Parent-Child Negotiations

Banty wrote in message ...
In article , Nathan A. Barclay says...


"Banty" wrote in message
...

Actually, the intent of freedom of association was more concerned with the
*positive* right to befriend and gather with those whom one wants without
penalty.

However, when government pushes children from different backgrounds together
in public schools, it destroys that positive right to be with some different
group during school hours. In the process, it forces children (and also
teachers) to act in a way that is compatible with the rights of the people
government told the children to be with. That creates artificial
restrictions that would not exist if the children were gathered into a group
based on mutual agreement.



Wow. I must say this brings back memories. I haven't read this kind of
segregationist thinking since my growing up years in Texas. I'm nearly 50 now.

One goes to a public school to get an education. Just like one rides a pubic
bus to get transportation. One is not required to avail oneself of the public
education, just as one can buy oneself a car and never never let a Different
Kind of Person inside it if one wishes. But not on the public dime.

The problem, at least as I see it and continuing with your analogy
here, would be like a sizeable (but minority) group of people
complaining that the bus doesn't provide transportation to where they
want to go. They then wish to either have the public transportation
system - which they help fund through their tax dollars - either
accomodate their needs by adding their destination to the route or
providing vouchers to help defray the costs of their going where they
need to go. That wouldn't seem an unreasonable request to me. Since
insisting that public schools provide religion in their child's
education would be unconstitutional (analogous to adding that
destination to the bus route), the voucher solution seems more
appropriate for the school system. Incidently, and just as point of
interest - at one time, in my town disabled individuals were eligible
for taxi vouchers because the bus system could not provide
transportation for them.

Even if one uses the public school system or any other public venue or
institution, one does not have to befriend, or talk with, other than what
relates to the strictly professionally defined relationships, others. Including
teachers and principals. You don't have to have them at your next barBQ.

I don't think this is strictly true. When you are sitting next to
someone you don't like for hours every day, it's a very difficult and
unpleasant situation. Not at all like sitting next to a person you
don't like on the bus.

However, I don't think the problem for most people is the association
with people of other religions, but the lack of religion in their
child's educational experience. However, as Ms. Metler point out,
there are people who wish to have their child's school be segregated
and would use vouchers as a means of accomplishing that.

The question then becomes, is the gain in religious freedom worth the
cost in allowing discrimination and/or segregation to occur? Given
that private schools are documented as being, on the whole, less
segregated than public schools, I think that cost of vouchers in this
respect is not unreasonable.

Or, if rubbing shoulders and watching the mere outlines of a person different
from oneself fall upon one's retinas, constitutes an offense to one, one can
segregate oneself, but at one's own expense. Kinda hard to do in a democratic
society. But certainly one is not entitled to public funds for the sake of
one's own encasement and segregation.

So, if you really do require this, you can do it. You just can't do it all for
FREE. This isn't about free association rights. This is about MONEY.


Continuing with your public transportation analogy, if the only people
who want to go to a particular destination are all of the same race,
is that sufficient justification for denying them either the option of
adding that stop to the bus route or providing vouchers to help defray
their costs? As long as other races are not prohibited from going to
that destination, I don't think so.

In article , Nathan A. Barclay says...


"Banty" wrote in message
...
In article , Nathan A. Barclay says...


"Donna Metler" wrote in message
.. .

One of my major problems is that here religious separation and
racial separation would be equivalent. There are still a lot of
private religious schools here which were created due to public
school desegregation. To allow children of predominantly white,
rich religious groups to take vouchers and leave the public schools
while minority children who belong to poorer religions which cannot
afford the infastructure needed to run a school system remain in the
public schools seems like a step backwards to me.

On the other hand, operating schools in poor areas could be a great
opportunity for members of wealthier religious groups to help others
and possibly win some converts at the same time. How good or
bad that is from a religious perspective would be debatable, but it is
a possibility that offers very definite advantages from an educational
perspective. I can easily see myself donating to such an effort.

Of course the size of the voucher amount would also make a difference.
With an adequate voucher amount, schools could operate without having
to rely on support from churches or other charitable organizations.

And here we see proposed by you an obvious abuse of the voucher system:
similar investment in the public school system for this purpose, or in a
secular private school via vouchers or community investment, would
similarly go to the end of providing an improved school for a poorer
economic area. Ah but it could be a religious private school too under
this plan, so religious organizations keen on making converts jump in.
Say, Nathan - what happened to your contention about being able to
afford something and "FREEDOM"?? You whine about public schools
being free, but not quite to your standards, while you'd have to pay for a
private religious school, and call it an infringement. But you're quite
thrilled to actively participate in handing inner city families a rotten
choice
between a currently failed school, and another free one which would
subject them to active proseltyzation. There's a word for those with
such double standards which depend on their interests. Starts with an
"H".

