Discuss the US Presidential Election & Education

In 24 hours, many of you will be able to vote. So as we come down to the wire, this is really our last chance to talk about the issues. We've already discussed Health Care, the War, and the Economy. Today I'm opening up the floor to discuss education. Perhaps no other issue will matter more in 50 years. Which candidate will make the next generation smarter?

Comments

Vote

[mfh]

Nuff said. (These issues are a stimulus to trigger a voting response, and have NOTHING to do with policies that will exist post-election.)

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[symbolset]

If you don't vote:

• Your opinion doesn't count.
• you're not entitled to complain
• you'll have several years to regret it

So get off your lazy butts and vote! You are not too busy.

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[cl0s]

What if you're complaining about the system as a whole? Voting would be quite hypocritical then. Unless your voting for a guy thats running on the basis of changing the system, but running within the system... I guess.

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[fprintf]

No, if I don't vote it will make no difference whatsoever. I live in a state that will definitely go Democratic. Unlike 2 years ago, there is no one running for office that is contested. Given our electoral system, my vote cannot do anything other than possibly give an independent candidate enough votes to receive election funding and a place on the ballot next time. Unfortunately this time, there is no Ross Perot to get my vote.

I will vote, as my civic obligation. But if I chose to not vote, please do not assume it is because I am too lazy to do so. It has nothing to do with it, and none of your points make any sense to me.

1. My opinion really doesn't count anyway, my vote can't help anyone get elected unless I change residence to a more independent state.
2. The two party system gives me every right to complain
3. Every time I vote for a candidate I regret it anyway, cause all we get is more of the same - bigger government, more taxes & more intrusion. Ross Perot got my vote twice and I have regretted he didn't win each time. I can't remember the name of the independent candidates the last two times, and regrettably we ended up with W.

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[Macgruder]

By being given the opportunity to vote, we're invited to participate in our electoral process.

If you decline to vote, then you really have no recourse to complain about the results of that process, do you? You had your chance to be heard and decided you had other things to do.

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[russotto]

If you do vote

• Your opinion barely counts.
• If your guy wins, you're not entitled to complain because you voted for him
• If your guy loses, you're not entitled to complain because you accepted the results of the democratic system by voting
• You'll have several years to regret it

So vote if you'd like, but don't fool yourself into thinking you're morally superior because you did, or that you really had an effect. In Wyoming, your vote is about 1 in 150,000 of a share in electing 3 electors, who are a 3 in 538 share of electing the president. And that's the best you can do. Every other state is worse.

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[fracai]

Your opinion doesn't count.

So vote, it doesn't matter who or why, just go to the polls so you get a sticker which gives your uninformed opinion the weight it didn't have before.

you're not entitled to complain

See above.

you'll have several years to regret it

But who cares? You voted, you're free to complain.

Vote if you actually agree with one of the candidates.
Voting for the "lesser of 2 evils" is still voting for evil.
Voting outside of the 2 main parties isn't throwing your vote away.
If you do go to the polls and don't know anything about any of the presidential / local candidates, don't vote for that position.
If you do go to the polls and don't know anything about the state and local measures, don't vote for that question.

Casting an uninformed vote is worse than being informed and making the decision not to vote. At least the non-voter didn't waste any time at the polls casting votes they didn't truly believe in. And the uninformed voter truly wasted their vote.

There's still time to actually read up on the candidates and their positions.
Look at the state and local level as well.
Find a copy of your local ballot and at least read the questions you'll be voting on. Research them further, they're rarely written clear enough to be informed solely on the 1 or 2 sentence description.

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[tbannist]

If you want to change the system, vote for anyone except a Democrat or Republican. Any time another party looks like it might be competitive it will scare both parties into better behavior.

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[canUbeleiveIT]

So vote if you'd like, but don't fool yourself into thinking you're morally superior because you did, or that you really had an effect. In Wyoming, your vote is about 1 in 150,000 of a share in electing 3 electors, who are a 3 in 538 share of electing the president. And that's the best you can do. Every other state is worse.

You're right when you say that the effect is nearly nonexistent, but voting is something that one does for our fellow citizens, to ensure that we get a result that most accurately (Electoral College not withstanding) reflects the desires of the people.

There's nothing in it for me if I flush after I take a shit in a public toilet, yet the world's a better place if I do.

