School and community service - Page 3

Token · #21 11-09-2005, 04:45 AM

So maybe if the community service was to bring flowers to a retirement home you would feel that that would be the same as conscripted labor?

If this helps kids become better citizens then I'm all for it.

Token · #22 11-09-2005, 04:51 AM

[ QUOTE ]
Well, there is always a limit. Yes, if things got bad enough my kid would be pulled from the school. Unfortunately where I live, my choice is religious school, public school, or homeschool. We will do public school with home supplementing and tutorting. However, my money is taken from me by force to pay for the school, so I do have some say in my kid being able to use the school without too much garbage forced on him by the rotten multitudes. So stupidity will have to be tolerated to some degree, but no kid should have his mind ruined by religious freaks destroying science in kansas or wherever. Likewise, no kid should be conscripted into government service without committing a crime. I don't care that the government has the power to have a draft. I do not support a draft, nor do I support conscripted service by schoolchildren.

Here's one other consideration. Remember the kids in trouble for alcohol or tobacco violations who were forced to pick up garbage on I-15 in Las Vegas? Remember how many were killed by the stripper falling asleep at the wheel?

[/ QUOTE ]

Man... you are a real glass half empty kind of guy aren't you?

Darryl_P · #23 11-09-2005, 04:55 AM

I'm against the idea but I'm not outraged by it. I figure public schools are where kids get their first dose of brainwashing to become obedient cogs in the big socio-technological machine. Community service is just another part of the modus operandi. I'd say it adds 2 or 3% to the whole package, max.

I want my kids to be anti-system like me and so my choice is between sheltering them from the system and choosing private or home schooling, or letting them be part of it and explaining where the trickery and coercion is along the way.

I figure the latter is better since you need to experience something first-hand to be certain that it's bad. My kids will suffer a bit no doubt, but IMO they will be better off in adulthood having no doubts about what to avoid and be wary of.

TomCollins · #24 11-09-2005, 03:02 PM

Forcing community service imposes the belief that you OWE your service to the community. In other words, the COMMUNITY owns a right to your labor, to your being, to YOUR LIFE. So what if it's for a "good cause". Set up a program that lets people volunteer for a cause they want. Have people do it because it is something THEY want to do, not because they OWE it to the community.

Token · #25 11-09-2005, 06:08 PM

You don't make any sense. Having kids help out their communities means that the communities own their lives? You imply that it bad, but then you say that would be okay if they were given a choice of causes? Can you restate your point?

TomCollins · #26 11-09-2005, 07:49 PM

I never once stated it was ok to REQUIRE service out of anyone. I did state that VOLUNTARY service is perfectly acceptable, and that I don't have a problem with schools ENCOURAGING but not REQUIRING service.

Darryl_P · #27 11-09-2005, 08:33 PM

I agree and I would prefer your system vs. the current one for sure, but I'm also pragmatic...if I'm going to rebel against the state I'm going to do it on more serious issues like taxation which is simply theft at gunpoint. The stakes are a lot higher there than a few kids running around picking up garbage or delivering newspapers or whatever.

TomCollins · #28 11-09-2005, 09:17 PM

[ QUOTE ]
I agree and I would prefer your system vs. the current one for sure, but I'm also pragmatic...if I'm going to rebel against the state I'm going to do it on more serious issues like taxation which is simply theft at gunpoint. The stakes are a lot higher there than a few kids running around picking up garbage or delivering newspapers or whatever.

[/ QUOTE ]

But this is more important than you think. How do you think the youngins get brainwashed into the attitude that you OWE the state.

Darryl_P · #29 11-09-2005, 09:49 PM

I think the main source of brainwashing comes from simply being forced to go to school in the first place and having to follow instructions from teachers (people who represent the state) all day long. They immediately learn that they owe the state a huge chunk of their time and energy.

Then there are the literature and history classes in which they learn how "great" certain people were who, well, represented the state.

And of course there are countless references to policemen and other government officials and how important their jobs are, how important it is to respect them etc. etc.

Basically I see it as a prison of sorts and if they're going to be spending time there anyway, I don't see much difference between getting brainwashed this way or that way.

jt1 · #30 11-10-2005, 10:17 AM

[ QUOTE ]
Basically I see it as a prison of sorts and if they're going to be spending time there anyway, I don't see much difference between getting brainwashed this way or that way.

[/ QUOTE ]

This was my whole point. If communities have the right to force kids to get educated then someone has to be in charge of deciding how; naturally, their decisions won't be respected by everyone.

Some people will argue that the community has no such right. I disagree. Redneck parents, "Ma boy don't neeed no ed-u-cashin," don't have the right to severely handicap their children, just like they don't have the right to emotionally or physically abuse them.

Offspring aren't the property of their parents. They are the charge of their parents who must answer to the state. In turn, the state must answer to the parents. And any and all parents have the right to organize a change of state policy.

Otherwise, abused kids have no legal protections and the adult illiterate vote will push unqualified personell into the oval office and Congress. [img]/images/graemlins/blush.gif[/img]