Socialism is

[Neil D]

It's true that free public education is part of the socialist agenda. But that does not mean that public education itself is necessarily socialist.

[John317]

Originally Posted By: John317

It's true that free public education is part of the socialist agenda. But that does not mean that public education itself is necessarily socialist.

"Necessarily socialist"? What is this..? Either it is or it isn't....

My point is simple: While public education is always part of the socialist agenda and program, it is not related to socialism when in a capitalist, or even in a mixed, economy such as ours. It is managed differently and has different goals in a socialist society than in a capitalist system.

[John317]

Quote:

Socialists don't simply want to educate the community; they want to educate it so that people think in ways that socialists agree with. For one thing, socialists want people to be educated to accept evolutionary theory as fact. They also want to rule out any belief that homosexuality is wrong. They would eventually pass laws that prohibit certain religious freedoms, such as the preaching or teaching against the homosexual lifestyle.

This type of thinking, which is prevailant among christain circles is based upon the idea that thier way of life, which is the true way, is being eroded and supplanted with something that is not christian.

What I said is based on being active in the socialist movement in the United States and on personal conversations with leaders-- including a presidential and vice-presidential candidates-- in the socialist movement. I had personal interviews with them in which I asked them straightforwardly what their plans were as regards religious freedoms.

What I said is also based on studying the socialist literature, newspapers, and journals that are published in this country for the last 70 years.

Check out a few:

http://www.isreview.org/

http://socialistworker.org/2004-1/500/500_06_Zinn.shtml

http://www.geocities.com/redmenace74/

http://www.cpusa.org/

http://www.themilitant.com/index.shtml

http://www.internationalviewpoint.org/

Frankly I pay no attention to what christian circles are saying about these topics. I could not even tell you what they think or say. But I do know socialism and the socialist movement in the US. I used to support and work for it; now I totally oppose it.

[Neil D]

Originally Posted By: Neil D

"Necessarily socialist"? What is this..? Either it is or it isn't....

My point is simple: While public education is always part of the socialist agenda and program' date=' it is not related to socialism when in a capitalist, or even in a mixed, economy such as ours. It is managed differently and has different goals in a socialist society than in a capitalist system.

[/quote']

So then anything that deals with control of a group of people is a "socialist agenda"?

Your premise is way off base here, john. According to you, crowd control in a football game is a 'socialist agenda'...That is not the case...It's just 'crowd control'...A socialist agenda has political ramifications...which entail more than just moving a crowd of people from one place to another.

The same can be said of education....It's not a socialist agenda..It is just 'education'. It is the education of a group of people...and a transaction involving the paying off of a debt from the goverment to the individual with children or to the tax paying person in our country.

Your point maybe simple, but it is flawed. Your 'socialist education' in a capitalist society is a oxymoron. There is no social eduction unless it refers to that branch of education dealing with social values [social welfare] or the clases dealing with a subject within the politcal spectrum [political socialism].

Not making these distinctions is an oversimplification and is an error of judgement.

[John317]

So then anything that deals with control of a group of people is a "socialist agenda"?

Your premise is way off base here, john. According to you, crowd control in a football game is a 'socialist agenda'...That is not the case...It's just 'crowd control'...A socialist agenda has political ramifications...which entail more than just moving a crowd of people from one place to another.

What in the world are you talking about, Neil? What is my "premise"? I have not even said what it is.

You're assuming a lot of things I never said or meant to say.

[Neil D]

Originally Posted By: Neil D

So then anything that deals with control of a group of people is a "socialist agenda"?

Your premise is way off base here, john. According to you, crowd control in a football game is a 'socialist agenda'...That is not the case...It's just 'crowd control'...A socialist agenda has political ramifications...which entail more than just moving a crowd of people from one place to another.

What in the world are you talking about, Neil? What is my "premise"? I have not even said what it is.

You're assuming a lot of things I never said or meant to say.

Obviously, something is amiss and not being communicated....

Let's try this again....

You have said that It's true that free public education is part of the socialist agenda. But that does not mean that public education itself is necessarily socialist.

