: : SDF: Parenting is not the only means of child care. And merely because some parents apply more resources to child development does not mean some parents care more than others.: Would you accept that some parent may care more than others and that more importantly parents in general care more for their children than for other peoples children and would therefore seek to advantage their children?
SDF: This appears to be a play-on-words on the word "care". Child care is of course a service provided by adult supervisors of children for parents who must earn wages under capitalism. Caring, on the other hand, is a sentiment. I don't see how "caring" can be quantified as an economic force -- can we say the rich care more for their children because they have a lot more money and care-hours to care with?
: : SDF: No, I would not agree AT ALL with such a conclusion, having participated in the "state schooling" system in one function or another for most of my life.
: I have read so many damning words about school environments and compulsory attendance as a living nightmare for children who feel alienated by values supported in schools (eg athleticism over 'geeks', trendy cliques and generally being thrown in together with people you would otherwise seek to have nothing to with.
SDF: A lot of this is stuff others have said, most notably Deep Daddio Nine -- what I don't agree with is the notion that all public schools follow this pattern, or that private schools don't. Sure there are plenty of bad public schools. There are also plenty of bad home environments, should we abolish the family on account of this? I'm an advocate of public school reform, not scrapping the public schools. Schooling won't change unless there is a revision of popular attitudes about schooling, as I explained here.
: In what ways does your experience suggest your particular schools are healthy nurturing environments which teach children to think independantly, which develop self esteem as consequence of ability rather than a feel good factor?
SDF: Are you concerned that self-esteem, like proper socialization, be rationed?
: : If school is constrained by the State, it is constrained in the same way that private (and private state-subsidized, which counts as public) schooling is constrained, by the ideology of the people.
: in power, which may be far removed from such a nebulous phrase as 'the people' which can only be many different individuals.
SDF: Nope, public and private schools are constrained by the ideology of the people AS A WHOLE. Public and private schooling in American society both suck on account of the narrowness of popular definitions of education.
: : SDF: Nope, government programs which "never solve the target problem" do not do so because the people who design them do not fund them sufficiently to do so.
: On purpose - to lenghten its livelihood for the self serving dept members?
SDF: Nope, the 1996 Welfare Bill, which amortized many forms of public assistance, did nothing for the careers of welfare workers.
: : SDF: Such logic applying with much more force in the private sector, as one can see in America's privatized medical system, which focuses upon emergency treatment at the expense of prevention so that America's doctors can have a stable population of sick people.
: The prevention market is in the healthy options, fitness clubs etc - that people dont choose to be preventative speaks about the way people regard risk (ie it wont happen to me) rather than some cruelly designed system against what people intend to have.
SDF: There is such a thing as preventative medical care.
: : SDF: Please lay out the details of Hillary's sinister plan in any actually recognizable citation of government action (LOL!)
: Assuming you have read it, Clinton insists that there will be times when "the village itself [read: the federal government] must act in place of parents" and accept "those responsibilities in all our names through the authority we vest in government."
: LOLing doesnt change this.
SDF: It certainly won't change some offhand remarks by the First Lady into ACTUAL POLICY, although laughing out loud might clear my head about those who think they are the same thing.
: : SDF: Babies must die to preserve such an advantage, as they do when they are abandoned in dumpsters by women who are doubtless frightened at the cost of keeping such babies. Why not sacrifice them in the calderas of volcanoes instead, to appease the gods?
: What are you actually saying here? I'm waitingf for something about having to break eggs to make an omolet with regard to creating the change you desire.
SDF: You keep babbling about how people will lose "comparative advantages" if everyone in society is appropriately socialized. Why? One of the worst examples (IMHO) of inappropriate socialization in today's society, for both mothers and children, is when mothers abandon their babies at a very early age. Who gains a "comparative advantage" from this practice, and why should I care if they do?
: : SDF: If "strict authoritarianism" is your definition of the welfare state you live under today, than I endorse it wholeheartedly.
: Thought you were authoritarian. Either that or you think "a bit" of coercion is ok, that ends justify means even if the ends are not met, as long as the goal is 'noble'
SDF: You're an authoritarian too, Gee, you just won't admit it.
: : SDF: Keep assuming that the recipients of privilege (children) are the same ones as the ones guilty of hoarding it (the architects of "laissez-faire" social integration).
: They will become adults at some point, you would blame them for not changing whilst excusing them for being products of their environemnt (and thus helpless as leaves on the breeze)
SDF: I'm not blaming anyone, I'm outlining the necessary social policies that should compensate for the fact that capitalism throws away people like trash when they are no longer useful to the profit motives of others. And children who suckle at their mothers' breasts "will at some point" become murderers. Would that say anything about breast-feeding? Diverting a conversation about opportunities for socialization into a discussion of who's talented is the insertion of a non-sequitur.