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[cl0s]

How do you figure you wouldn't do anything at all though? You can not vote and be very active in pushing something else.

It was just a question, I will be voting. People that claim you have nothing to complain about if you don't vote, or any of the later phrases I now hear on TV, are drinking too much Kool Aid. Especially when in all reality your vote counts very little. You DID NOT DO ANYTHING by voting besides stating you have some type of opinion (and we all know what opinions are like...)

There's other ways to look at things and more productive ways to bring about change than voting.

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[MightyYar]

I actually LIKE the electoral college. I think it's a good way to give low-population states a bigger voice. To use the worst-case as an example, Wyoming only has half a million people and so would count as about only 0.2% in a pure popular vote election. Safe to say that no candidate would pay any attention at all to Wyoming no matter how close the race. Because they get 3 electors, though, they effectively more than double their vote in the Presidential election.

Is it the most fair way to do this? No. But I'd want to make sure that anything that replaces the electoral college would still protect states with a low population.

Personally, I'd love to see some kind of preference-based voting done at least at the state level to see if it would work on a large scale.

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[eln]

There's nothing in it for me if I flush after I take a shit in a public toilet, yet the world's a better place if I do.

Yes, and my world would have been a better place if you had done a courtesy flush or two while I was in there. I swear to God man, I don't know what you've been eating, but I think you need to see a doctor. The smell could stun a yak at 50 yards.

As for voting, I think you should vote every year, not just in presidential election years. It helps keep you in the habit of voting, and your voice counts a lot more in the local election than it ever could in the national race. Also, your local government is likely to have a much more immediate and tangible effect on your day to day life than the bozos in Washington will.

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[drsquare]

Let's say I go to a restaurant, the only place to eat in town, and there are two dishes on offer. One is a rotten fish, full of maggots. The other is a burger made from cow shit. If I walk out, do I not have the right to complain about being hungry?

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[Belial6]

Seriously, an uninformed voter is FAR worse than a non-voter. I am becoming convinced that the whole "everyone should vote even if they don't know what they are voting for" combined with "voting third party is throwing your vote away" is a way to keep out third parties. People are becoming more and more disillusioned with the two party system. The chances of a third party making a real go of it becomes more and more feasible. So, what do you do? you work to get everyone out to vote. The uniformed voter is going to randomly pick from the two primary candidates, as he doesn't know anything about any of them, but those are the two that are not "throwing away his vote". Since the uninformed votes, being random, will for the most part split evenly down the middle between the Democrats and the Republicans, it becomes a wash for them, but massively increases the number of informed voters that the third party candidates have to pick up.

So, IF you must be an uniformed voter, and are going to vote. Vote third party. Since you don't know who you are voting for anyways, you were already going to throw your vote away. Since there is not yet a chance for the third party candidates to win, you do not run the risk of accidentally electing a kook, AND you help to put a scare into the two primary parties.

Heck, if you were not going to vote because you don't like either candidate, vote third party for the same reason.

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[robably]

f you decline to vote, then you really have no recourse to complain about the results of that process

Completely backwards. If you vote, you have no recourse to complain about the results of that process.

Example: Two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner. If the sheep votes, he is implicitly supporting that voting system and cannot complain when the carving knives come out. He had his democratic say, how can he complain about the outcome? The only option which makes sense, which lends any weight to his position, is to refuse to vote and so refuse to endorse the system.

"Winner takes all" is not a just outcome. What is needed is a diplomatic process to reach mutual agreement, with concessions on all sides if necessary. Oh but that requires effort.

Voting just legitimises a corrupt system.

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[gfxguy]

You might be joking, but if you voted for the person you felt was the best choice, you have nothing to apologize for.

As I look back on my presidential voting record, I've voted 3 times for a third party, and 3 times for one of the two major parties because I felt the election was "too important." As I reexamine my record, the only ones I regretted were the ones that I voted for the mainstream party.

Here's what you can expect with either McCain or Obama: at least $4 trillion more in debt by the end of the first term (McCain worse than Obama) and increased income redistribution (Obama worse than McCain).

As far as education goes, since that's the topic at hand, I don't believe taking money from people to pay for other people's college education is exactly "fair." I support vouchers, but that's a state matter, so neither candidate (even if they supported it, which Obama doesn't) can actually do anything about vouchers. Obama also hates home-schooling, which goes right along with what a lot of slashdotter's seem to believe.