You're missing the central difference: where the money comes from. If you
offered money out of your own pocket to educate my children on the condition
that I send them to a nonreligious school, that would be your right because
it's your money. If the condition really bothered me, I would probably
resent it and think it's not very nice of you to impose it, but I would have
no basis for viewing your action as a violation of my rights. On the other
hand, if I didn't especially care whether my child attended a religious
school or a nonreligious one, I would probably be grateful for the
opportunity to benefit from your money and not care all that much about the
strings.

The problem with the public school monopoly system is that the money it
attaches strings to is TAX money, not private money, and includes tax money
from people who prefer to have children educated in religious schools, not
just from those who prefer to have children educated in nonreligious ones.

That's an inaccurate protrayal. It's not people who want secular vs. people who
want religious, two groups. It's people who want secular vs. people who want RC
vs. people who want Islam vs. people who want Methodist vs. all the different
Baptist groups (separately!) vs... vs.... vs...; many groups, each with agenda.
I like agenda that the kids get educated, and the family and churches tend to
what they consider their religious needs.

It's a public need for education, making available a neutral place for education
as an opportunity for all. Those people who are so uncompromising to insist on
some thing specific to them, need to weigh the alternatives. But, like you
said, some 80 - 90% choose the public schools.

Thus, it uses people's tax money to impose restrictions that are directly
contrary to what some of them want in regard to how religion will be dealt
with in children's lives during school hours. That is exactly the same kind
of sin and tyranny that was once the province of state churches, only
focused in a different direction.

Bad analogy. So many of yours depend on the absence of something being made
equivalent to the presence of a different (and sometimes hostile) variety of
that something. It's a categorical logical error.

The problem with state churches in education as a monopoly is the present of ONE
PARTICULAR - THEIR - religion, overriding others' beliefs and making the partake
of inappropriate rites.

That does not compare with a system which is not hostile to religion (see the
link I posted about the current state of the law, signed by a wide spectrum of
religious groups), but otherwise makes sure the practice of religion is either
private or completely voluntary and non-disruptive.



As for your words, "similar investment in the public school system for this
purpose, or in a secular private school via vouchers or community
investment," the money donated with religious strings attached would be
ABOVE AND BEYOND whatever public, community investment is made. If you want
to push for an increase in community investment, that's fine. I'll even
seriously conider supporting it - *IF* there are not strings attached that
discriminate against the choice to send children to religious schools.
(When the Alabama governor pushed for a major tax increase largely for the
purpose of increasing education funding, I would have supported it were it
not for the unfairness and lack of particularly meaningful accountability
inherent in the monopoly system. As it was, I sat on the sidelines and
abstained from voting either for or against it.)

But if I'm spending MY OWN money, I have a right to use it however I want
to. If you don't like it, you are free to donate to other kinds of schools
to provide a counterweight. What you are NOT free to do is tell me how to
spend my donations while refusing to donate yourself. Nor is it compatible
with religious freedom for you to rig the game so I have to donate
exhorbitant amounts just to make up for disparities in tax support from
government.


If all goes well, enough people will donate to enough different kinds of
schools that everyone can find something they're reasonably satisfied with.

(Why izzit that you want your religion as a background to education, but many
others are supposed to settle for 'reasonably satisfied'??)


You're being disengenuous about this. You aren't just talking about YOUR YOUR
money. You're talking about taking a big chunk of PUBLIC money, and just ADDING
some of your money.

Doing it with JUST YOUR money is fine of course, and is the current situation.
The RC can, and does, set up Catholic schools in poor areas, and maintains them
in many cases in inner-city areas even when most of their parishoners are gone.
Which is fine - wonderful, in fact - my brother went to such a school for a year
even though we're not Catholic. I went to a Baptist primary school for two years
in that heart of Baptist country, Abilene, Texas - I wouldn't send my kid there,
but in many ways it was fine.

What you're proposing is to add YOUR money to PUBLIC money, to set up a school,
with part of the express purpose being to make converts.

If that PUBLIC money wasn't going to YOUR school, with just YOUR religion being
presented, it would be available to make a better school which would fit the
needs of a much wider range of children. Including very religious ones who
aren't in YOUR religion.

You know darn well the public money won't mulitply to make all those
demoninations and religions available as alternatives to those families. There
is an expensive infrastructure for each individual school. You're diverting
necessarily limited public funds to your specific purpose. If you want to
convert, fine - do it on your own dime.

Banty

In article , Nathan A. Barclay says...