Again, I ask you how can 'free public education be a part of the socialist agenda" when it isn't "necessarily socialist"? It is either socialist or it is not...If it is, then there are examples where socialist education is being taught in these schools. Socialist education needs to be clarified a bit more, in my opinion, as what you may concider socialist education, I may clearly say that it is not so...

I maintain that free public education is NOT a socialist agenda nor is it pushing a socialist agenda, but rather a reflection of current capitolistic/current values promoted at the local level. What you term as 'socialistic' maybe a reflection of keeping the education system a positive experience for all children in all social circles. What you see as some "agendas" by the teacher adminstrations may more be about keeping the education experience positive for all, including cultures that may have counter intuitive values, including but not limited to Mormons, christians, latinos, and blacks [obviously, these are cultures within our social system that were picked out of the air and they have various values that are just as relevant to themselves as to others.]

[Bravus]

Stann's statement that 'public education is socialist' (if I can speak for him a little) was not about the content of schooling - what is taught - but simply about the nature of an institution where something that is deemed to be good for a society is paid for with taxes. Private education is user-pays (except in Australia where it's massively subsidised from the public purse), but public education takes money from all working members of society to educate the next generation.

I think that's a Good Thing, of course. And it's entrenched enough that most on the right don't publicly object to it, even if they don't send their kids to public schools.

The question then is whether there are other things that serve all of society to a sufficient degree that they should be publicly provided. Health care is one example of such a public good.

[Neil D]

Stann's statement that 'public education is socialist' (if I can speak for him a little) was not about the content of schooling - what is taught - but simply about the nature of an institution where something that is deemed to be good for a society is paid for with taxes. Private education is user-pays (except in Australia where it's massively subsidised from the public purse), but public education takes money from all working members of society to educate the next generation.

I think that's a Good Thing, of course. And it's entrenched enough that most on the right don't publicly object to it, even if they don't send their kids to public schools.

The question then is whether there are other things that serve all of society to a sufficient degree that they should be publicly provided. Health care is one example of such a public good.

I guess when I post, there are some here who think that I am something of an idiotic novelty. But I guess that I just don't see where "socialism" and public education can be used in the same sentence.

so·cial·ism - 1]Any of various theories or systems of social organization in which the means of producing and distributing goods is owned collectively or by a centralized government that often plans and controls the economy.

2]The stage in Marxist-Leninist theory intermediate between capitalism and communism, in which collective ownership of the economy under the dictatorship of the proletariat has not yet been successfully achieved.

I just don't see socialism in education as some stage between capitalism and communism in which there is some counsel that controls the economy and the schools. So definition of #2 is out. And while the US goverment is attempting to influence the economy heavily, I don't see a national govermental council controling the local school. I do see a local county and city level, but they do not control the economy at all. So the word "socialism" doesn't apply here at all...

And I do agree that there should be a right to an education in today's society. And I do agree that there are some things that are collectively done better than thru private concerns...and I also agree that health care can be one of those concerns. It bothers me that there are some who are out to belittle these programs and lable them as some sort of goveremnt scheme to control our lives and call it "socialism" especially when the need is so great.

[Bravus]

That's a very narrow definition, that applies only to state socialism and only within a Marxist frame. There are other understandings of the term. My reaction to reading your earlier post on education was that you were applying exactly this kind of definition.

Lemme offer a different one:

Economic system which is based on cooperation rather than competition and which utilizes centralized planning and distribution.

That describes public education, though it's sometimes 'centralized' nationally and sometimes at the state or city level.

[Bravus]

And definitely no suggestion of idiocy - good points, well made, and an interesting discussion.

[John317]

Let's try this again....

You have said that It's true that free public education is part of the socialist agenda. But that does not mean that public education itself is necessarily socialist.

Again, I ask you how can 'free public education be a part of the socialist agenda" when it isn't "necessarily socialist"?

I'm talking about the socialist agenda (you know, their plans, objectives, philosophy; what they want to accomplish) as reflected in the history of the socialist/communist movements.

It primarily begins with the Communist Manifesto and can be found in all the books and publications produced by socialists and communists throughout history.