Both will make energy cost more. Nuclear is expensive. Obama is now promising to "bankrupt" any coal power provider if they wanted to build a new coal power plant.

I'm not going to say they are the "same," but frankly, there isn't much of a choice.

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[MightyYar]

Not a believer in the whole "one person, one vote" thing huh?

No, not in a federation. You have to make the federation appealing to states with low populations or they won't join (which we did). Now that they've joined, it's not really fair to change the rules without protecting their interests.

There's already a system to "protect" smaller states; the Senate.

And there's "already a system to protect smaller states"; the electoral college. Both have been there since the beginning. Why is the Senate a good idea and the electoral college a bad one?

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[Archangel Michael]

If I'm a sheep, I'm arming myself with big guns. If I'm going to die for dinner, I'm taking someone with me.

THAT's the reason for the 2nd amendment.

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[OwnedByTwoCats]

Our government's authority is only limited by the ability of people to organize opposition to the government. If a few people, acting as agents of the government, ask companies to violate the law and enable the government to violate the constitution, and those companies say yes, then where is the people's protection? And then newspaper reporters discover this illegal espionage, and the paper's editors choose to suppress the story for a year because "there's a war".

And then five years later, Congress passes a law saying that the companies that did the snooping on the government's behalf get away with it scot free.

The Constitution is only as good as the people enforcing it. If the President can create an emergency that enables him to do what he wants, then the Constitution is irrelavent.

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[robably]

If you *don't* vote, you *can't* complain about the results

Yes I can. Who made up that rule? I never agreed to it.

the sheep has no knowledge of how the two wolves will vote.

What they vote for is irrelevant. The sheep isn't abstaining because he doesn't like the choices on the ballot, he's abstaining because he sees the system is broken.

Cynicism always works best in hindsight.

I'm posting this before the election.

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[MightyYar]

"You have to make the federation appealing to individual voters or they won't vote". The problem with the electoral college is that in many cases it disenfranchises the individual voter, leading to lower voter turnout.

I doubt this very much. California with it's 36.5 million people would get 12.17% of the vote in a perfectly proportional system. They have 55 electors, giving them 10.22% of the total. So Californians give up 16% of their vote. Do you really have any evidence at all that people who stay away from the polls are even aware of this?

By the way, since California's electors are all-or-nothing, it's arguable that their vote is diluted at all - California would get even more attention than Florida if they weren't a lock for the Democrats almost every cycle.

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[electrictroy]

It's a REPUBLIC, not a democracy. What matters is to uphold the laws that ensure protection of the individual, not "majority rules".

I'm voting straight Republican. I don't think it's fair to place all the blame on the R's for the actions of ONE man (Bush). Especially since the Democrats/Republicans are equally complicit. The D's had two years control of Congress to withdraw from the war, but did not, so I hold both parties equally to blame for our continued presence in a foreign power.

Therefore that leaves my decision to be based upon philosophy. I don't support the philosophy of socialism, which is really wealth redistribution from the working middle class to the lazy bums. Therefore I can not in good conscience vote socialist/democrat.

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[circusboy]

No,
living under that system legitimizes it.
voting is merely the exercise of what little power you might posess with in it.

if you live in this country, you legitimize this system of government. if you live in it and use the infrastructure, you legitimize it even more. if you accept what a traffic signal tells you what to do, you endorse the system. voting and being involved in the passage of laws is forming the system. if you do not take part, you are the sheep.

what you describe towards the end there is supposed to be the outcome of people electing rational representatives and senators who will have that "diplomatic process" on your behalf. i.e you are supposed to elect people who are good at distilling the needs wants of their constituency rather than electing an ideological tool. because so-called rational people, like you seem to claim to be, absolve themselves of responsibility for making any "effort" ideological tools, who only believe in the winner take all mentality, get elected.

your argument just makes me ill, and the analogy would only be valid if all three are sheep, or all three are wolves. as presented, you are anthropomorphizing two different animals with different needs. (even then, the sheep was out voted. the system would only really be broken in your example if there two sheep, one wolf, and the sheep still end up getting eaten. in your case, the sheep is going to get eaten regardless. so whether or not the sheep votes is completely immaterial. national politics is not that simple.)

