posted
I'm tired of arguing about the issue. It is a terrible idea to limit people's rights too much, but if these politicians care so much about families why can't they do something useful and help all these young couples out there struggling to start families? They have student loans to deal with, but they can't get jobs that are good enough. They have first children, but they cannot find quality day care so they can go back to work and support themselves and their children. Nor can they take time off to take care of sick kids without getting into trouble on a lot of jobs. Why can't these politicians do things like give a one year deferment in student loans to people who have just have children or give loans to people who have just gotten married so they can afford to buy houses and start their lives? It's weird and radical, but this sort of thing would help a lot of families more than harping on gay marriage as an attempt to distract people from other issues...
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posted
I know that the difficult times like you just mentioned have made my marriage stronger. I'm not so sure that the government pandering to newlywed's every want will improve marriage any more than proponents of SSM believe that banning SSM will positively impact marriage.
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posted
It would just get overturned a few years from now... It seems so unnessasary to make a marriage amendment when there are other problems that families face taht need addressing
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Not to sound terribly callous, but do we really want more incentive for people in debt to generate more children?
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I don't think it would get over turned for a long long time. FMA would be a serious set back if it passes. *unhappy sigh*
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quote:I don't think it would get over turned for a long long time.
I agree. It's just too difficult for the constitution to be ammendmed for it to happen every few years.
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posted
And did you guys hear that they plan to propose an amendment against flag burning within the next year too? What the hell is congress doing? Anything at all?
Now I know it won't pass, but seriously, what's up with this crap? Didn't we get out of England to avoid having our freedom repressed? Is everybody crazy?
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posted
It's so obvious! I would agree with him because I agree with it on principle, but the way he's using it as a political maneuver is shameful. So now I don't agree with it purely without principle.
I'm beginning to hope "Someone" sets this bush on fire. His base couldn't possibly disagree with that.
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They would likely blame it on all those Democrats going up and down in the world, and back and forth in it.
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I hear that the Republicans are also pushing for a "Country music (except the Dixie Chicks) is now the official music of the United States." ammendment. They were trying to put it on as a rider to the "Nascar Rocks!" bill, but they were worried about it being struck down by the classic rock-biased judiciary.
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I heard that democrats were making a new "you can make any type of free speech statement you like, so long as it's not close minded in which case it's intolerant and should be viewed as racist, invalid and all together rude." But that must have been coming after the "Nascar Rocks!" bill, which of course followed the "kill the babies, save the whales" bill.
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posted
I fully support driving SUVs and clubbing baby seals. In fact, I think clubbing baby seals while driving SUVs should be the new national pastime.
Clubbing baby seals has already been taken as a national pastime by Canada. We can't just go stealing other nation's national pastimes. We'd be like Japan playing baseball.
This will be over in a couple days probably, they can't stall the vote too far into the legislative calendar. Let it die, let's all move on and await this issue to pop up again in the presidential election. Depending on who is propped up on the right, I wouldn't be surprised to see McCain come out for a ban on gay marriage, but with support for civil unions. That'd REALLY throw everyone for a loop.
Squick -
I chuckled when I read his post. Looking at the post he's responding to, I think it was a well deserved reply, depending who's doing the replying.
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quote: "Most Americans are not yet convinced that their elected representatives or the judiciary are likely to expand decisively the definition of marriage to include same-sex couples," said Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record), R-Ariz., a possible presidential candidate in 2008. He told the Senate on Tuesday he does not support the amendment.
There's he's stated position. I dunno how he actually voted.
Posts: 7085 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Synesthesia: I'm tired of arguing about the issue. It is a terrible idea to limit people's rights too much, but if these politicians care so much about families why can't they do something useful and help all these young couples out there struggling to start families? They have student loans to deal with, but they can't get jobs that are good enough. They have first children, but they cannot find quality day care so they can go back to work and support themselves and their children. Nor can they take time off to take care of sick kids without getting into trouble on a lot of jobs. Why can't these politicians do things like give a one year deferment in student loans to people who have just have children or give loans to people who have just gotten married so they can afford to buy houses and start their lives? It's weird and radical, but this sort of thing would help a lot of families more than harping on gay marriage as an attempt to distract people from other issues...
We are managing and rather content to. Of course we don't have any kids, yet. Both in our mid-20's, she's a teacher, and I make the same salary she does. We saved for 4 years, and bought a house (above average prices for houses in Annapolis, MD).
