Apparently, Lots of Libertarians Don't Think Women are People Either

[paft.livejournal.com]

So The Mercatus, a right-wing think tank, has declared North Dakota -- which recently passed an incredibly restrictive anti-abortion law, one of the free-est of all the fifty states

Once again, we see that when right wing libertarians use the word "liberty," they're using their own extra-special definition of it. As Salon has pointed out reproductive freedom apparently isn't even entered into the calculations,

Women, you see, just don't count.



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Comments

[notmrgarrison.livejournal.com]

Your equating high school graduates with fifth graders?

[paft.livejournal.com]

Nope. Fifth grade is the last year of grammar school, or at least it was when I was a kid.

My question was, "Should we conclude from this (the fact that a grammar school diploma alone will not get you a job) that no grammar school kids are sufficiently educated?"

To which Sandwichwarrior replied, "Yes, that is exactly what we should conclude."

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

Yes she is.

[paft.livejournal.com]

Actually, you were the one doing that.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

So you believe that a grammar school education and nothing more is "sufficiently eductated"

Because that's the argument you just made above.

[paft.livejournal.com]

No. I believe that most public school grammar school graduates are "sufficiently educated" for taking on the demands of junior high and then high school, but not for the American workplace. I was making a point about your rather simple-minded notion that schools should function as factories churning out good little employees.

Still waiting for you to explain why, if schools are supposed to be merely churning out employees, they should also be teaching "critical thinking."

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

Then why equate grammar school graduates to high school or gollege grads? Were you going for a cheap shot only to have it blow up in your face?

Still waiting for you to explain why, if schools are supposed to be merely churning out employees, they should also be teaching "critical thinking."

You'll have to keep waiting.

The role of education is not "to churn out employees", it's to churn out people prepared to act as functional citizens and citizens.

[paft.livejournal.com]

s: Then why equate grammar school graduates to high school or gollege grads? Were you going for a cheap shot only to have it blow up in your face?

Except that it didn't blow up in my face.

paft: Still waiting for you to explain why, if schools are supposed to be merely churning out employees, they should also be teaching "critical thinking."

s: You'll have to keep waiting. The role of education is not "to churn out employees", it's to churn out people prepared to act as functional citizens and citizens.

Which is exactly what I have been saying. The sole measure of an education is not merely to make someone "employable."

Does a high school diploma guarantee the graduate a good job? No, of course not. Nor, for that matter, does a university diploma, but that's a reflection on our current economy, not our educational system. If university graduates as a group are finding themselves unemployed or working minimum wage jobs, it's not because they were insufficiently educated. It's because the jobs are just not out there.

The same goes for people my age. Trying to find a job after you're fifty is not easy, and it's not because 50-year-olds suddenly lose all the knowledge they've acquired and become "uneducated."

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

If you have to uses straw men, I strongly suggest you keep better track of which arguments your opponent actually made and which ones you made for them.

[paft.livejournal.com]

I don't think, given the things you've ascribed to me, that you're in a position to complain about someone creating "straw men."

You announced that public school children in this country aren't being educated, a pretty sweeping, hyperbolic statement. You went on to declare that public school children aren't learning to read (not true of the many, many public school children I've encountered) that they aren't learning critical thinking skills (public schools have tried to introduce that as a subject. They are frequently stymied by paranoid conservatives) and they "aren't ready for the workplace." (You seem to be blaming our current high unemployment on a the public schools not properly preparing students for the workplace.)

For the record -- if the issue is whether or not someone is capable of working a paid job, employers today and in the past have had no trouble with using grammar school age children as full time workers. There was a lot of resistance to the passage of child labor and compulsory education laws, and it wasn't because employers considered children to be incompetent workers. They can lift, they can carry, they have small hands that can reach through machinery, and get into mine shafts adults couldn't and they have a lot of energy. They were considered quite employable. What children are less able to do, however, is foresee long-term consequences, which made them even more desirable and controllable to employers.

Now, I'm not sure in what sense you believe public school students are not learning employable skills. Can you be specific? This business about students not learning to read is hokum, so don't even bother trotting out that one. No doubt there are cases of people who come out of the system unable to read, but let's not pretend that's the rule. Critical thinking? Some schools can teach it, some aren't allowed to (and a rule it's not liberals who form committees to prevent it.) And as far as I know, most public schools still require their students to follow directions on assignments, arrive for class, and do the required reading.

What specific working skill do you feel is not being taught?

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

Yes I announced that public school children in this country aren't being educated. You even agreed with me, though I don't think you realized it.

Consider...

The purpose of education is to prepare children to act as independent citizens/adults. In essence it is the transfer of power from one generation to the next.

I stated (and you agreed) that a large portion of public high-school graduates are not receiving the level of training and preparation they need to act as adults. I provided links to various studies showing that the average level of literacy and critical thinking for the 18-24 demographic in the US has been declining for years.

I've also pointed out in prior posts that even in a period of high unemployment the US is facing a shortage of tradesmen and engineers.

The obvious conclusion I draw form all this is that our education system does not serve the best interests of those it is supposed to be educating.

ETA:
As for attributing things to you, If you gave a little more thought to the unvoiced implications of your arguments I wouldn't feel the need to point them out so often.