So glad I found a forum like this!

[Zeta]

Hey guys! I've known my entire life that my days in school were nothing but a complete waste. I'm so glad to find a forum of like-minded people!

I started putting my thoughts into action this past year by supporting the Trump campaign - any candidate who talks about abolishing the DoE is the one for me. Now that that's been won, I'm looking forward to finding where the next battlefield in this war is with all of you!

[Aureate]

Welcome, Zeta!

I'm a Trump fan as well, but I've been indifferent to his stance on education. As I see it, the government isn't really what forces kids to attend school. If the public system didn't exist, my parents would just have sent me to a private school instead.

[Zeta]

(01-07-2017 04:50 PM)Aureate Wrote:  If the public system didn't exist, my parents would just have sent me to a private school instead.

Ah but nothing happens all at once: almost all advancement is slow and incremental!

We didn't go from smoke signals straight to the internet, after all. You start small, being able to make a little light turn on that you can do morse code with. Build small from there and before you know it we've got devices with millions of little lights, and I can tell your's which lights to turn on to display this very text.

So we should fight for even the smallest step towards liberation as if it will get us right to our goal! Because one day, it will.

[Aureate]

I'm completely on board with moving in increments, but is abolishing the DoE even a step in the right direction? Trump's agenda--and the conservative agenda in general--is to shift control of kids' education from the government to parents. The left wants to do the opposite. I don't see how either side gives kids more control. The battle's being fought on an orthogonal line, so to speak.

You might disagree with me on that, but it's important to keep in mind that even if Trump's goals align with ours, he doesn't represent an ideological shift in our favor. His motive for targeting the DoE certainly isn't that he thinks forced schooling is unfair and a waste of time. He's at least as enamored with compulsory education as anyone else. He's just looking to do it in a slightly different way.

I'm dying a little inside as I write this, but if I was going to be a one-issue voter on compulsory education, I'd probably go Jill Stein. She spoke favorably of lowering the voting age to 16. That was more acknowledgement than any other candidate gave to kids' autonomy.

[stevehein]

Are you two interested in helping change the laws which discriminate against teens? Or in helping prevent teen suicide? Those are a couple of my projects.

[Zeta]

(01-07-2017 08:21 PM)Aureate Wrote:  I'm completely on board with moving in increments, but is abolishing the DoE even a step in the right direction? Trump's agenda--and the conservative agenda in general--is to shift control of kids' education from the government to parents.

Which would be a colossal step forward - if public education were abolished, you'd of course still have some parents who insist on sending their kids to private schools that're just as tyrannical or homeschooling them under a harsh program. But that sort of thing would instantly go from being mandatory and universal to being the exception.

Many many people would still be under an oppressive "education" system, but this way many would also be free.

Quote: His motive for targeting the DoE certainly isn't that he thinks forced schooling is unfair and a waste of time.

I think a lot of us, if you were to really examine it, have some very different motives for wanting the DoE gone. You've got everything from people wanting it gone in the name of Libertarianism to people wanting it gone in the name of Liberalism. A lot of people want it gone because it teaches things they believe to be false. A lot want it gone purely out of a personal vendetta.

But we can't get bogged down in all that. Why someone wants it gone should, I think, be nothing more than maybe interesting trivia - we all want the practical result of the abolition of compulsory education, and weakening the DoE is the surest thing that advances that goal.

Quote: I'm dying a little inside as I write this, but if I was going to be a one-issue voter on compulsory education, I'd probably go Jill Stein. She spoke favorably of lowering the voting age to 16. That was more acknowledgement than any other candidate gave to kids' autonomy.

Supporting a third party is, effectively, supporting whichever of the major two that you disagree with the most.

Our system only has two major, very broad parties for a reason. Suppose that the Left-spectrum was united in one single party that fielded one candidate per election, but then the Right-spectrum was split into two, with the center-right having their own party and the farther-right having their own party.

If that were the case, then the Left-spectrum's candidate would always get the most votes and they would always win every election - even if they were badly outnumbered.

So we've naturally split into the smallest number of parties that can still have real competition under such a system. Any group that supports another party only renders themselves politically irrelevant.

You do get some weird coalitions this way (like both Libertarians and Neo-Nazis supporting Republican candidates, and this past election both Neo-Conservatives and Communists supporting the Democratic candidate). But every segment of those coalitions, if they win, gets the nation moved broadly in the direction they want.

If we want to be an effective force (even if that effect is small!), we have to be part of one of those coalitions during elections.

[Gwedin]

polidicks zZzzzz...

gidday what do you do for fun