Parent-Child Negotiations

Nathan A. Barclay wrote:

"Donna Metler" wrote in message
...
I have a question:

Why do parents send their children to school?

My point of view is that the primary reason to send children to school is
to
give them an education. I want my child to learn materials appropriate to
his age and maturity in areas like Mathematics, English, Foreign Language,
History and Government (US and International), Sciences, and Arts.

I don't see that religion is relevant to much of this. In areas where it
is
(such as world history, art, and music) it would be imperative that the
basic concepts and beliefs of any religon related to the subject at hand
be studied-but not practiced.

Is the curriculum really so much different in a religious school?

In the religious school I went to, there were four main differences.

1) Religion was viewed as an important academic subject on par with the
others.

2) We had a "chapel" service every day with a brief devotional followed
sometimes by a longer religious talk and sometimes by some kind of
entertainment.

3) Religion was part of the "background noise" - public prayer before lunch
and sometimes at the beginning of the day, religious content in some of the
wall decorations, occasional inclusion of religious perspectives in
connection with other subjects, and so forth - and also played a central
role in discussion of moral issues.

4) The students were mostly people from the same religious background, which
meant that peer pressure to act in ways contrary to my beliefs and values
was relatively limited.

So while the academics were very similar to what they would have been in a
public school (aside from the fact that Bible classes displaced time that
could have been used for a "study hall" or for taking some other class as
an elective), the background environment was far more different. The Bible
classes could, at least in theory, have been replaced some other way if I'd
attended a public school, albeit not as effectively and efficiently. The
background environment could not possibly have been replaced.

Nathan
------------
Not for the purposes of brainwashing, but then I'll bet you
can't possibly defend your twisted little religion logically,
what do you bet, hmmm?
Steve

Nathan A. Barclay wrote:

A robber in the olkd cliche
says, "Your money or your life." In government's case, it's just, "Your
money, or your freedom."
-------------------------------
Freedom is an illusion anyway, you can't do a thousandth of what
you might want. What you are allowed to do is what the rest of us
agree we can be allowed to do.


Money and freedom go together. When people are arbitrarily forced to pay
extra to exercise a freedom even though there is no inherent extra cost to
exercising their freedom, it is no longer a true freedom at all.
---------------------------
You have the right to drive where we drive, but you must BUY a Viper
or build your own highway to drive 160 mph.

There obviously IS an extra cost to that "freedom". And by the way,
we speak of education as a right, but it's not, it's a privilege.
Just like driving on the highway, you have to follow the rules to
keep the privilege. It may be considered an obligation of the
State to children, but it's just a privilege, not a right. While
a privilege is obligatory upon the State, it isn't an unqualified
right.


You desire to take
the funds taken taxes from the public at large (the Public at Large.
Every tax
payer. For the common good. Not just from parents. It is not a
tuition.), and
divert them to your specific, more narrow interests.

If religious schools do just as good a job of educating children as
government schools, public purposes for the common good are satisfied.
There is no diversion away from the public interest.
---------------------------------------
We have no obligation to follow you around and make sure that's all
you would do with public monies. We already provide an oversighted
setting for education.


But refusing to fund children's education unless they attend nonreligious
schools is in fact a diversion of funding away from the common good in order
to pursue the narrower interests of some at the expense of others.
--------------------------
Nope, it is appropriate use of taxes by a secular govt for secular
purposes. We have highways to drive on, but if you want to drive
a Viper at 160 mph on your own property it is YOU who is wanting
something at the expense of others if you expect us to divert your
highway tax money to help you. Your twisted little religion that is
terrified of secularism is analogous to that. Most religions
are not, and you chose yours freely.


Children
who attend religious schools, and their families, are just as much a part of
"the Public at Large" as those who attend government schools, and the
quality of those children's education is every bit as important to the
common good.
----------------
Then you should send them to public schools, and join the PTA.
We don't have to pay for the salve for your conscience for you.


A voucher system that funds all
children's education pursues the full range of public interest on an equal
basis.
-----------------
Nope, public interest is not a universal smorgasbord or a hogslop.
It is decided democratically according to what we collectively
want to pay for, and it is limited to that.


A system that taxes everyone but funds only schools that exclude
organized religion does not.
------------------------
To educate secularly and meet the needs of the Public Interest as
decided democratically, religion belongs elsewhere.