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[Mongoose Disciple]

The D's had two years control of Congress to withdraw from the war, but did not, so I hold both parties equally to blame for our continued presence in a foreign power.

If you consider a majority, but not enough of one to surmount a presidential veto or overcome a filibuster the power to withdraw from the war, that would be true.

It really isn't, though.

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[Hognoxious]

It's a REPUBLIC, not a democracy.

They aren't mutually exclusive.

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[operagost]

Actually, you have that backwards, don't you? You're the one who's not voting, which is exactly like "going along with it." Voting is making an active decision, instead of a passive one. Try to make more active decisions.

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[hedwards]

That's a common misconception, the Government doesn't derive any power from the constitution. It derives it's power from the citizenry's agreement to be governed under those terms.

Trust me in a country with a population ~300m there's far more of us than there are of them. We don't have to agree to continue the current method of governance. The founding fathers gave us militias and protection for weapons for that very reason.

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[circusboy]

not trying to be rude here, because I hate this line of argument. whether you like it or not, if you are living in the United States, YOU ARE PARTICIPATING IN THE SYSTEM!

whether or not you vote. (apologies for shouting)

if you actively take part in the electoral process, you are then helping to shape the system that you are participating in. if you choose to absolve yourself of any responsibility in shaping the society you live in, then a more appropriate analogy would be walking into a strange restaurant, ordering the special, sight unseen, then complaining about the anaphylactic shock from the peanuts you forgot to ask about when you ordered.

on a side note, you analogy is pretty nasty. if a woman, after being raped, only complained about the black eye, I would start by offering post traumatic stress therapy, because there is some serious blocking going on there.

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[Cornflake917]

Voting just legitimises a corrupt system.

At the same time, refusing to vote doesn't make the corrupt system magically go away. The sheep won't vote but the wolfs will still vote,win, and eat the sheep. Regardless, the democratic republic in the US is much more complicated then the scenario you provide. Not all of it is corrupt. Saying a vote endorses the corrupt system is kind of misleading. If you are implying that the US is a corrupt system, this corrupt system has survived much longer than many other corrupt systems in our history.

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[Lord Apathy]

It's a REPUBLIC, not a democracy. What matters is to uphold the laws that ensure protection of the individual, not "majority rules".

Which is why the current system is bullshit. This one man/woman, one vote is crap. The Founding Fathers never intended for every Tom, Dick, and Harry to vote. They intended for educated land owners to have this right. It was done this way on the theory that if they had something at stake they would be responsible voters.

We should restore this but extend it to educated individuals with the basic skills to read and write. This way people would know the issues because they could get them from several sources and not just what the talking idiot box tells them. If informed people voted instead of the masses then you wouldn't get people who have no clue what they are doing or have the skills to carry out their agenda. You also wouldn't have hordes of idiots voting for someone just because of the color of his skin.

Voting should be a privilege, and not a right.

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[Gotung]

The problem with 3rd parties is that they all seem to do the same thing when they get to the verge of relevancy:

They blow their wad (both financially and enthusiasm wise) on a hopeless bid for the highest office.

This country would probably be a lot better off today if both Nader and Perot had gone for Senate seats instead (not an endorsement of either of their policies, just rooting for strong alternate parties). Then they each would have had strong voices within the system, and could have leveraged their seats to continue to build up awareness and support for their parties.

Instead they spent a whole bunch of money on failed presidential campaigns, enthusiasm faded and now they and the people that supported them are in the same position they started in, on the outside looking in.

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[jamesborr]

You don't really believe the myth of "$250,000" do you? The latest from the Obama surrogates was $120,000 a year (Gov. Richardson), but I don't think many believe they will stop there. At the minimum, they will be increasing the capital gains rate, which will effect everyone with capital gains (more folks then you would think), and they will let the 2001 and the 2003 tax cuts sunset (which they will somehow classify as "not raising taxes"). Lastly, there is also a strong possibility they will eliminate the social security ceiling (i.e. if you make more then $104,000 a year, they will continue to deduct the social security tax, without giving you a corresponding increase in benefits when you retire -- i.e. turning social security into just another welfare program). But hey, you keep believing the $250,000 fairy tale, just like those who voted for Clinton to get that middle class tax cut -- NOT!