"Banty" wrote in message
...
In article , Nathan A. Barclay says...


"Donna Metler" wrote in message
.. .

One of my major problems is that here religious separation and
racial separation would be equivalent. There are still a lot of
private religious schools here which were created due to public
school desegregation. To allow children of predominantly white,
rich religious groups to take vouchers and leave the public schools
while minority children who belong to poorer religions which cannot
afford the infastructure needed to run a school system remain in the
public schools seems like a step backwards to me.

On the other hand, operating schools in poor areas could be a great
opportunity for members of wealthier religious groups to help others
and possibly win some converts at the same time. How good or
bad that is from a religious perspective would be debatable, but it is
a possibility that offers very definite advantages from an educational
perspective. I can easily see myself donating to such an effort.

Of course the size of the voucher amount would also make a difference.
With an adequate voucher amount, schools could operate without having
to rely on support from churches or other charitable organizations.

And here we see proposed by you an obvious abuse of the voucher system:
similar investment in the public school system for this purpose, or in a
secular private school via vouchers or community investment, would
similarly go to the end of providing an improved school for a poorer
economic area. Ah but it could be a religious private school too under
this plan, so religious organizations keen on making converts jump in.
Say, Nathan - what happened to your contention about being able to
afford something and "FREEDOM"?? You whine about public schools
being free, but not quite to your standards, while you'd have to pay for a
private religious school, and call it an infringement. But you're quite
thrilled to actively participate in handing inner city families a rotten
choice
between a currently failed school, and another free one which would
subject them to active proseltyzation. There's a word for those with
such double standards which depend on their interests. Starts with an
"H".

You're missing the central difference: where the money comes from. If you
offered money out of your own pocket to educate my children on the condition
that I send them to a nonreligious school, that would be your right because
it's your money. If the condition really bothered me, I would probably
resent it and think it's not very nice of you to impose it, but I would have
no basis for viewing your action as a violation of my rights. On the other
hand, if I didn't especially care whether my child attended a religious
school or a nonreligious one, I would probably be grateful for the
opportunity to benefit from your money and not care all that much about the
strings.

The problem with the public school monopoly system is that the money it
attaches strings to is TAX money, not private money, and includes tax money
from people who prefer to have children educated in religious schools, not
just from those who prefer to have children educated in nonreligious ones.

That's an inaccurate protrayal. It's not people who want secular vs. people who
want religious, two groups. It's people who want secular vs. people who want RC
vs. people who want Islam vs. people who want Methodist vs. all the different
Baptist groups (separately!) vs... vs.... vs...; many groups, each with agenda.
I like agenda that the kids get educated, and the family and churches tend to
what they consider their religious needs.

It's a public need for education, making available a neutral place for education
as an opportunity for all. Those people who are so uncompromising to insist on
some thing specific to them, need to weigh the alternatives. But, like you
said, some 80 - 90% choose the public schools.

Thus, it uses people's tax money to impose restrictions that are directly
contrary to what some of them want in regard to how religion will be dealt
with in children's lives during school hours. That is exactly the same kind
of sin and tyranny that was once the province of state churches, only
focused in a different direction.

Bad analogy. So many of yours depend on the absence of something being made
equivalent to the presence of a different (and sometimes hostile) variety of
that something. It's a categorical logical error.

The problem with state churches in education as a monopoly is the present of ONE
PARTICULAR - THEIR - religion, overriding others' beliefs and making the partake
of inappropriate rites.

That does not compare with a system which is not hostile to religion (see the
link I posted about the current state of the law, signed by a wide spectrum of
religious groups), but otherwise makes sure the practice of religion is either
private or completely voluntary and non-disruptive.



As for your words, "similar investment in the public school system for this
purpose, or in a secular private school via vouchers or community
investment," the money donated with religious strings attached would be
ABOVE AND BEYOND whatever public, community investment is made. If you want
to push for an increase in community investment, that's fine. I'll even
seriously conider supporting it - *IF* there are not strings attached that
discriminate against the choice to send children to religious schools.
(When the Alabama governor pushed for a major tax increase largely for the
purpose of increasing education funding, I would have supported it were it
not for the unfairness and lack of particularly meaningful accountability
inherent in the monopoly system. As it was, I sat on the sidelines and
abstained from voting either for or against it.)

But if I'm spending MY OWN money, I have a right to use it however I want
to. If you don't like it, you are free to donate to other kinds of schools
to provide a counterweight. What you are NOT free to do is tell me how to
spend my donations while refusing to donate yourself. Nor is it compatible
with religious freedom for you to rig the game so I have to donate
exhorbitant amounts just to make up for disparities in tax support from
government.