Else I'll bring in our satanists and our figures and literature
to pass out, and see how you like that, and you ought to hear our
prayers!! You'll take your kids right back to your private school!!


sarcasm on You found me out. I'm actually such a horrible person that I
believe that if a family is a part of the public, the family should receive
an equitable share of benefits paid for with public money no matter what
religious choices it makes.
----------------
That's entirely unrelated to any process of taxation that has ever
existed anywhere. Taxation is what the Majority fines its citizens
for the privilege of staying out of jail, which it then spends on
what the Majority wants. And yes, you receive benfits, but if you
don't USE them, then you don't GET them, and you do NOT get WHATEVER
OTHER benefits that you just hapoen to want as a compensation for
your supposed LOSS! Consider, anyone could avoid taxes altogether
if he were permitted to decline all government benefit and chose
his own instead! It attempts to evade the entire purpose of Democracy!
When we vote for a law, the guy would opt out of its protection
and want to write one of his own!! Etc!

YOUR problem is just that you dislike Democracy and Majority
Government!!!


Why, I should be shot for daring to think that
all members of the public should have an equal claim on public money without
having strings attached that unnecessarily limit their religious choices.
sarcasm off
----------------------------------
Because that is the essence of Fascist anti-Democracy.


Seriously, the only public money I want is essentially the same money that
would be spent on the children's education if they attended government
schools - and actually not even quite that much. Nothing extra. Nothing
special at the expense of anyone else. Just the freedom to use the SAME
money in a way that does not require unnecessary compromises to religious
freedom.
------------------------------
You can't have it both ways:

*IF* the State's public education threatens your religion with its
total secularism, *THEN* you prove thereby that you would wish to
use said funds for non-secular purposes, which violates the
separation of church and state. You have no such "freedom".
Steve

Nathan A. Barclay wrote:

A robber in the olkd cliche
says, "Your money or your life." In government's case, it's just, "Your
money, or your freedom."
-------------------------------
Freedom is an illusion anyway, you can't do a thousandth of what
you might want. What you are allowed to do is what the rest of us
agree we can be allowed to do.


Money and freedom go together. When people are arbitrarily forced to pay
extra to exercise a freedom even though there is no inherent extra cost to
exercising their freedom, it is no longer a true freedom at all.
---------------------------
You have the right to drive where we drive, but you must BUY a Viper
or build your own highway to drive 160 mph.

There obviously IS an extra cost to that "freedom". And by the way,
we speak of education as a right, but it's not, it's a privilege.
Just like driving on the highway, you have to follow the rules to
keep the privilege. It may be considered an obligation of the
State to children, but it's just a privilege, not a right. While
a privilege is obligatory upon the State, it isn't an unqualified
right.


You desire to take
the funds taken taxes from the public at large (the Public at Large.
Every tax
payer. For the common good. Not just from parents. It is not a
tuition.), and
divert them to your specific, more narrow interests.

If religious schools do just as good a job of educating children as
government schools, public purposes for the common good are satisfied.
There is no diversion away from the public interest.
---------------------------------------
We have no obligation to follow you around and make sure that's all
you would do with public monies. We already provide an oversighted
setting for education.


But refusing to fund children's education unless they attend nonreligious
schools is in fact a diversion of funding away from the common good in order
to pursue the narrower interests of some at the expense of others.
--------------------------
Nope, it is appropriate use of taxes by a secular govt for secular
purposes. We have highways to drive on, but if you want to drive
a Viper at 160 mph on your own property it is YOU who is wanting
something at the expense of others if you expect us to divert your
highway tax money to help you. Your twisted little religion that is
terrified of secularism is analogous to that. Most religions
are not, and you chose yours freely.


Children
who attend religious schools, and their families, are just as much a part of
"the Public at Large" as those who attend government schools, and the
quality of those children's education is every bit as important to the
common good.
----------------
Then you should send them to public schools, and join the PTA.
We don't have to pay for the salve for your conscience for you.


A voucher system that funds all
children's education pursues the full range of public interest on an equal
basis.
-----------------
Nope, public interest is not a universal smorgasbord or a hogslop.
It is decided democratically according to what we collectively
want to pay for, and it is limited to that.


A system that taxes everyone but funds only schools that exclude
organized religion does not.
------------------------
To educate secularly and meet the needs of the Public Interest as
decided democratically, religion belongs elsewhere.