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[Darkstorm]

And you actually believe this? Or haven't you heard the updated figure this past week? $200k, and Biden said $150 (ok, he does speak before he thinks, so maybe that isn't real), and then some other guy (forget the name) started talking about $120k.

Does it really matter what the number is? It comes down to this, nothing in life is really free. Even if you are given something (aka Linux) someone still provided time, energy, and effort (and usually money) to provide it. So, anyone who promises you to take care of all your needs and only those who are rich will pay...think about what the term rich means, then ask how often that term changes from one election to the next.

I, speaking for me, would rather not get up each morning and go to work for the "good of all". I'm not going to work to provide health care for all those who choose not to do the same. I would rather not go to work to support other people's children because they can't support them. Why did they have them if they couldn't afford them? I don't hear anyone talking about denying people the right to have kids...so why can't I have a choice to decide not to support kids that are not my own? When did it become the right of the govt to decide which charities I should support, since they give me no choice? It happened long before I had a vote.

If you want to believe the political bs that is thrown out as the "I'll make the rich support all of you." That is your right, but if you work anywhere that takes your taxes out before you get paid...you could very well find yourself in the category of "rich", regardless of the fact you really aren't. In the not so "free" state of Maryland, the latest liberal governor promised to "only tax the rich". I'm wondering how the poor get out of the extra penny of sales tax on every dollar? I guess that isn't considered taxing?

I personally don't like either candidate. So I am going to vote for the one who hasn't openly promised to bend me over and...well, do unpleasant things to me.

As for the main topic of this thread. Isn't it bad enough I have to pay for a educational system that is failing? Has failed. I always here the same line, "the schools need more money." Why? How come the public school system, for double to triple the cost, can't provide as good of an education as the bulk of the private schools? (I'm talking the smaller ones, not the elite ones like Obama uses.)

Govt is rarely the answer, and is almost always the problem.

I'm going to vote for my right to be a stingy and keep my money for myself and my own personal enjoyment, and for the right for everyone else to do the same.

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[Count Fenring]

I disagree here.

For one, the founders disagreed wildly on exactly who should have full citizenship and the vote. Where they agreed on, was that each citizen should have full human rights, including the right to full representation in the government that represents them. That's not a priviledge, because it's "We the people," not "We, the property of the government."

I find your argument especially flawed because, for YEARS now, the Republican party has aimed more and more of its efforts at portraying itself as anti-intellectual. I mean, it's not a mistake that we have a yale graduate who pretends to be a simple-minded cowboy, is it?

Also, I would imagine as many, if not more, people are voting for McCain on account of the color of his skin.

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[guacamolefoo]

+1. So many people fail to understand the purpose of the Second Amendment.

As I have told countless friends through the years: the Second Amendment is not about duck hunting.

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[Count Fenring]

The founders also gave us a staggering amount of protected freedoms and legal mechanisms to fight tyranny. The reason being that armed insurrection is horrible, leads to much higher casualties on the side that isn't an established military, and is more likely to fail the more developed a society is. Not to mention that it leaves the country open to outside attack in a way nothing else does.

It's in everyone's interests to see that it doesn't come to that.

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[Gat0r30y]

I don't support the philosophy of socialism, which is really wealth redistribution from the working middle class to the lazy bums.

You have been grossly misinformed as to the nature of socialism and its implication on tax policy- you might find this useful.

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[steelfood]

The sheep is going to get eaten anyway. It's not as if the sheep can just walk away.

Better to die fighting than die hiding.

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[Count Fenring]

Do you live and work in the U.S.?

Then you participate in the system.

Have a driver's license? Use it to prove your identity?

Until you've moved out, you're participating in the system. Why are you keen to throw away the one part of that participation that consists of exerting power to change/affect that system?

Also, just putting rape in your analogy doesn't make it effective.

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[Curunir_wolf]

"is really wealth redistribution from the working middle class to the lazy bums"

so how can you vote republican, when what they do is wealth redistribution from everybody else to the richest 1%? Thankfully for you, you have other choices!

Is it the government doing that redistribution, or something else? Is the government actually controlling how each dollar is distributed to each person, and implemented distributions that are heavily skewed? Why would they be doing that?

Well, of course they aren't. In fact, that 1% that you talk about actually carries 40% of the total tax burden. 60% of all income taxes come from the top 5%. So I guess what you are saying is that the Republicans allow people to keep too much of their money?

