Death penalty : I'm against it in principle, not because human lifes are precious but because I don't know a single country that knows how to use it responsibly.

However, I'd have no problems killing someone myself if I felt I had to. (ie. Protecting loved ones. Or revenge.)

Intellectual Property is far far too heavily weighted for the corporations in law. Eliminate software patents, reform the patent office, and reduce copyright terms to 14 years. As it is, corporations have been stealing from the public for decades. And if black people or Jewish people can demand reparations for stuff that happened years ago, I want Sony and Disney and co. to reimburse me for all the overpriced crap I've bought over the years.

Global warming. Long ago fell victim to "Garbage In -> Garbage Out" models and predictions. Save the Earth, but don't lie to yourself about the nature of the problem or you'll never find a real solution.

American schools are absolutely fucked up beyond all recognition. At least that's my opinion based on my fairly limited exposure to them.

Racial profiling. Makes sense, in some circumstances, IF you know what you're looking for. I've been a victim of it many times, and its annoying but acceptable. Where it gets crazy is when you're being profiled in all walks of life by people who don't know what the fuck they're doing. (Just my opinion.)

I think datamining is evil. (One of the reasons I have concocted several fake identities in order to protect my anonymity). I know what datamining can be used for.

I agree with Kate that there is a slippery slope on that score.

Some of my other "right" wing beliefs...
I'm against gun control laws of any form. I'd prefer if everyone was allowed to carry concealed weapons. And I can't think off hand of any level of weapon that I would refuse to sell to an individual. If you can afford it, you should be free to buy it. Right up to missiles and what-not.

I'm not totally against religion in schools. I think religion can be taught as a subject. But all religions, and religion as a concept, type of class. Not a "say your prayers now let's learn about Jesus and the Bible" class.

Oh, and I don't believe in recycling.

By  Manchild, at 8/17/2005 6:09 AM  

Fair enough Kate, but the ACLU tends to hop all over anyone who even attempts to bring religion into schools. So I would see the left-wing position as ultimate seperation, keeping religion out of schools. And the right wing position as allowing religion in schools. There are obviously extremes on both sides.

"He said 'Thank God!' Sack him!!"
versus
"We must have NO secular schools in this country!"

By  Manchild, at 8/17/2005 8:23 AM  

KMan, just quickly and off the top of my head, some thoughts on the American school system. I'll elaborate any point you like, and might add to the list when I've had time to think about it.
-----
American schools.. Jeez, where to even begin?

Mindless group-think.
We can start with the mindless parroting of the pledge of the allegiance to the flag every morning.

Poor Funding and Corporate sponsership
The funding for schools is never enough, which leads to schools seeking corporate sponsership from corporations that have no business being in schools.
Sorry, but I think Coke, Pepsi, Pizza Hut and all those asswipes need to be kept as far away from schoolkids as possible.
Sure it might raise revenue for the school, but the cost is in the childrens health and the formation of lifelong bad eating habits.

Homework
Not enough homework is given. (The average american kid spends way less on homework than comparitive countries around the world)

Shit teachers aren't sacked
The subjects are badly taught, but this goes right through the system. It's self perpetuating. Kids are badly taught because their teachers were badly taught.
And that leads me to unions. I'm a strong believer in unions but if there's a teachers union in the US then it's doing the wrong thing by protecting bad teachers.

Shit students aren't kept back
I don't know as much about this, but I've heard that it's known for teachers to cheat on poor students papers to get them to pass and move on to the next grade.

Curriculum
The general curriculum is also pretty poor. Kids are like sponges at an early age, and they should be exposed to massive amounts of data, languages and new ideas at an early age.

Books
And that leads me to the quality of the text books. The way the text books are selected is appaling. States refusing to consider an otherwise excellent history text book, because their state is only mentioned by name in 6 paragraphs in the entire book, but this shittier book devotes 20 pages to our state, so let's choose that one.

Television in classes
Whoever came up with the idea of television in schools should be shot.
And the person who came up with the idea of advertising on that television, should be found a very special place in hell.

Corporal punishment
Oh and kids need to be disciplined. I don't agree with Americas policy of never hitting your kids. It shouldn't allways be the first resort, but sometimes a teacher needs to be able to smack a child when he or she is out of line. The younger the better. Make good behaviour in schools habit forming. When I was in school, teachers were allowed to take a leather strap to you, (with weights sewn into the strap) as well as manhandle you. There were a few sadistic fuckers who abused it, but only a few. And I would say that by age 10 or 11, over 99% of kids never received any punishment like that, because it was unecessary. At that point, other punishments (such as homework or detention) worked, because the kids were basically civilised.

Parents
Parents need to be able to discipline their kids properly too. And allow the teachers to do the same.
Parents also need to be more active in the schooling. I can't remember the last time I saw a parent want to go to a PTA meeting.
Educating your child starts at home. Parents need to realise that. School is not some cheap creche where you can dump your kids off at the start of every day. Parents need to value education and be seen by the child to value it. If the parents spends their evenings reading or talking rather than vegging in front of the idiot box, then the child has a better example to learn from.

