have some ideas that are far from my own. Enough to make me question who's really right. And out of these same tons of people many probably think creationism has some glimmer of truth to it. It doesn't bother me because I'm not asking them to teach biology to me.
Even if I were the difference between the evolutionist camp and the creationist camp means jack shit in the real world. How about we leave that stupid little debate behind and work on the idea that we're graduating kids that can't balance a checkbook. A fucking checkbook has a lot more to do with how this country progresses than whatever theory you have on the origins and progression of life. I bet you that if everyone in this country believed in creationism but could balance a checkbook we'd be a lot better off. We haven't even go an acceptable majority of the kids graduating to cover the basics of everyday life and we're busy bickering over evolution? Huh?
Also the nefarious involvement of unscrupulous people doing bad things to win, decreases the predictability of an outcome, when both sides are doing it.
It's just another reason to reject the two party system if you ask me. When we can finally shed ourselves of the "us or them" maybe we'll also let go of the hate that accompanies it.
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Re:Looking from afar... (Score:5, Insightful)
Evangelicals want to attack it, to make students skeptical about science in general. They want to move towards a magical world view where cause and effect are not necessarily linked. Why would a person be interested in balancing a check book, if they literally believe that "God will provide " for them? I mean all they have to do is pray hard enough and eventually they'll be rich too. Or at least that's what a lot of evangelical churches are teaching. They teach that poor people weren't pious or good enough, because obviously if they were, God would have provided for them
I haven't seen anything to indicate that more than a vocal minority of creationists believe this kind of foolishness. It's popular to assume that if someone believes in creationism or ID, they're morons who think that thunder means that God is angry with them. This is reinforced because we all stand around telling each other it must be so.
The funny thing is, though, that I know a lot of religious people who are also intelligent. If the subject weren't taboo in the work place, you would probably find that you do as well. These people are successful in their fields (business and science); and they believe that there is merit to both creationism and evolution and that the two are not mutually exclusive. They certainly don't advocate that science not be taught, or that the scientific method be abandoned in favor of faith and magic.
Few of them even care whether "ID" is taught alongside evolution or not - these are people who go about their lives, usually rather successfully. Personally, I believe these "quiet faithful" are the majority of our society's religious people. You might be surprised how many of them you know - and at how little interest they have in shoving their religion down your throat. On the other hand, they /do/ get tired of being considered morons because they have faith in a 'higher power'. I think this is a large part of why McCain is able to make this a close race.
It's much easier to tell ourselves how smart we are when we can paint all of "them" with a single brush as fanatical morons who sit on their asses and wait for god to provide. As is often the case, though, stereotypes only actually fit the smallest minority of the group being classified.
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Re:Looking from afar... (Score:5, Insightful)
Intelligent != ability to make good choices. There are plenty of folks of average intelligence who excel at making good decisions and plenty of brilliant ones who continually fuck up their decisions. Intelligent people are subject to irrationality, self-interest and bias, just like everyone else.
I'm sure that this isn't the popular opinion among the alpha dorks who worship on the altar of IQ, but so be it.
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Re:Looking from afar... (Score:5, Insightful)
how can we be free while subjected to Palin's version of Genesis?
Because, as you quoted, it is freedom of religion, not freedom from religion.
Neither Palin nor McCain has ever expressed a desire to force either you or your children to follow their religious choices.
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Re:So is McCain (Score:5, Insightful)
The actual number [pollingreport.com] is usually over 50%, depending on how the question is asked. In particular, over half of Americans support teaching Creationism alongside evolution in public schools.
See, it's the "alongside" part that I have a problem with. If you want to teach creationism in theology class then all the power to you. Hell, I'd sign my kids up for that class. It's when they start talking about teaching it in science class that I have issues.
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Re:Looking from afar... (Score:5, Insightful)
One party in complete control of everything... bye bye remnants of democracy...
Eh, democracy survived the first six years of the GWB administration. Somehow I don't think the Democrats will do any worse.....
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