Ok, let's try that. Let's just raise taxes on earners over $200,000 a year. Uh-oh, that's only about $100 billion, and we need about $1 trillion to cover the Democrat's proposed new spending. And don't forget the government is going to need some of those taxes to administer everything, hire more administrators, etc., etc. To avoid borrowing all the money from China, you need to raise the tax rate on everyone that pays taxes - that's down to around $35,000 per year. If that's not the entire middle class, I don't know what is.

I guess compared to some third world countries, though, those people *are* rich.

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[Grishnakh]

'Thou shalt not kill' is pretty simple to understand, even for a nutjob Republican such as yourself.

I'm not even Christian, and I know that this doesn't appear in the Bible anywhere. The Commandment you're referring to says, "You shall not murder". Unfortunately, the idiots who wrote the King James Translation didn't do a very good job of translating.

Are you one of those morons who thinks that Jesus spoke English?

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[muellerr1]

I'm going to vote for my right to be a stingy and keep my money for myself and my own personal enjoyment, and for the right for everyone else to do the same.

I'm with you! That sounds great. Screw taxes. The government will just waste our money anyway. Let's abolish taxes. Though it will be hard for me to get to your house to play with our extra money without keeping up the road between our houses. Why don't we pool our money and pay somebody to fill in the potholes? While we're at it, we should take up a collection to pay for some security and firefighters since I'd like a fire truck to show up when my house is on fire and somebody to keep those damn uneducated kids out of my yard. I don't know about you but I can't afford a fire truck or private security--but if we get our community to all chip in I bet we could. We'll want to maintain some control over those people we're giving authority to as well, so we should have some kind of association of people we'll pick to set up rules for them to follow. We should also think about taking up a collection to educate the street kids, since we don't really want them out on our streets setting our houses on fire and shooting at us instead of working on our roads, carting off our garbage, and teaching our own kids, and it doesn't seem all that safe to just shoot back at them.

With all the collections we'll be taking, maybe we should appoint somebody to control all the money and dole it out for these pet projects of ours, since we'll be too busy playing with our money for our own personal enjoyment to govern it all. Maybe the same people we appoint to set up the rules could do it. We should come up with a good name for this organization, something conservative-sounding and important. Maybe we could call it the 'government' or something.

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[Bryan Ischo]

You have? Is that why you insinuate that Obama is "now promising to bankrupt coal"? Did you somehow fail to discover in your extensive research that:

1) The comments in question were made in January, and have been publicly available for 10+ months now, only recently having been seized upon by anti-Obama misleaders?

2) The comments in question are taken out of context and the spin that has been put on them by anti-Obama misleaders, and that you are further perpetuating, fails to note that the policies in question are not intended to bankrupt coal, they are intended to reduce pollution by making coal plants use clean technology?

3) As pointed out by a parent poster that you seem to be ignoring, McCain's policies are virtually identical on these points, and furthermore, McCain has made similar statements that could also be taken out of contenxt and misconstrued to mean an intention to bankrupt the coal industry?

All of the above is VERY EASILY discovered if you do even the smallest amount of research, rather than simply believing the falsehoods spread by the FUD machine of McCain/Palin.

If this is how you do your homework, then I cannot imagine that your grades were very good.

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[Bryan Ischo]

I generally agree with your statement, and in fact in every election since 1992 (the first in which I was eligible) I voted third party.

EXCEPT this year. I voted for Obama. You may not agree with me, and that's fine, but I feel like this is a moment where the United States, in one fell swoop, can gain back a tremendous amount of respect from the rest of the world, can take a huge stride towards racial equality, can undo tremendous damage done to the economy by the Bush Republicans, and can stop the ever-burgeoning war industry of the USA in its tracks.

I know, it sounds like I've drunk some kool-aid. I fully admit that my enthusiasm might seem overzealous to some, and that's fine. I only hope that anyone who disagrees with me, draws similar inspiration from their choice of candidate.

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[symbolset]

You're modded funny, but five people in their minivans can shut down a morning commute in a major city by lining up side by side and driving slow. I've done it to protest the 55MPH speed limit. If you have a hundred committed people you can keep that up indefinitely on multiple arterials, as even if they're arrested they get bail and take another turn. Go slow for five minutes and quit strategies are even more durable, as they don't get caught but a five minute backup has network effects that make an entire city an hour late for work. Every day.