Quote:

On what foundation is the present family, the bourgeois family, based? On capital, on private gain. In its completely developed form, this family exists only among the bourgeoisie. But this state of things finds its complement in the practical absence of the family among proletarians, and in public prostitution.

The bourgeois family will vanish as a matter of course when its complement vanishes, and both will vanish with the vanishing of capital.

Do you charge us with wanting to stop the exploitation of children by their parents? To this crime we plead guilty.

But, you say, we destroy the most hallowed of relations, when we replace home education by social.

And your education! Is not that also social, and determined by the social conditions under which you educate, by the intervention direct or indirect, of society, by means of schools, etc.? The Communists have not intended the intervention of society in education; they do but seek to alter the character of that intervention, and to rescue education from the influence of the ruling class.

The bourgeois claptrap about the family and education, about the hallowed correlation of parents and child, becomes all the more disgusting, the more, by the action of Modern Industry, all the family ties among the proletarians are torn asunder, and their children transformed into simple articles of commerce and instruments of labor.

http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/classics/manifesto.html

Here's an interesting look at what some people have posted about the issue of education as related to socialism/communism--

(I'm not saying I agree with the poster. I'm only posting it to show what some people are thinking and writing on this issue.)

Quote:

Socialist Public Schools In America

Many parents might think it a bit farfetched to compare our public schools to schools in socialist or communist countries. However, if we look closer, we will see striking similarities between the two systems.

In the former socialist-communist Soviet Union, for example, the government owned all property and all the schools. In America, public schools are also government property, controlled by local government officials. In Soviet Russia, the government forced all parents to send their children to government-controlled schools. In America, compulsory-attendance laws in all fifty states force parents to send their children to public schools.

The Soviet rulers taxed all their subjects to pay for their schools. Here, all taxpayers pay compulsory school taxes to support public schools, whether or not the homeowner has children or thinks the schools are incompetent. In the Soviet Union, all teachers were government employees, and these officials controlled and managed the schools. In America, teachers, principals, administrators, and school janitors are also government employees, paid, trained, and pensioned through government taxes.

In the Soviet Union, most government employees could not be fired they had a “right” to their jobs. Public-school employees in America also believe they have an alleged right to their jobs, enforced through tenure laws. As we will see later, in America, it's almost impossible to fire tenured teachers. In communist Russia, competence and working hard didn't matter very much — the government paid most workers regardless of their performance on the job.

In America, public-school teachers’ salaries depend on length of service competence is irrelevant. In communist Russia, the elite ruling class had estates in the countryside while peasants starved. Here, public-school authorities get fat salaries, pensions, and benefits while our children starve for a real education.

In communist Russia, government control of food supplies created eighty years of chronic famine. In America, one hundred and fifty years of public schools has created an educational famine. Millions of public-school children can barely read while the system wastes twelve years of our children’s lives.

Still think the comparison to communist schools is too farfetched? Albert Shanker, former President of the American Federation of Teachers, the second largest teacher’s union, once said: “It's time to admit that public education operates like a planned economy, a bureaucratic system in which everyone's role is spelled out in advance and there are few incentives for innovation and productivity. It's no surprise that our school system doesn't improve. It more resembles the communist economy than our own market economy.”

Finally, schools in some communist countries like China seem to give a better, more disciplined education in the basics of reading, writing, and math than our public schools. International math and reading test-score comparisons often find American kids lagging far behind children from China.

But what values do Chinese communist schools teach their children? Here is another apt comparison between communist schools and our public schools. In both cases, either a central or local government controls the curriculum and the values it chooses to teach its students. The Chinese government can and does indoctrinate all school children with its communist ideology and loyalty to the communist leaders.

Similarly, in our public schools, left-leaning school authorities control the curriculum and the values they teach our children. In many public schools, values-clarification programs and distorted American history courses in many public schools now indoctrinate our children with anti-parent, anti-religion, and anti-American values. In both communist schools and our government-controlled public schools, parents cannot (with a few exceptions) stop school authorities from teaching harmful or immoral values to their children.

Question --- Do socialist, compulsory, government-controlled public schools belong in America, the land of the free?

[John317]

You need to go back and read some more. That's called putting words in people's mouths. There's a lot of that going on around here and on some other Adventist forums, I've been noticing lately. (I know it goes on even more on forums on AOL, but that should be a totally different story!)