Else I'll bring in our satanists and our figures and literature
to pass out, and see how you like that, and you ought to hear our
prayers!! You'll take your kids right back to your private school!!


sarcasm on You found me out. I'm actually such a horrible person that I
believe that if a family is a part of the public, the family should receive
an equitable share of benefits paid for with public money no matter what
religious choices it makes.
----------------
That's entirely unrelated to any process of taxation that has ever
existed anywhere. Taxation is what the Majority fines its citizens
for the privilege of staying out of jail, which it then spends on
what the Majority wants. And yes, you receive benfits, but if you
don't USE them, then you don't GET them, and you do NOT get WHATEVER
OTHER benefits that you just hapoen to want as a compensation for
your supposed LOSS! Consider, anyone could avoid taxes altogether
if he were permitted to decline all government benefit and chose
his own instead! It attempts to evade the entire purpose of Democracy!
When we vote for a law, the guy would opt out of its protection
and want to write one of his own!! Etc!

YOUR problem is just that you dislike Democracy and Majority
Government!!!


Why, I should be shot for daring to think that
all members of the public should have an equal claim on public money without
having strings attached that unnecessarily limit their religious choices.
sarcasm off
----------------------------------
Because that is the essence of Fascist anti-Democracy.


Seriously, the only public money I want is essentially the same money that
would be spent on the children's education if they attended government
schools - and actually not even quite that much. Nothing extra. Nothing
special at the expense of anyone else. Just the freedom to use the SAME
money in a way that does not require unnecessary compromises to religious
freedom.
------------------------------
You can't have it both ways:

*IF* the State's public education threatens your religion with its
total secularism, *THEN* you prove thereby that you would wish to
use said funds for non-secular purposes, which violates the
separation of church and state. You have no such "freedom".
Steve

Nathan A. Barclay wrote:

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

Causing children to go to school in a "neutral" environment
instead of a religious one is not a neutral act.
---------------------------------
Of course it is. Neutral *IS* Neutral!!
What Neutral is NOT is NON-Neutral!!
Secular is an absence, NOT a presence!
An absence of indefensible and undemocratic assertions.


Children are not "caused" to go to a public school.

They aren't? Then why are about ninety percent of children in government
schools?
-----------------
People obviously feel it is sufficient.


Children are not forced to go to public schools. But the economics of the
laws of supply and demand provide a very, VERY powerful cause when
government reduces the price of one option to zero.
-------------------------------
Irrelevant. Something being free doesn't make it desirable unless
it IS desirable. YOU prove THAT!! Your very existence threatens
your assertion!


like that. It only means it's absent. Period. Furthermore, that we
think it
is a Good Thing for Kids does not therefore mean the public schools are
obliged
to present it.

This example is rather nonsensical since I'm not aware of any parents who
pay thousands of dollars per year per child to send a child to a religious
school just so they can exercise their freedom of Tae-Kwon Do.
-------------------
Religion is a falsehood, and it is nothing more than a hobby.
Your religion is mere humor to everyone *I* hold in high regard!


But even so,
a voucher system would protect and respect freedom of Tae-Kwon Do. That's
part of the beauty of a system that adopts freedom as a core principle.
-------------------------------------
All that means is that you'd gladly have the rest of us fund a
little TKD to get your bills paid too!


The point you're missing is that private schools provide these exact same
benefits.
-------------
Intermixed with falsehood/poison that damages children!!
And that we can never tolerate!


This is the rest of what you are mssing. Children who attend privately
operated schools are just as much a part of "the populace at large" as
children who attend government schools are. In a voucher system, government
education dollars are used to educate the ENTIRE populace at large.
-----------------
You mean use public monies to religiously brainwash SOME of them!


It is
the public school monopoly system
---------------------------------
Lie!! Doesn't exist!


that diverts money away from providing
equal support for all children's education in order to provide greater
support for some at the expense of others.
----------------------------
Only the some that attend instead of the others who drop out.
You leave omn your OWN dime, don't pretend we owe you anything
if you won't stay for it!


The Supreme Court ruled to the contrary in the Cleveland voucher case,
----------------------
An obvious lie.
Steve

Nathan A. Barclay wrote:

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

Causing children to go to school in a "neutral" environment
instead of a religious one is not a neutral act.
---------------------------------
Of course it is. Neutral *IS* Neutral!!
What Neutral is NOT is NON-Neutral!!
Secular is an absence, NOT a presence!
An absence of indefensible and undemocratic assertions.


Children are not "caused" to go to a public school.

They aren't? Then why are about ninety percent of children in government
schools?
-----------------
People obviously feel it is sufficient.


Children are not forced to go to public schools. But the economics of the
laws of supply and demand provide a very, VERY powerful cause when
government reduces the price of one option to zero.
-------------------------------
Irrelevant. Something being free doesn't make it desirable unless
it IS desirable. YOU prove THAT!! Your very existence threatens
your assertion!


like that. It only means it's absent. Period. Furthermore, that we
think it
is a Good Thing for Kids does not therefore mean the public schools are
obliged
to present it.

