US Politics: The Accountability Problem

[Cas Stark]

2 minutes ago, Ormond said:

There are many different types of "conservatives."

I think most people who call themselves politically "conservative" and who are both college educated and actively interested in politics would agree that Medicare is a "socialist program" when asked in private.

But I think the great majority of Americans who label themselves as being "politically conservative" would not have an intellectual understanding of such things and would be quite willing to deny Medicare is a "socialist program" precisely because they like it, and anything they like can't be "socialist" in their unsophisticated understanding of the term. 

The 'keep your hands off my medicare' signs from conservatives who hate 'socialism' are cringe worthy, and a great example of how we have failed to educate or our population about how their own government works, let alone any of the related theoretical concepts.  It's sad.

[SkynJay]

2 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

 has anyone ever seen such arrogance on display? 

 

Kavanaugh?

[DanteGabriel]

6 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

The 'keep your hands off my medicare' signs from conservatives who hate 'socialism' are cringe worthy, and a great example of how we have failed to educate or our population about how their own government works, let alone any of the related theoretical concepts.  It's sad.

Well there's one party that consistently tries to de-fund or privatize public education. Here's a hint, it's the party whose leader said he loves the poorly educated.

And it's absolutely an electoral strategy. They count on having people dumb enough to put up the "keep your government hands off my Medicare" signs and who can acknowledge that the Affordable Care Act got them health care but still rant against Obamacare.

[Cas Stark]

2 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

Well there's one party that consistently tries to de-fund or privatize public education. Here's a hint, it's the party whose leader said he loves the poorly educated.

And it's absolutely an electoral strategy. They count on having people dumb enough to put up the "keep your government hands off my Medicare" signs and who can acknowledge that the Affordable Care Act got them health care but still rant against Obamacare.

I feel this is a talking point that is not rooted in reality, America spends more on education than any other country in the world, the problems with education is not money.  I've been hearing that we needed to spend more on education literally my entire life, and we have increased spending on education my entire life, with nothing to show for it.  

https://www.vox.com/2015/3/25/8284637/school-spending-US

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

19 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

The 'keep your hands off my medicare' signs from conservatives who hate 'socialism' are cringe worthy, and a great example of how we have failed to educate or our population about how their own government works, let alone any of the related theoretical concepts.  It's sad.

You answered your own question. It takes a profoundly dumb person to say something like that, let alone having be a mass produced marketing slogan. Now to be fair, there are plenty of smart Republicans, but they also tend to be dishonest about portions of their party’s platform. But average Republican hasn’t evolved much beyond a box of rocks. Now let’s get to another popular Republican slogan: “They hate us because of our freedoms.” Any person that can say something like that with a straight face needs to be requeued to the third grade, because yes, they are not smarter than a fifth grader.

[OldGimletEye]

10 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

I feel this is a talking point that is not rooted in reality, America spends more on education than any other country in the world, the problems with education is not money.  I've been hearing that we needed to spend more on education literally my entire life, and we have increased spending on education my entire life, with nothing to show for it.  

https://www.vox.com/2015/3/25/8284637/school-spending-US

Reading that article though, one does not come off with the impression that it's an endorsement of Milton Friedman's views on public education.

[Cas Stark]

1 minute ago, Tywin et al. said:

You answered your own question. It takes a profoundly dumb person to say something like that, let alone having be a mass produced marketing slogan. Now to be fair, there are plenty of smart Republicans, but they also tend to be dishonest about portions of their party’s platform. But average Republican hasn’t evolved much beyond a box of rocks. Now let’s get to another popular Republican slogan: “They hate us because of our freedoms.” Any person that can say something like that with a straight face needs to be requeued to the third grade, because yes, they are not smarter than a fifth grader.

America is full of dumb, poorly educated people.  I think this is an objective fact.  The failure of our education system is probably the root cause of much of not most of the misery and failure this country is and has experienced over the last decades.  But, I wouldn't lay that blame only on the GOP, there are millions and millions of dumb liberals as well as dumb conservatives.