Think about what that would do to your local economy. It's amazing how fragile our system is.

Looking from afar...

[seanellis]

...from the other side of the pond, Obama is the right choice. Palin's stance on creationism alone should be enough to decide this particular issue.

Re:Looking from afar...

[mfh]

Palin's stance on creationism alone should be enough to decide this particular issue.

Unless you happen to believe in creationism (like many do in the USA) then this is the trigger to vote for McCain/Palin. If every intelligent person voted, these elections would never be too close to call. Also the nefarious involvement of unscrupulous people doing bad things to win, decreases the predictability of an outcome, when both sides are doing it.

Re:Looking from afar...

[fprintf]

Looking at it from this side of the pond, it is not quite so clear. Compared with socialist-leaning political types we see in Europe, Obama is seen as a very centrist politician. However compared with the usual types of politicians we are used to in this country, it will be a significant shift toward the left if Obama gets the presidency and the Democrats keep control of congress. While this may be only a 2 year shift in power, looking at what happened to Bill Clinton and the Democrats previously, it is nevertheless makes me very nervous to think what might happen in those 2 years.

There is no candidate or their party that represents my more libertarian views on the world. Small government is not represented by either major party, personal gun ownership is shakily represented by the Republicans, and freedom of self-expression is shakily represented by the Democrats (for some history on the changes to what that party represents - look at what the Democrats did to the students in Chicago in the early 60s).

Obama may look right to you. However, I feel he represents the lesser of two evils between him and Senator Clinton. McCain would have been perfect 10 years ago. Now he just seems like a bitter old-man-puppet, who picked a hot "young" thing as his running mate and now will make all of us pay the price of a Democratic President due to his inability to pick a good VP candidate.

It is with pride that I go to the polls tomorrow, especially as a non-native citizen allowed the priveledge to vote via my naturalization. It is with some amount of shame that I pick a candidate that I agree less than 50% with on my topics of interest (including McCain, Obama, Bob Barr and Bill the Cat).

Re:Looking from afar...

[Paralizer]

Her being a creationist really makes me dislike her as a candidate. If she is stubborn enough to not acknowledge even the possibility of evolution, and remains a strict creationist even with the overwhelming scientific evidence to the contrary, how can she handle foreign relations where society is drastically different from our own, or even domestic issues that she doesn't believe in?

Typically I wouldn't care about your religion, but I think you really need to be open to the possibility you are not correct, especially if you're running for such an important office, and be able to work with the other side to reach a middle ground. I don't think creationists demonstrate this ability. But that's not to say that I disrespect creationists just because of their beliefs.

Re:Looking from afar...

[Ogive17]

I agree that Obama is going to instantly increase the reputation of the US around the world.. but seriously, the guy has been playing lip service for the past 6 months.. if he can deliver even 10% of his campaign promises I'll be surprised.

What I'm really concerned about is if the Democrats get the fillibuster proof majority and Obama gets elected... One party in complete control of everything... bye bye remnants of democracy...

Re:Looking from afar...

[east coast]

Unless you happen to believe in creationism (like many do in the USA) then this is the trigger to vote for McCain/Palin.

Let's be honest here. Unless Palin is actually teaching the class her outlook on evolution has zero to do with her relation to education. Infact, keeping her in as a governor is probably more likely to get creationism pushed on more students than her being a vice president. On the federal level all she's going to do is go on and on about budgets. That's it.

If every intelligent person voted, these elections would never be too close to call.

Intelligent by who's standards? If your idea of intelligent is the normal Slashdot "everyone who thinks like me" kind of thing than I'm sure you're right. As for me? I know tons of vastly intelligent people who have some ideas that are far from my own. Enough to make me question who's really right. And out of these same tons of people many probably think creationism has some glimmer of truth to it. It doesn't bother me because I'm not asking them to teach biology to me.

Even if I were the difference between the evolutionist camp and the creationist camp means jack shit in the real world. How about we leave that stupid little debate behind and work on the idea that we're graduating kids that can't balance a checkbook. A fucking checkbook has a lot more to do with how this country progresses than whatever theory you have on the origins and progression of life. I bet you that if everyone in this country believed in creationism but could balance a checkbook we'd be a lot better off. We haven't even go an acceptable majority of the kids graduating to cover the basics of everyday life and we're busy bickering over evolution? Huh?