I have no clue what your individual situation is, but a lot of our friends ask how we manage. I look at them and see huge plasma screen tvs, and 7 nights eating out at restaurants. Too many people out of college are trying to live above their means. I think the problem is pretty much with the expectations kids are having coming out of college, that and the fact that some are going to college without needing to. A good friend of mine went the blue collar construction route right after high school, and is making twice what I make.
Also, I don't think I can ever understand why someone would go to college for 4 years, and decide to have a child right away without being financially stable enough.
[ June 07, 2006, 11:57 AM: Message edited by: Stephan ]
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quote:Originally posted by Stephan: Why would a woman go to college for 4 years just to get knocked up right out of it?
I agree with pretty much your entire post up to this point. Although the preceding sentence is fine, I don't think this one is. Some people may have motivations you don't understand, but more importantly I thought that was a very rude way of stating your opinion.
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quote:Originally posted by Stephan: Why would a woman go to college for 4 years just to get knocked up right out of it?
I agree with pretty much your entire post up to this point. Although the preceding sentence is fine, I don't think this one is. Some people may have motivations you don't understand, but more importantly I thought that was a very rude way of stating your opinion.
Your absolutely right, I edited it, and tried to tone it down a bit. I just have very strong feelings on the matter.
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posted
My brother's wife is one of the most brilliant people ever. Oxford, Harvard Law, $40,000 scholorship...
Yet she wants to be a stay at home mom and take care of my beautiful nieces. I can't say as I blame her. She's got all this education but what she really wants to do is raise her kids.
And what's wrong with that? The purpose of education is to make money, yes. But it's also to become a more rounded and intellegent person.
How many people get impractical degrees? Philosophy, Elisabethian Poetry, Bi-sexual Asian Studies?
Education is an end in and of itself. 4 years of college then being a stay at home mom sounds like a great life to me. (though a dangerous one if your man turns out to be no good.)
posted
If your man turns out to be "no good" you can bet the 4 years of college (or similar education) will prove to have been a very good choice.
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Karl: Very true. Even if you have an impractical major. (but it's better to have a practical one)
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I can see that point, about the man not turning out to be a good guy. Even then, thats her choice to go to college "just in case". Still, going back to the original post, I don't see why the government should have to help out.
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quote:Originally posted by ClaudiaTherese: Or if your man is hit by a bus, struck by a debilitating disease, etc.
I sell insurance, so I could go on forever about that one. Everyone should get some type of life insurance as early as they can possibly afford it. Even before getting married and having kids, while they are still insurable. I can't tell you how many people I deal with that wait until rates are either too high for them to afford it, or until its too late altogether.
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quote:I don't think I can ever understand why someone would go to college for 4 years, and decide to have a child right away without being financially stable enough.
Believe it or not, the data suggests that those women who do THIS make more money over the course of their lives than women who start their careers after graduation, wait to get "on their feet," and THEN have kids. Apparently putting a career on hold for a few years is worse than delaying a career.
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posted
I'd just like to point out that I don't think the gov't should do anything about it either. In fact, I think the gov't should do as little as possible.
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posted
When you have a bunch of student loans to pay off and your income is barely enough to support yourself, and you decide to have a child, you have no one to blame but yourself.
Honestly, I don't think the government should support someone who knows they are in financial straits and goes ahead anyway by adding to that burden by having a child.
I think that people who do that are very foolish, and I really don't see why the rest of society should have to pay for that person's foolishness. If the government defers a student loan, then it is losing revenue that will have to made up for either by raising taxes for everyone else, or cutting health care and education for everyone else.
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quote:Originally posted by jh: I think that people who do that are very foolish, and I really don't see why the rest of society should have to pay for that person's foolishness. If the government defers a student loan, then it is losing revenue that will have to made up for either by raising taxes for everyone else, or cutting health care and education for everyone else.
Actually deffering the loan isn't all that bad. The government gets to keep adding on interest without any money being paid towards the principal.
My wife's loan was deffered while she was getting her Master's degree. They didn't even give her a choice, we just kept sending in payments anyways, to keep the interest from building.
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posted
It seems that even though the government is adding interest, no money is going into the government until the deferment is up. With rocketing expenditures in Iraq, health care, and education, wouldn't that be a problem? We already have an exceptionally high deficit without decreasing government revenues.
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quote:Originally posted by jh: It seems that even though the government is adding interest, no money is going into the government until the deferment is up. With rocketing expenditures in Iraq, health care, and education, wouldn't that be a problem? We already have an exceptionally high deficit without decreasing government revenues.
I don't think it would make a huge deal. It would be almost staggered anyways. As people go on defferments, others would be coming off.