This example is rather nonsensical since I'm not aware of any parents who
pay thousands of dollars per year per child to send a child to a religious
school just so they can exercise their freedom of Tae-Kwon Do.
-------------------
Religion is a falsehood, and it is nothing more than a hobby.
Your religion is mere humor to everyone *I* hold in high regard!


But even so,
a voucher system would protect and respect freedom of Tae-Kwon Do. That's
part of the beauty of a system that adopts freedom as a core principle.
-------------------------------------
All that means is that you'd gladly have the rest of us fund a
little TKD to get your bills paid too!


The point you're missing is that private schools provide these exact same
benefits.
-------------
Intermixed with falsehood/poison that damages children!!
And that we can never tolerate!


This is the rest of what you are mssing. Children who attend privately
operated schools are just as much a part of "the populace at large" as
children who attend government schools are. In a voucher system, government
education dollars are used to educate the ENTIRE populace at large.
-----------------
You mean use public monies to religiously brainwash SOME of them!


It is
the public school monopoly system
---------------------------------
Lie!! Doesn't exist!


that diverts money away from providing
equal support for all children's education in order to provide greater
support for some at the expense of others.
----------------------------
Only the some that attend instead of the others who drop out.
You leave omn your OWN dime, don't pretend we owe you anything
if you won't stay for it!


The Supreme Court ruled to the contrary in the Cleveland voucher case,
----------------------
An obvious lie.
Steve

Nathan A. Barclay wrote:

"Banty" wrote in message
...
(trying again - arrrgh I hate the enter key...)

Here is a link to the joint statement signed by many religious, legal,
and
civil rights organizations that summarize what the current law is
concerning
dealing with religion in the public schools. I could hope that this and
other
references would put to rest the "kids can't pray in schools" and "it's
just
like the old Soviet Union in our schools" assertions, but I know better
;-)

The real problem is that you are trying to define how much religious
activity during school hours is "enough" for other people.
----------------
Nope, just telling you we can't pay for any of it under our system
of govt.
Steve

Nathan A. Barclay wrote:

"Banty" wrote in message
...
(trying again - arrrgh I hate the enter key...)

Here is a link to the joint statement signed by many religious, legal,
and
civil rights organizations that summarize what the current law is
concerning
dealing with religion in the public schools. I could hope that this and
other
references would put to rest the "kids can't pray in schools" and "it's
just
like the old Soviet Union in our schools" assertions, but I know better
;-)

The real problem is that you are trying to define how much religious
activity during school hours is "enough" for other people.
----------------
Nope, just telling you we can't pay for any of it under our system
of govt.
Steve

Nathan A. Barclay wrote:

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
-------------------------
I don't really think you grasp how much your use of the word
"converts" makes an enormous number of people reading this
want to shoot you through the head!!
Steve

Nathan A. Barclay wrote:

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
-------------------------
I don't really think you grasp how much your use of the word
"converts" makes an enormous number of people reading this
want to shoot you through the head!!
Steve

Nathan A. Barclay wrote:

But I
strongly reject the philosophy, "If we can't make sure everyone can get what
they want, then no one should be able to get what they want."
--------------
No one SHOULD get what YOU want for the rest of us!!!

You mis-spoke. It should be, "We CAN'T give EVERYBODY what they
want, and that's NOT our JOB EITHER!" Our Democracy has to vote
for what the Majority wants and get it for them, and that means
that under our system NO religious purpose can be served with
public funds!


In my view,
laws designed on that basis are very serious violations of the equal
protection of the laws
-------------------------
Nonsense, Democracy requires that the Majority gets what it wants,
because every other alternative to it is SO MUCH WORSE!


because they deliberately harm some people or groups
without really helping others.
---------------------
HEY YOU ****!! It helps *US* a LOT not to see your religious ****
EVERYWHERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


but preventing Christians from getting something just because poorer or
smaller non-Christian groups can't afford it would itself be a serious
violation of separation of church and state.)
-----------------------
Nonsense, that's no result of separation of church and state!!
What you **** can or can't afford is not our problem!!


One final thought is that if the private sector of education would grow
enough to create excess capacity in the public schools, the public system
could rent its excess capacity to private schools. That could create
potential to start private schools with very low start-up costs because they
would be using existing infrastructure.
--------------------
If that happened, I'd start burning churches with you **** in them!
Steve