Please read well before responding.

[John317]

I don't agree with much that this writer says but I do find it interesting.

Quote:

Public Education is Socialism

by Jeffry R. Fisher

"It's time to admit that public education operates like a planned economy, a bureaucratic system in which everybody's role is spelled out in advance and there are few incentives for innovation and productivity. It's no surprise that our school system doesn't improve; it more resembles the communist economy than our own market economy."

Albert Shanker, President, American Federation of Teachers

What is Socialism?

I am amazed at how often my online arguments must detour to define socialism for people who vehemently support its principles yet just as vehemently deny that they are socialists. Therefore, to head off confusion, I'll put a working definition up front:

Socialism: "Government mandated social engineering (shaping society or shaping individuals to conform to a societal ideal)."

On the political left, that especially involves economic control up to and including collective ownership and operation of commercial enterprise. If you have a different or better definition, or if you can help me to refine mine, please let me know.

Social Engineering

Ever since public schools were first organized, various groups have used (or attempted to use) them to mold future citizens and thereby shape society to their own ideals. You can probably think of a few yourself. I bet it's easy to think of the abuses that run counter to your own ideals. Are you open minded enough to confess any applications by your philosophical allies? There are so many dimensions to ideological school content that I plan to write about them separately in Propaganda.

In addition, as agents of the state, teachers are sometimes asked to do more than teach. State legislators are also trying to draw them into the police state and the nanny state. See Reason Magazine's Mental Detector, and Home Invasion.

Government Ownership

By taxing residents in advance and then giving away education at no additional charge, government is able to claim a virtual monopoly on K-12 education in almost every school district. The government owns the land and the buildings. With very few exceptions, government operates the facilities and employs all of the teachers.

QED

Public education is government owned and operated, and ideologues of various stripes work continuously to effect social engineering by controlling curricula, text books etc. Therefore, public education is socialism.

I feel like the cow in Gary Larsen's Far Side cartoon who suddenly realizes, "Hey! This is grass! We've been eating grass!"

To defend public education, you must first prove that socialism is superior to capitalism. You will never do that. Every tactical claim you make about some classroom level detail will be moot because capitalism can always do better or do the same for lower cost. Always.

We wouldn't allow the government to dispense religion or monopolize food, and we came to our senses in time to avoid nationalizing health care. Why do we continue to tolerate government monopolization of K-12 education? Why to we tolerate a government institution overseeing and second guessing the raising of most families' children? It's an abomination. We should kill it.

Total government control is too extreme. A system where government pays while free enterprise owns and operates it is a much more balanced and moderate compromise between the society's collective interests and citizen's individual liberties.

Unintended Consequences

Is it any wonder that all of today's public education problems look just like the plagues on every socialized business ever to exist anywhere?

It has big, self-perpetuating bureaucracy and large, centralized facilities instead of smaller, convenient ones.

It induces uniformity and inhibits variety.

Costs are high, but many facilities and equipment are poorly maintained and wages are low.

Tedious teacher certification selects the bureaucratic and protects them from competition from the intelligent. Read Thomas Sowell's article.

Resource allocation is heavily unbalanced toward the politically strong, and there's a go-to-hell attitude toward everyone else.

There are shortages: overcrowding and lack of materials both trivial and critical.

Employees are unhappy

Customers (parents) are unhappy

Powerful, entrenched political organizations like the teachers' union (moguls) shriek continuously about the unknown dangers of changing to anything else. If you ask me, their fear of structural change makes them way too conservative.

Perhaps worst of all, a politicized system compromises teaching by adding various social engineering and police tasks to teachers' job descriptions, and the control is becoming more centralized every year.

Is it any wonder that the organizational structure and delivery mode are mostly unchanged after almost two centuries? How many generations of America's disadvantaged must suffer the cycle of ignorance begetting poverty before education's self serving elite confess that the solution is in liberty, not bureaucracy? America needs a radical liberal to liberate American schools the way Margaret Thatcher liberated Britain's nationalized industries in the 1980s.