Deferrments are possible as it is anyways if you can prove financial burden, or are going back for another degree.
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posted
But what if it just happened? What if dispite taking the pill, using condoms and everything else a person STILL gets pregnant and since they don't believe in abortion, they end up with a baby anyway? Tehn somehow some disaster strikes that leads to not having a whole lot of cash. Anything can happen. Me, I doubt I'd want to have a child until me and my partner (if i ever get one) had a stable and loving relationship. I'd wait at least a couple of years ideally, but who knows what will happen?
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posted
Syn: Adoption. There are plenty of people waiting to adopt an infant.
And if Gay Marriage ever gets legalized, there will be a small increase in the demand for children. (We are a small percentage of the population. Some of us already adopt. Where it's legal.)
Honestly, I'd love to see a world where the abortion rate plummetted and the adoption rate (by gays, straights and even singles) soared.
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posted
It would have to be open adoption in some cases... I don't know if I could give up a child of mine to someone else to raise unless my back was to the wall.
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quote:The purpose of education is to make money, yes. But it's also to become a more rounded and intellegent person.
No, the purpose of education is to cultivate a capacity for mental growth and moral development. It just so happens that people who have cultivated their capacity for mental growth and moral development learn the ins and outs of varied vocations more fluently. I'm also of the opinion that these people are more likely to be life long learners and better, more adaptive parents, wiser citizens, and grander individuals. They are also the kind of peole I care to spend my time with.
When education is treated as vocational training, in lieu of rigorous general schooling, it's a failure to serve the idea of democracy and of the individual human, and we are complicit in shepherding all of our children into some higher or lower class of wage-slavery. Businesses want-- maybe "lust" is a better word-- to turn schools into job training centers, it cuts down on the amount of paid vocational training that the business has to do, and also cuts down on any pesky by-products an employee's well-developed sense of humanity. Business concerns want wage-slaves and consumers, not whistle blowers and ethicists. The problem is that the demands of virtue and democracy call for whistle blowers and ethicists.
By requiring specialized degrees from their applicants, companies exert pressure on schools to produce more business type programs and graduates. And in this scam, ignorant HR directors are serving as the Eichmanns to this destruction of liberal education. If you've looked for a job in the last few years, you'll notice that businesses are getting more casual with posting absurd degree requirements for jobs, which goes far to push students to concentrate on those absurd fields.
*whew*
Yeah, I'm about half-way done with a collection of essays by Mortimer Adler, and they are really getting my blood boiling. What he is saying is tying so much of what I have thought before together that I'm willing to go one step further than Adler does.
So let's clear this up here and now. The purpose of education is not to make more money. Education primarily informs how we spend our leisure time, secondarily, the vocation we choose, and lastly, the nuts and bolts of a given job.
Once I finish the book, I'll give a write up on it. The thesis is thus: Public education and universal sufferage in an industrial democracy haven't been serious issues until the 20th century. The idea that the public has to cultivate all citizens to be fit for the liberties available in a free society is historically unique. All of our models for education presuppose that there is a class of workers who aren't allowed any leisure time, and a class of learners. The workers get job training. The leisure class get a crack at a robust sense of humanity, in the liberal arts.
A rigorous education informs how one spends his/her leisure time, not how one digs ditches.
It used to be the case the that general run where expected to labor, procreate and die, preferably all in silence, or at least in humble supplication.
The problem universal sufferage poses for education is that universal sufferage acknowledges that everyone is a member of the leisure class, and has a right to attain the humanity that such a class admits, which opens up a huge can of worms, the effects of which the world has yet to understand, including how to deal in a world where we have to take 6 billion egos seriously, as opposed to just worrying about the dignity of a handful of aristocrats.
quote:When education is treated as vocational training, in lieu of rigorous general schooling, we fail the idea of democracy and the individual humanity, and are complicit in shepherding all of our children into some higher or lower class of wage-slavery.
The idea of rigorous general schooling would do such wonders for eliminating forced economic strata, of course, as students would all accept the importance of attaining such education to become well rounded individuals. Students have intellectual and social maturity like that, seeing the value of education beyond immediate tangible returns. That maturity is what sets our nation's youth apart from... its... adults?
You just have to tell me where you buy your rose colored glasses. I'd love to pick up a pair.
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Students don't and shouldn't have the final word in setting educational policy. My problem isn't with the student's decisions, it's with the administration's, the school board's, and the teachers' expressed priorities.
quote:The purpose of education is not to make more money. But for many people, that is the purpose of a degree.
Confusing a degree with an education is a common mistake.