[Cas Stark]

Just now, OldGimletEye said:

Reading that article though, one does not come off with the impression that it's an endorsement of Milton Friedman's views on public education.

Of course, it's VOX after all, so it has to spend a few more thousand words to explain that the obvious take away--we're wasting money on education and getting no good results--doesn't mean we should spend less, but really means we should spend more.

[DanteGabriel]

5 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

I feel this is a talking point that is not rooted in reality, America spends more on education than any other country in the world, the problems with education is not money.  I've been hearing that we needed to spend more on education literally my entire life, and we have increased spending on education my entire life, with nothing to show for it.  

https://www.vox.com/2015/3/25/8284637/school-spending-US

Did you actually read the article? Because it does actually say that school funding has gone down since the Great Recession. The article has a lot of caveats and context around why per-student spending is higher in the US than in other wealthy countries, and why that money still is leading to poorer outcomes. It has something to do with the way we prioritize education as part of society. There may be a lot of money going in, but it's not being properly distributed, and there's a drag effect from all the other ways that American culture is geared to benefit the plutocratic classes.

 

You only have to look at the very real predicament of underpaid and overworked teachers, decades old textbooks, and constant roil in education.

And it is definitely Republicans who are trying to take money away from public schools. Look up what teachers in Kansas are going through after the Brownback years.

[OldGimletEye]

7 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

 But, I wouldn't lay that blame only on the GOP, there are millions and millions of dumb liberals as well as dumb conservatives.

This is raw both sidism. And at this juncture of our history, it needs to taken to a dumpster, and have gasoline poured on it, and then a lit match thrown on top of it.

 

7 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

The failure of our education system is probably the root cause of much of not most of the misery and failure this country is and has experienced over the last decades.  

Well, if were talking about increasing income inequality, it isn't just the education system. There is increasing evidence of monopoly and monoposony power. Add in the destruction of unions, and the complete defanging of anti-trust laws by the likes of Robert Bork.

[OldGimletEye]

6 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

Of course, it's VOX after all,

Well I guess one has to listen to Rush Limbaugh to get the real scoop on matters.

Quote

doesn't mean we should spend less, but really means we should spend more.

It said that? I don't think it did.

[OldGimletEye]

6 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

Look up what teachers in Kansas are going through after the Brownback years.

Wait I thought Brownback really fired up the Kansas economy and showed those dumb liberals a thing or two about how economic growth is done.

I thought their coffers were overflowing.

[Cas Stark]

11 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

Well I guess one has to listen to Rush Limbaugh to get the real scoop on matters.

 

Not, really, all you have to do is look at the spending, and how it has massively ballooned since at least the 1990s if not earlier, without showing any substantial positive results.  We spend more and yet, millions of children graduate from H.S. without even a basic education.  Why do you think colleges now devote huge freshman year resources to trying to get their students up to minimum?  It is blatantly obvious that pouring more money into the existing system will be a waste.  

ETA, as far both sideism, given that one of the Democratic Party's rising stars has just said that she wants to end air travel within 10 years and that "all" Latinos/Latinas/Latinex peoples have a right to migrate to America, I wouldn't be so glib about stupidity on the left.

[OldGimletEye]

9 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

Not, really, all you have to do is look at the spending, and how it has massively ballooned since at least the 1990s if not earlier, without showing any substantial positive results.  We spend more and yet, millions of children graduate from H.S. without even a basic education.  Why do you think colleges now devote huge freshman year resources to trying to get their students up to minimum?  It is blatantly obvious that pouring more money into the existing system will be a waste.  

Look, if there is solid research that says the issue isn't so much about the level of income we spend on education, but rather how it distributed, then I can accept that argument. And that seems to be the crux of that Vox article you cited.

I think it's rather interesting you cite Vox to make your point (though I'm not sure if your point was also bash public education altogether as it's something libertarians have always had a problem with), then in the same breath claim it's liberally biased.