If all goes well, enough people will donate to enough different kinds of
schools that everyone can find something they're reasonably satisfied with.

(Why izzit that you want your religion as a background to education, but many
others are supposed to settle for 'reasonably satisfied'??)


You're being disengenuous about this. You aren't just talking about YOUR YOUR
money. You're talking about taking a big chunk of PUBLIC money, and just ADDING
some of your money.

Doing it with JUST YOUR money is fine of course, and is the current situation.
The RC can, and does, set up Catholic schools in poor areas, and maintains them
in many cases in inner-city areas even when most of their parishoners are gone.
Which is fine - wonderful, in fact - my brother went to such a school for a year
even though we're not Catholic. I went to a Baptist primary school for two years
in that heart of Baptist country, Abilene, Texas - I wouldn't send my kid there,
but in many ways it was fine.

What you're proposing is to add YOUR money to PUBLIC money, to set up a school,
with part of the express purpose being to make converts.

If that PUBLIC money wasn't going to YOUR school, with just YOUR religion being
presented, it would be available to make a better school which would fit the
needs of a much wider range of children. Including very religious ones who
aren't in YOUR religion.

You know darn well the public money won't mulitply to make all those
demoninations and religions available as alternatives to those families. There
is an expensive infrastructure for each individual school. You're diverting
necessarily limited public funds to your specific purpose. If you want to
convert, fine - do it on your own dime.

Banty

Nathan A. Barclay wrote:
As long as the separation is voluntary on both sides, there is no
possible threat to freedom.

How can my separation from you be voluntary on my side if *you* are the one
choosing it? How can the government provide fiscal support your separation
from me because *you* want it while I don't without that separation being,
by definition, involuntary on my part?

Look, government can't STOP you from exercising your right to free
association and to segregate yourself from anyone you don't want to be
around, but it's under NO obligation whatsoever to support you in these
pursuits, any more than it is obligated to give you a printing press and
blank newspapers or a soapbox and a bullhorn so you can exercise your right
to free speech.
--
Be well, Barbara
Mom to Sin (Vernon, 2), Misery (Aurora, 4), and the Rising Son (Julian, 6)

This week's suggested Bush/Cheney campaign bumper sticker:
"Dick Cheney: Putting the vice in the vice presidency"

All opinions expressed in this post are well-reasoned and insightful.
Needless to say, they are not those of my Internet Service Provider, its
other subscribers or lackeys. Anyone who says otherwise is itchin' for a
fight. -- with apologies to Michael Feldman

Nathan A. Barclay wrote:
As long as the separation is voluntary on both sides, there is no
possible threat to freedom.

How can my separation from you be voluntary on my side if *you* are the one
choosing it? How can the government provide fiscal support your separation
from me because *you* want it while I don't without that separation being,
by definition, involuntary on my part?

Look, government can't STOP you from exercising your right to free
association and to segregate yourself from anyone you don't want to be
around, but it's under NO obligation whatsoever to support you in these
pursuits, any more than it is obligated to give you a printing press and
blank newspapers or a soapbox and a bullhorn so you can exercise your right
to free speech.
--
Be well, Barbara
Mom to Sin (Vernon, 2), Misery (Aurora, 4), and the Rising Son (Julian, 6)

This week's suggested Bush/Cheney campaign bumper sticker:
"Dick Cheney: Putting the vice in the vice presidency"

All opinions expressed in this post are well-reasoned and insightful.
Needless to say, they are not those of my Internet Service Provider, its
other subscribers or lackeys. Anyone who says otherwise is itchin' for a
fight. -- with apologies to Michael Feldman

abacus wrote:
Banty wrote in message
...
One goes to a public school to get an education. Just like one
rides a pubic
bus to get transportation. One is not required to avail oneself
of the public education, just as one can buy oneself a car and
never never let a Different
Kind of Person inside it if one wishes. But not on the public
dime.

The problem, at least as I see it and continuing with your analogy
here, would be like a sizeable (but minority) group of people
complaining that the bus doesn't provide transportation to where
they want to go. They then wish to either have the public transportation
system - which they help fund through their tax dollars - either
accomodate their needs by adding their destination to the route or
providing vouchers to help defray the costs of their going where
they need to go. That wouldn't seem an unreasonable request to
me. Since insisting that public schools provide religion in their child's
education would be unconstitutional (analogous to adding that
destination to the bus route), the voucher solution seems more
appropriate for the school system.