Some sources :
Carl Sagan's "A Demon haunted world"
Eric Schlosser's "Fast Food Nation"
James W. Loewen;s "Lies my teacher told me"
Steven D. Levitt's "Freakonomics"

By  Manchild, at 8/17/2005 8:47 AM  

Well I hope you're not out of the discussion, cause there's a couple of points I'd like to hear more about.

On the mindless groupthink, the pledge is just one example for me, but let's stick with it for the moment.

I agree that civics should be taught. Civic responsibility, civic pride, the responsibility of being an INFORMED voter, and all of that stuff.

But to me, the pledge IS mindless. It's repeated daily until the words mean nothing to most people. (That's why they goof off, IMO)

On the other hand, in a small number of people it does engender an almost pathological devotion to what is essentially a piece of coloured cloth.

It's one thing to devote yourself to a symbol when the real thing is not present, but last I checked America wasn't missing.

lack of family structure (which I believe is a direct link to the antics/drug use/irresponsibility of the 1960's

The kids/teens of the 1960's are now the parents of school-aged kids and IMO, we're seeing the fallout of the whole drugs/irresponsibility/"whatever" hippy attitude's affect on the next generation.


How long will that excuse be trotted out? Cause when it comes to self serving bullcrap, I'd lay the blame square at the Reaganomics "Greed-is-good" decade. The teenagers whos views were shaped in that decade are the parents of the little bastards of today.

The curriculums where I taught as an adult were MUCH better than when I was a student.
Surely that's "curricula"? :)

I'd be interested in knowing why you think this, since some studies I've seen (if memory serves) indicate that it has gotten worse.

By  Manchild, at 8/17/2005 11:16 AM  

Whoever came up with the idea of television in schools should be shot.
In what context? Because I'm not opposed to showing kids an occasional
educational piece. And many schools these days produce their own little
tv shows (news, announcements, etc), with the majority of the production
done by students. So it's both educational and fun.

I'm not talking about kids making tv shows, or a teacher bringing in some
documentary on dvd to show the class.

I'm talking about Primedia's "Channel One"

"To recognize the falseness of that [advertising] propaganda, to learn to read its images, and also to read widely and discerningly enough to start to understand the all-important differences between a good life and a bad one: such are the proper aims of school. Which is why Channel One should not be there."
--Mark Crispin Miller, "How to be Stupid: The Lessons of Channel One"
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1384

Let me quote from an article here. (I intend to look into these researchers, but I expect it's legit)

To test the educational effect of the program, to see how successfully it engaged "young adults" in contemporary affairs and encouraged them to see themselves as active adult citizens--to test, in other words, what Channel One was actually accomplishing, two universities conducted a survey.
Researchers from the University of Wisconsin and Arizona State University administered pop quizzes to see what students could recall of Channel One's news content. Although students took the quizzes within only twenty-four hours of watching the episodes, they sometimes could not remember any of the content from the previous day's program. On the other hand, and predictably, their recall of commercials was nearly impeccable. If they had been invited, many students could have sung some of the ad jingles--the same students who protest most piteously when asked to memorize even the fourteen lines of a sonnet. If we are to take seriously the claims that its primary mission is to increase student knowledge of contemporary affairs, the university researchers proved that Channel One is an abject failure. Fortunately for its stockholders, however, in its real mission it is a sublime success.

I first heard of Channel One years ago, and have come across it more often in recent years.
It does appear that more people are copping on to it.
I can provide some good links to learn more about it, if you're interested.

But I would not be willing to let anyone else (a teacher, a coach, a babysitter, etc) make that decision. Sorry, but whether or not you agree with their methods, that decision should be up to the parents.

Well, we'll agree to disagree there. I think the teacher is there to teach, and that includes good manners. If your kid is acting like a prick, then he should be disciplined. In some (not all) ways the teacher is a substitute parent for the duration of the classtime. If I remember rightly, studies have shown that kids (like dogs and other animals) need to be punished within a very short time of doing wrong, in order for the punishment to be correctly mentally associated with the punishment. If the teacher is handicapped in what they can do to punish the kids, then the kid can essentially assume the class is a free reign period where anything goes. He or she doesn't have to go to detention. Can't be made to do extra work. Can basically say "No" to each and every thing, until ultimately he's ejected from the class either temporarily or permanently. And frankly, I don't think that's a legitimate solution.

Maybe not too much at the school where you taught, but it happens a lot in the really poor schools. And it's not just the Pepsi machines. It's the companies that are contracted to prepare the cafeteria food, too
That gels with what I read also.


Anyway, I wanted to follow up on the ACLU and teaching about religion. This is from their website:
Students may be taught about religion, but public schools may not teach religion.

I don't get the distinction. Maybe it's a subtlety of English I haven't come across yet. Can you explain how this is not contradictory?

By  Manchild, at 8/18/2005 2:39 AM  

Ah, thanks. For me, I would have used "practice religion" in that case.

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