How high and in what varied positions does this mistake occur? I think it goes all the way to the top, and out to even school presidents, parents, and faculty. To this extent, the curriculm and the expectations that go along with getting a degree are unduly influenced by commercial interests.
I don't have a problem with vocational schools or technical schools, in their place. I just don't want to turn our Universities and grammar schools into them.
posted
Reducing Engineering and Science to "VoTech"... >=(
I'm reading this as you guys don't want science and engineering to be in your universities. Or a business school for that matter. I'm sure you don't MEAN that.
You go to University to learn how to make money. You pick a University over a VoTech so that, while you're learning how to make money you're becoming a philosopher, an avid reader, a singer, a painter, someone who speaks a foreign language... You're becoming a rounded individual and not a worker drone.
If you go to University simply for the rounding part and not to learn how to make money you run a greater risk of living in a trailer home working at a cheap gift shop. http://tinyurl.com/p6smdPosts: 7085 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote:I don't have a problem with vocational schools or technical schools, in their place.
Which would be somewhere beneath universities in standing of worthiness, morality, desireability...
You're a man of the people, Irami. All the way. Maybe the next time you get your air-conditioning repaired or your car fixed, you can be sure to explain how little you value their worth as people. If only they had been moral, enlightened,thoughtful people like you, and gone to college.
Then they could sneer at the less well educated in a more refined way!
Edit: Actually, Irami has reduced the sciences in moral worth to cavemen banging rocks together.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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quote:I'm reading this as you guys don't want science and engineering to be in your universities. Or a business school for that matter. I'm sure you don't MEAN that.
A Bachelor of Arts is a degree conferred upon someone who has studied how to learn. That's why it's called a bachelor's. That's why the final ceremony is called a commencement, it's a beginning of learning. A Bachelor of Arts indicates that a person has studied the liberal arts. The degree signifies that the student can read well, write well, measure well, and properly understood, it is an unspecialized degree.
All of the education prior to recieving a Bachelor of Arts exists to prepare someone for a life time of learning and the fruitful employment of their leisure time. Somehow, schools started trying to produce learned individuals instead of ones skilled in learning, and the nation is the poorer for it.
I happen to agree with Adler on a few issues: elementary schools have defaulted on their responsibility to provide a liberal arts education, the burden has passed to high schools, when the high schools stumble in fulfilling their obligations, the duty moves on to the colleges, who are sidetracked with specialization, then the children are shunted to professional schools, the faculty of which are appalled that their law students, medical students, or engineering students, haven't yet thought well on how to read, write, or measure, cannot perform these activities with any degree of perspicuity.
Secondly, I'm curious about Adler's proposal of schooling for 12 years, from four to sixteen, with a liberal arts curriculum, with the goal being that at the end of this schooling, a child is capable of learning any vocation that needs be taught, and also has glimpsed the vast expanse of compelling knowledge to be acquired, along with obtaining the tools and sensibility to study it.
Then we would mandate that at sixteen that the student would be expected to find some remunerative work for a period of two to four years before deciding whether to attend college, but that all students would be expected and capable after those 12 years of schooling to learn and communicate at a level commensurate with attaining a life long education.
quote:Maybe the next time you get your air-conditioning repaired or your car fixed, you can be sure to explain how little you value their worth as people.
Look, if a machine could fix a car or repair an air conditioner, we'd have them do it and the world would be a better place for bargain. People aren't people with respect to those vocations, but people are people with respect to their leisure activities, thinking, conversing, reading, writing, political activities, in short, all of those activities which are good for their own sake.
I don't mind if a machine repairs my air conditioning, but I don't want a machine to decide to vote for me.
There are mixed vocations like the teacher, lawyer, and professional politician, vocations that are at the same time leisure activities and labor activities. That's also the reason why we have a hard time compensating these activities, and we use words like stipend, honorarium, and gratuity.
posted
Hmmm. I agree that K-12 schools should have a serious commitment to the liberal arts, and work on producing thoughtful citizens, rather then mere workers. I'm not sure I agree with your assessment of the work involved in being a mechanic.
I can't help but think of Kaylee, the mechanic in Firefly , who says..."Machines just got workings, and they talk to me." I suppose one could argue that she's really an engineer, and not merely a mechanic. But that's my point - a lot of seemingly simple tasks can be made into more by human ingenuity and attitude.
Take service jobs.. They can be soul sucking pits that one feels stuck in. Or, one can feel valuable, take pride in giving good service, and be a bright beacon in people's daily lives. I think that most corporations do a terrible job in encouraging workers to enjoy giving services. Management does a pop-psychology gimmick incentive to boost morale once or twice a year, but then pay crap money, and treat their workers like cogs in a machine.