It isn't analogous at all, though. The Constitution doesn't prohibit the
government from putting a bus stop closer to your house; it *does* prohibit
the government from providing religious instruction. And whether that
religious instruction is given in a public school or a private one is
immaterial or whether it is done at the behest of or against the will of the
recipient is irrelevant--the government cannot and should not pay for
religious education.
--
Be well, Barbara
Mom to Sin (Vernon, 2), Misery (Aurora, 4), and the Rising Son (Julian, 6)

This week's suggested Bush/Cheney campaign bumper sticker:
"Dick Cheney: Putting the vice in the vice presidency"

All opinions expressed in this post are well-reasoned and insightful.
Needless to say, they are not those of my Internet Service Provider, its
other subscribers or lackeys. Anyone who says otherwise is itchin' for a
fight. -- with apologies to Michael Feldman

abacus wrote:
Banty wrote in message
...
One goes to a public school to get an education. Just like one
rides a pubic
bus to get transportation. One is not required to avail oneself
of the public education, just as one can buy oneself a car and
never never let a Different
Kind of Person inside it if one wishes. But not on the public
dime.

The problem, at least as I see it and continuing with your analogy
here, would be like a sizeable (but minority) group of people
complaining that the bus doesn't provide transportation to where
they want to go. They then wish to either have the public transportation
system - which they help fund through their tax dollars - either
accomodate their needs by adding their destination to the route or
providing vouchers to help defray the costs of their going where
they need to go. That wouldn't seem an unreasonable request to
me. Since insisting that public schools provide religion in their child's
education would be unconstitutional (analogous to adding that
destination to the bus route), the voucher solution seems more
appropriate for the school system.

It isn't analogous at all, though. The Constitution doesn't prohibit the
government from putting a bus stop closer to your house; it *does* prohibit
the government from providing religious instruction. And whether that
religious instruction is given in a public school or a private one is
immaterial or whether it is done at the behest of or against the will of the
recipient is irrelevant--the government cannot and should not pay for
religious education.
--
Be well, Barbara
Mom to Sin (Vernon, 2), Misery (Aurora, 4), and the Rising Son (Julian, 6)

This week's suggested Bush/Cheney campaign bumper sticker:
"Dick Cheney: Putting the vice in the vice presidency"

All opinions expressed in this post are well-reasoned and insightful.
Needless to say, they are not those of my Internet Service Provider, its
other subscribers or lackeys. Anyone who says otherwise is itchin' for a
fight. -- with apologies to Michael Feldman

In article HxCEc.9586$Qj6.1647@fed1read05, Circe says...

Nathan A. Barclay wrote:
As long as the separation is voluntary on both sides, there is no
possible threat to freedom.

How can my separation from you be voluntary on my side if *you* are the one
choosing it? How can the government provide fiscal support your separation
from me because *you* want it while I don't without that separation being,
by definition, involuntary on my part?

Look, government can't STOP you from exercising your right to free
association and to segregate yourself from anyone you don't want to be
around, but it's under NO obligation whatsoever to support you in these
pursuits, any more than it is obligated to give you a printing press and
blank newspapers or a soapbox and a bullhorn so you can exercise your right
to free speech.

Hey that was MY analogy - except MINE was BETTER and more CURRENT because I
invoked the government providing for free computers and CD burners and
distribution! Hmmmmmmmph!!


;-) ;-)

Cheers,
Banty

In article HxCEc.9586$Qj6.1647@fed1read05, Circe says...

Nathan A. Barclay wrote:
As long as the separation is voluntary on both sides, there is no
possible threat to freedom.

How can my separation from you be voluntary on my side if *you* are the one
choosing it? How can the government provide fiscal support your separation
from me because *you* want it while I don't without that separation being,
by definition, involuntary on my part?

Look, government can't STOP you from exercising your right to free
association and to segregate yourself from anyone you don't want to be
around, but it's under NO obligation whatsoever to support you in these
pursuits, any more than it is obligated to give you a printing press and
blank newspapers or a soapbox and a bullhorn so you can exercise your right
to free speech.

Hey that was MY analogy - except MINE was BETTER and more CURRENT because I
invoked the government providing for free computers and CD burners and
distribution! Hmmmmmmmph!!


;-) ;-)

Cheers,
Banty

In article HxCEc.9586$Qj6.1647@fed1read05, Circe says...

Nathan A. Barclay wrote:
As long as the separation is voluntary on both sides, there is no
possible threat to freedom.

How can my separation from you be voluntary on my side if *you* are the one
choosing it? How can the government provide fiscal support your separation
from me because *you* want it while I don't without that separation being,
by definition, involuntary on my part?


And, very significantly, when it comes to something resource-intensive like
education, it often seems the one that's not so voluntary seems to be the one
with much greater resources.

Banty