Free Market Power

A competitive free market will give many immediate and far ranging benefits, some going far beyond education:

Economy: If we were wise enough to reduce the government's involvement to just investigating reported fraud and recording quarterly enrollment (not daily or hourly attendance taken by hand like the idiotic bureaucracy does now), we could then eliminate 99% of the government education bureaucracy, thereby eliminating over 50% of the cost of K-12 education in this country. Trimming the bloated bureaucracy would yield tax cuts, higher teacher salaries, and improved facilities/equipment in schools.

Secondary economic effects: Reforming a major segment of our economy would spread economic dividends far and wide. Putting all of those former bureaucrats to work in productive enterprises (like picking lettuce) would fuel explosive economic growth all around. Government waste is mind boggling, and every year we allow that waste in education costs all of us dearly.

Investment Induction: Private enterprise buys its own land, buildings and equipment. That means no more tax levies to build new schools. Not only that, but most communities will get a huge, one-time windfall when it auctions off all of its schools and the land under them.

Improved Facilities: Private Enterprise tends to buy better stuff and take better care of it, at least when and where it makes a difference. Government stuff tends to be [censored], unless they paid too much for it. If you ever see top quality government property, then you should ask how much it cost, but first make sure you are sitting down.

Liberty: Consumers rule directly over what they choose to buy, voting with their feet and their dollars. It is the most free and democratic system devised by human kind.

Motivation: Entrepreneurs are motivated not only by the quest for profit but by the risk of bankruptcy (Note: The profit margin in any sector tends to be proportional to its perceived level of risk). Managers must tread a fine line between cutting costs and maintaining high quality. Contrarily, in government, bureaucrats are motivated to build as big of an agency under themselves as they can. Big departments mean promotions, and spending all of one's budget is rewarded by increased funding in subsequent years.

Culling: Unnecessary or overly costly versions of goods and services are ruthlessly driven out of existence by bankruptcy or submission to competing management. That includes schools that yield to extreme activists, unlike public school boards that can be compromised by special interest groups and just go on taxing. In government, unpopular goods and services persist year in and year out as politicians make promises they can't keep, and bureaucrats waste ever bigger bundles of money building ever expanding empires to fail to solve problems they themselves created, and then tell taxpayers to cough up another lung to pay for the same things they were supposed to get from the last tax increase.

Participation: Even apathetic parents will need to make an occasional decision, inducing them to pay at least some attention. The odds are high that they'll stumble into a school that encourages them further.

Structural Evolution: The system will become much more dynamic than when centrally controlled, rapidly adapting to new technologies and other changes. Government inertia is mind boggling, and its strangle hold on education is costing our society dearly. See Innovation.

Diversification: Many providers can bring many variations of a product or service to market simultaneously to satisfy a wide variety of tastes. In government, one complex compromise is imposed on nearly everyone, and it satisfies almost nobody. With a free system, we would no longer be saddled with a lowest common denominator curriculum designed to offend nobody. Instead, we could give full flower to each and every culture that has a following. A free system will promote a wide variety to choose from. Instead of everyone being stuck with their school board's decision on whether to have a football team or a theater program (or both), each family will be free to choose a school that caters to its own tastes. As long as government isn't dictating design choices, it doesn't force consensus where none is needed.

Peace: When every family can get what it wants, then none will need to force their preferences on others just to get something for themselves. The school board fights over religion and budgetary trade-offs should end forever.

What about charter schools?

They're a slight reversal of government centralization, but they are still at the mercy of government (see Reason's "Threatened by Success"). Therefore, charter schools merely turn back the clock a few years without curing the fundamental flaw in the system: As long as government owns and operates the schools, education decisions will be driven by political dynamics to the detriment of prosperity and independent citizenship.

Government is like ivy; merely trimming it back is but a temporary respite from its stranglehold. The signs of government's willingness to incrementally creep into charter programs are already appearing. Just keep watching, and you'll realize that charter schools merely demonstrate the economic benefits of independence; they are not a permanent, long term solution. Charter schools are an improvement, so they're worth having, but they should not deter us from demanding the correct solution of total, irrevocable privatization.

Why can't public and private coexist, as with colleges?