My personal experience is that wait service is much better in family owned restaurants then in chain fast food places. (There’s the occasional kid who thinks the family business is dumb and wants to be elsewhere exception.) Overall, that family may not be making much more after expenses then they would working for someone. I think part of the difference is the family is giving a service to a community, has a sense of place, and knows it. The fast food worker isn’t connected to the community through his work, and his work place is certainly interchangeable with any other restaurant in that chain.
Anyways, that's my rant on citizen vs. worker drone.
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quote:Students don't and shouldn't have the final word in setting educational policy. My problem isn't with the student's decisions, it's with the administration's, the school board's, and the teachers' expressed priorities.
I'm not talking about policy. You can set whatever policy you want. You can teach whatever you want. You can set up your ideal educational environment.
Students will still stratify themselves into those who value the system you have established and succeed, and those who do not value the system you have established (or value other aspects of their lives more) and do not succeed.
It's fine to say you want all students to have a broad, general, liberal arts education. It's another to get those same students to read and do basic computation in a practical setting. Some students will take to the system like fish to water, others will fight it at every step.
You will still have stratification of society based on education, and that stratification will still break down along socio-economic lines.
quote:People aren't people with respect to those vocations, but people are people with respect to their leisure activities, thinking, conversing, reading, writing, political activities, in short, all of those activities which are good for their own sake.
This exposes an elitism and disdain of people who choose vocations instead of what you consider more worthwhile activities. I know mechanics who love their jobs, and think and converse about cars and engines in their spare time. They enjoy the topic, they enjoy their work, they support their families, and they try to impart interest in the subject to their children - even though they may not know Shakespeare from a hole in the wall or care to talk about the same subjects you would.
Identifying yourself with your vocation does not make you any less of a person. Not caring about getting a liberal arts education doesn't make you any less of a person either.
Some people would lead far happier, more productive, less self-destructive lives if they were allowed to focus on a vocation instead of a liberal arts education. They would feel more validated through their successes and set meaningful goals that interest them.
Your comparison of the people who perform these jobs to machines, and your subsequent statement that you wouldn't want machines to vote for you, seems like an awfully elitist and superior attitude to me.
Posts: 3960 | Registered: Jul 2001
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quote:People aren't people with respect to those vocations, but people are people with respect to their leisure activities, thinking, conversing, reading, writing, political activities, in short, all of those activities which are good for their own sake.
The practices of science and engineering entail plenty of thinking.
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quote:Identifying yourself with your vocation does not make you any less of a person. Not caring about getting a liberal arts education doesn't make you any less of a person either.
You are right. I'll make the stronger statement that identifying yourself with your vocation does not make you a person at all, it makes you ditch digger or whatever. And not caring about getting a liberal arts education makes you an ignorant person. The burdens and benefits of liberty as well as the virtues that attend living in a free society are reserved for people qua people, not for the animal species laborer.
quote:Some people would lead far happier, more productive, less self-destructive lives if they were allowed to focus on a vocation instead of a liberal arts education. They would feel more validated through their successes and set meaningful goals that interest them.
Your comparison of the people who perform these jobs to machines, and your subsequent statement that you wouldn't want machines to vote for you, seems like an awfully elitist and superior attitude to me.
I'm not one to base policy on the ancient and inaccurate assumption that as we are all equal in the eyes of God, we ought to be considered equally equal in the eyes of men. Some people, often in virtue of their attention to the liberal arts, are better than others.
Simply put: the education that the best parents would have for their children-- which I believe would be a rigorous one in the liberal arts-- is the education our public institutions ought to expect of every child in this democracy.
posted
The hysterical thing about this entire discussion is that Irami's entire lifestyle-that may be an exaggeration, but it's certainly true of much of his lifestyle-is built on the effort, work, and lives of people who are to him ignorant machines.
The arrogance, hypocrisy, and blindness in your disdainful attitude are nothing new, but the way you boldly restate it time and again in new and interesting ways-probably due to your liberal arts education-is always entertaining.
quote:Some people, often in virtue of their attention to the liberal arts, are better than others.
This in particular is pretty disturbing...possibly appalling, frankly. I believe one of the goals of a liberal arts education should be to eradicate this sort of elitist, dismissive and bigoted thinking from humanity in general and its students in particular.
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posted
Oh, and it's clear Irami has never been to visit an ER. Those foolish, empty doctors. Their job is nothing!
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