[DanteGabriel]

11 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

 

ETA, as far both sideism, given that one of the Democratic Party's rising stars has just said that she wants to end air travel within 10 years and that "all" Latinos/Latinas/Latinex peoples have a right to migrate to America, I wouldn't be so glib about stupidity on the left.

You're absolutely right, one freshman rep saying she wants high speed rail to be viable enough to phase out most air travel is equal to the GOP's full embrace of magical thinking, irrationality, and assault on science. As long as there is one Democrat somewhere saying something that can be spun as stupid or unrealistic, you can both-sides the shit out of everything! Your education dollars were certainly not wasted. Any other cherries you'd like to pick?

[Cas Stark]

Just now, OldGimletEye said:

Look, if there is solid research that says the issue isn't so much about the level of income we spend on education, but rather how it distributed, then I can accept that argument. And that seems to be the crux of that Vox article you cited.

I think it's rather interesting you cite Vox to make your point (though I'm not sure if your point was also bash public education altogether as it's something libertarians have always had a problem with), then in the same breath claim it's liberally biased.

I used Vox because it if linked to the National Review or Reason or some other conservative site then that would have been reason enough to dismiss my argument.

Perhaps I'm not being clear.  Public education is The Key to a stable, productive democratic society.  It is exactly what it was sold as, the great leveler, the most important rung on the ladder that exists for creating opportunities and lifting people up economically.

[Zorral]

16 hours ago, A True Kaniggit said:

Whoa. So you never had a gym teacher say, "Screw it, teams are salt vs. pepper today."?

I didn't notice it at the time, but looking back, it's screwed up that most of my classes were 90% white in an area where 40% of the population is black.

Nope.  This was a very rural area, far, far, far away from mainstream, suburban USA, so we didn't have gymn and and all those suburban norms of school since the 1920's, etc.  We were called Larks and Pheasants, Stags and BIson, that sort of thing.  HS football was coached by the algebra teacher.  That counting out rhyme?  Anathema to use the n-word, which was made clear to every kid by the time s/he was 5.

But! I recalled and was trying to fix, when finger slipped and it all went away -- Wait!  Our favored division for kids games and so on was "Cowboys and Indians". Grandmothers muttered "dirty Indian kids" and "dirty Polacks" when they saw us playing together.  The Polish slurs were because a bunch of WWII Polish refugees were settled there afterwards, and they were Catholic, didn't speak English, and for a lot of nordic and German families and Russian families in place since the last part of the 19th century, there were ancient prejudices due to Central European politics (this latter part I didn't understand until quite recently, relatively).

[OldGimletEye]

Just now, Cas Stark said:

I used Vox because it if linked to the National Review or Reason or some other conservative site then that would have been reason enough to dismiss my argument.

Well interestingly enough Vox kind of backed your basic point (though I'd say with a lot of caveats and qualifications). So just how biased is it?

When is the last time the National Review or Reason ever wrote something that kind of backed the liberal point of view?

[Mlle. Zabzie]

I do think it is correct to note that just throwing money at the education system will not, in and of itself, fix our education system.  

1.  Because education is a retained power, there will continue to be wide differences in outcomes among the states.  This almost needs to be stipulated.

2.  There are systemic cultural issues that make this a hard question, including the fact that it is not clear that high quality public education for all is (or ever was) a shared common value among Americans.  Further, it seems to me that there is an implicit bias towards an educational system that it is  stratified by economic and social class.  The "solutions" that are proposed for children unfortunate enough to be in the lowest tier are not solutions for the systemic problems, but rather solutions specific to and confined to that tier.  Not sure that is the best policy outcome.  

3.  While money is required, it needs to be money well spent.  Education by fad has been the norm for a while.  The goal should be to create public schools that all wish their children to attend.  We don't have that right now.

[Cas Stark]

3 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

Well interestingly enough Vox kind of backed your basic point (though I'd say with a lot of caveats and qualifications). So just how biased is it?

When is the last time the National Review or Reason ever wrote something that kind of backed the liberal point of view?

Reason supports a ton of policy positions that would have historically been considered liberal.