When I was younger, I couldn't understand why anyone would pay big bucks for a private college when public was available for next to nothing. Only later did I realize that not everyone could get into top public universities, that I had been very fortunate to get high test scores and grades in one of the very best public school districts in the nation.

At the college level, public and private coexist, but there are some special forces at work, and still there are cracks:

There have been extreme shortages at the few public universities that have high rankings. If you can't qualify, then paying dearly for an obscure private college is a way to get a good education in spite of weak scores.

Public universities are under some pressure from privates, so some are not as horrible as their K-12 counterparts.

Public universities aren't as "free" as K-12 schools; they charge some fees and sometimes tuition.

Truancy laws don't force people to go to college based on age. People are free to work first and go to college later, if ever.

A college education has a shorter payback period.

Snobbery: Some families simply don't want their kids mixing with riff raff. They can control that somewhat in K-12 by living in exclusive suburbs, but college is a regional mixture.

Government and other institutions offer grants and loans that students can take to private colleges, even religious ones. So I turn the question back at whomever asks it: Government grants money to students to go to private college, so why don't we do the same thing for K-12?

Where public universities are highly regarded, they are horribly expensive. While I attended UC Berkeley, I was shocked to learn that its budget per student was higher than Stanford's. Of course, that included all of the bureaucracy. Berkeley's overhead was much, much more than Stanford's. The Berkeley is only able to be as decent as it is because it is fabulously costly to the taxpayers of California.

Ironically, it was because of California's high taxes that I took myself and my knowledge elsewhere as soon as I started earning above average money in my career. Perhaps the State of Washington should thank California for first financing my education and then driving me out.

[John317]

Economic system which is based on cooperation rather than competition and which utilizes centralized planning and distribution.

Sounds great on paper. As they say, the devil is in the details.

In terms of the public schools, who decides what the children should be taught about American history and ethical values, etc.-- central government or local communities?

What state or government do you view as a role-model for this cooperation?

[John317]

Do you believe there's any truth to what this man is saying?

Quote:

HOW PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIALISTS BRAINWASH CHILDREN & DESTROY AMERICA

By Joel Turtel

November 18, 2006

NewsWithViews.com

One reason public schools get away with educational failure, year after year, is because they are run by left-leaning politicians and school officials who passionately believe that government should control your children's mind, values, and future. As the great English writer C. S. Lewis wrote, "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. Those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."

Public-school socialist true-believers often fall into this category --- for over a 150 years, education "progressive" so-called experts have been tormenting our children with public schools, allegedly for our children's benefit. Like all fascist, socialist, or communist true-believers, these people absolutely believe that they know what is best for your children, and seek to ram their beliefs down parents' throats.

From the 1840s to the 1930s, public-school "progressive" activists like Horace Mann and John Dewey worked to create a public-school system like the one they admired in Prussia (Germany). Mann and Dewey considered public education a religion, with a holy mission to mold children and society. Simply teaching children to read, write, and do math was too commonplace a goal for them. Mann and Dewey wanted the schools to have total control over children's lives. This meant removing parents' influence over their children. Mann put it this way: "We who are engaged in the sacred cause of education are entitled to look upon all parents as having given hostages to our cause."

Dewey had a socialist utopian vision for America and he wanted the common schools to achieve his vision. To create a government-dominated socialist America, public schools had to mold generations of children into the habit of obedience. In his "Pedagogic Creed" of 1897, Dewey wrote, "Every teacher should realize he is a social servant set apart for the maintenance of the proper social order and the securing of the right social growth. . ."

By the early twentieth century, public schools had expanded their functions into areas undreamed of in the 1850s. Schools took on the role of social agencies, with nurses, social centers, playgrounds, school showers, kindergartens, and "Americanization" programs for immigrants. Public schools became a major agency for social control.

Unfortunately, today's public schools are fulfilling Mann's and Dewey's "government- knows-best" vision with a vengeance. There is hardly any area of children's lives that school authorities now don't push to control. Politicians and public-school apologists in many states are now pushing programs that would make kindergarten compulsory. Yes, they now want to literally take 3 and 4-year old children from their mother's arms and stick them in public-school nursery-classrooms.

Public schools also now spend billions of dollars for psychological counseling, school-lunch programs, mandatory drug-testing, parent welfare-outreach programs, special-education classes, bilingual classes, early-childhood programs, drug and sex education classes, as well as programs for millions of "at-risk" or "special-needs" children.

This government-knows-best philosophy is the deepest reason why public schools get away with educational murder and can never be fixed. Public-school apologists believe that government bureaucrats and school authorities should dictate your children's education and the values they are taught. By implication, they believe that parents are an annoyance at best. More often, they believe that parents are a danger to their children's "proper" education and the values children "ought" to be taught by government employees.

To turn your children into dumbed-down, obedient little citizens and multiculturalist "citizens of the world," public-school authorities have to keep an iron grip on your children's minds and values. That is why public-school true believers will never voluntarily give up control over our children. They see themselves as noble idealists who know what is "best" for your children. That is why these socialist-fascist-minded "idealists" have contempt for your parental rights.

In the recent Congressional elections, the police-state chickens are coming home to roost. The majority of 18 to 25 year-olds, graduates of our socialist-indoctrinating public schools, voted for Democrats. These are the children who spent 12 years in public schools that systematically insult traditional American ideals and values. These are the schools that preach the multicultural trash that all cultures' values are "equal," and that American values of individual rights, economic liberty, and limited government are "selfish" or arrogant.

Well, our public-school "graduates" are now voters, and their socialist-indoctrinated mind-set now attracts them to Democrats like moths to a flame. God help this country, because public schools turn out millions of these child-adults who haven't the faintest conception about the values this country was founded on, or have little respect or contempt for those values.

Parents, for your children's sake, walk away from the public schools. Also, don't depend on vouchers or charter schools, which are few and far between. Take control of your children's education and the values you teach them by homeschooling your kids or enrolling them in a low-cost Internet private school of your choice. Your children's future is at stake, and so is, by the way, the future of our Republic and our liberties.

© 2006 Joel Turtel - All Rights Reserved

[John317]

Originally Posted By: John317

What in the world are you talking about, Neil? What is my "premise"? I have not even said what it is.

You're assuming a lot of things I never said or meant to say. [/quote']

Obviously, something is amiss and not being communicated....

That is for sure, Neil. You're making a lot of assumptions, it seems to me, without first finding out what it is I'm saying. We're not even talking here about the same things. In the first place, by "socialist agenda," I simply mean what socialists want to accomplish. Obviously in any socialist government, the socialists envision a public educational system. But then so does any modern democratic government with a capitalist or mixed economic system. That is what I mean by saying that public education per se is not necessarily socialistic. There is no direct link or relationship.

And yes, a socialist agenda certainly has political ramifications. That is a given.

However, I never mentioned anything about the things you are talking about, such as crowd control or a foot ball game, etc.

It would help if you let me know what I said to cause you to make the statements you did about football and crowd control, etc. I think it's likely you are making groundless assumptions about what I'm saying here.

[Neil D]

That is for sure, Neil. You're making a lot of assumptions, it seems to me, without first finding out what it is I'm saying. We're not even talking here about the same things. In the first place, by "socialist agenda," I simply mean what socialists want to accomplish. Obviously in any socialist government, the socialists envision a public educational system. But then so does any modern democratic government with a capitalist or mixed economic system. That is what I mean by saying that public education per se is not necessarily socialistic. There is no direct link or relationship.

And yes, a socialist agenda certainly has political ramifications. That is a given.

However, I never mentioned anything about the things you are talking about, such as crowd control or a foot ball game, etc.

It would help if you let me know what I said to cause you to make the statements you did about football and crowd control, etc. I think it's likely you are making groundless assumptions about what I'm saying here.

Granted, you never mentioned those things[ ie crowd control, ect], but the logical extension of the your use of socialism could include that...

Look, John, the socialist agenda in American politics from the SMALL group of people that are known as socialists, don't really affect American politics. The reason is that most Americans abhorr outright Socialism because of the definition that I used- that is, it is a step toward communisim, whose conccepts are even worse tolerated and that these ideas seem to inpinge upon American freedoms. And yet, you have specialised in knowing that area, the result being you see this socialism around every corner. It just ain't so.

Now, that does not preclude that we dont use some concepts that socialists have advanced. But the roots are not socialistic in nature, but rather founded in the constitution where our goverment is to "provide for the general welfare" of the state...which includes, but not limited to, education.

So your claim that a socialist agenda exists in America, may be allowed, but it comes from a small group of people whose influence is neglegible. The ideas that are being bantied about are not from socialistic countrys nor from this American-near-subculture. Rather these ideas are the natural result from studies from other scholarly sources, whose roots are clearly from a capitalistic society.

To further the claim that your "socialism" is at the root of education is to be very disingenious of our scholarly sources. Remember, you majored in a minor area....I can not help that you see socialist reflections in our society, but I must remind you, you see apparitions where other logical explinations prevail.

[Dr. Shane]

it's entrenched enough that most on the right don't publicly object to it, even if they don't send their kids to public schools.

Sarah Palin sent her children to public schools. Barack Obama sends his children to private schools.

[Stan]

Until I lived in California, I had never heard of anyone having to choose between their health and their home..

[Neil D]

That's a very narrow definition, that applies only to state socialism and only within a Marxist frame. There are other understandings of the term. My reaction to reading your earlier post on education was that you were applying exactly this kind of definition.

[Bravus]

Oh agreed - the screed John317 quoted comparing American education to Communist education was not any sort of analysis at all, it was just using communism as a code for all that is bad and evil in the world, a very familiar Cold War rhetorical strategy in the west.

But what it ends up meaning is that words don't mean what they mean, so the concept of socialism - the idea that there are some things that it is valuable for society to provide for everyone equally, regardless of ability to pay - becomes unspeakable and unthinkable.

[Bravus]

And America's much-vaunted 'freedom' is only available to those who can afford it. I'm pretty sure that's not what the Founders had in mind...

[Neil D]

Until I lived in California, I had never heard of anyone having to choose between their health and their home..

When working for a home care company, I have seen people having to choose which medication that they need and the electric bill or food...I have seen that scenerio more than once also...

[Neil D]

Oh agreed - the screed John317 quoted comparing American education to Communist education was not any sort of analysis at all, it was just using communism as a code for all that is bad and evil in the world, a very familiar Cold War rhetorical strategy in the west.

But what it ends up meaning is that words don't mean what they mean, so the concept of socialism - the idea that there are some things that it is valuable for society to provide for everyone equally, regardless of ability to pay - becomes unspeakable and unthinkable.

regarding the comparing American education to Communist education-

I read a large portion of it and got tired of reading it...So I skimmed the rest and found the following-

American educcation is similar to Communist Education in what is taught. therefore American Education IS Communist education...What is interesting is that no where in the article is "real american education" picture nor discibed. If we have a communist system, why does the Adventist system pattern much of it's corriculem after the public's corriculem? Where is the "true blue Christian American education" that these guys are talking about? The fact is there is NONE...Teaching is pretty much the same around the world...You have a lecturer [aka "teacher"] teach, with props, and homework to aquire the concepts. Teaching in the 1800s is pretty much the same as now, with the addition of new tools, ie computers, overheads, whiteboards, ect. Corriculem is set by a group of people who browse thru what is available, goals are set at the goverment level [ie "all students going thru the 8th grade shall be able to add, subtract, multiply thru times 12, divide by 10 by 8th grade."].

John, where are you getting your ideas that say that education is pretty much a socialistic concept????? The day to day running of a school no way reflects a socialist's enviorment.

[Neil D]

And America's much-vaunted 'freedom' is only available to those who can afford it. I'm pretty sure that's not what the Founders had in mind...

and it's only gotten harder and harder to obtain that education in which one is free to pursue his interests...

My ex-wife got into a california scholarship program where, after the first year of college in which she had to pay most of her costs, the rest of the 3 years were *f*r*e*e*....I really want to be in that scholarship program, but I didn't qualify as I was getting social security due to a death in my family.

You can't get those programs anymore as you have to "prove" that you deserve to be in college with grades, economic circumstances, and family is all but working 4 different jobs.