Also the nefarious involvement of unscrupulous people doing bad things to win, decreases the predictability of an outcome, when both sides are doing it.

It's just another reason to reject the two party system if you ask me. When we can finally shed ourselves of the "us or them" maybe we'll also let go of the hate that accompanies it.

Re:Looking from afar...

[canUbeleiveIT]

If every intelligent person voted, these elections would never be too close to call.

Intelligent != ability to make good choices. There are plenty of folks of average intelligence who excel at making good decisions and plenty of brilliant ones who continually fuck up their decisions. Intelligent people are subject to irrationality, self-interest and bias, just like everyone else.

I'm sure that this isn't the popular opinion among the alpha dorks who worship on the altar of IQ, but so be it.

Re:Looking from afar...

[FredFredrickson]

Especially in a country that prides itself in "Freedom of Religion"

Unless they meant- freedom of christianity...

But seriously, how can we be free while subjected to Palin's version of Genesis?

Re:Looking from afar...

[Bartab]

how can we be free while subjected to Palin's version of Genesis?

Because, as you quoted, it is freedom of religion, not freedom from religion.

Neither Palin nor McCain has ever expressed a desire to force either you or your children to follow their religious choices.

Re:Looking from afar...

[alta]

But Obama claims to be a christian too, doesn't that make him a creationist? Intelligent design? Even if he's muslim, he's still a creationist. Your argument holds no water with me.

Basicly your saying don't vote for Vote for Creationist A, because Creationist B actually believes what she says.

Re:Looking from afar...

[Shakrai]

One party in complete control of everything... bye bye remnants of democracy...

Eh, democracy survived the first six years of the GWB administration. Somehow I don't think the Democrats will do any worse.....

Re:Looking from afar...

[drsquare]

Maybe parties and candidates don't represent libertarian views, because libertarianism is a niche philosophy which would alienate huge sections of the population.

Re:Looking from afar...

[rho]

But if Ron Paul had show up against Obama, he would have been crushed.

I doubt it. Ron Paul could say, "I voted against the war in Iraq; how about you?"

He could also claim to have predicted the current financial meltdown mess.

If Ron Paul has a weakness it's an inability to condescend. He tends to speak to things assuming the listener is as well informed and well read as he is, which is a mistake. If instead he only talked about "change" he'd have an easier time of it than yammering on about the Federal Reserve.

Re:Looking from afar...

[ScentCone]

Somehow I don't think the Democrats will do any worse

Yeah, except this time they're going to have Obama's new Civilian National Security Force , which he said should be as large as the military, making sure we all go along. Whee!

Re:Looking from afar...

[jandersen]

Compared with socialist-leaning political types we see in Europe, ...

You have some curious notions, I think. A bit like saying that the Archbishop of Canterbury leans towards Satanism because he is not as far to the extreme right as the average American Creationist. And the funny things is, quite a lot of Americans I know seem to agree with a lot of Socialist ideas, as long as it isn't called Socialism. As far as I can see, you Americans are distributed politically exactly like people in Europe, only you call it something different, because you have grown up fearing the words "socialism" and "communism".

I don't think European scepticism about McCain has as much to do with him as with Sarah Palin; she may have put the "hot in hot", as I heard recently, but she's also put the "alas" into "Alaska". You are probably right - it doesn't matter much whether it is one or the other; except for the threat of Palin getting into power. Because to a great extent, the situation in the world is going to dictate which decisions the next president will make, if he has any common sense. McCain has, Obama has, Biden has, but I am not sure what Sarah Palin has.

I don't know what it is with you guys about "small government"; I mean, you do want public roads, education for all as well as judicial system, police and military, don't you? I doubt that many would prefer all those things to be privatised. And you cling to your guns like a drug addict to his next fix; it isn't even as if people who wanted to own a gun wouldn't be able to. I mean, if I want to own a gun in UK, I can do so legally; it is just not something you can buy in the local car boot sale.

Re:Looking from afar...

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Evangelicals want to attack it, to make students skeptical about science in general. They want to move towards a magical world view where cause and effect are not necessarily linked. Why would a person be interested in balancing a check book, if they literally believe that "God will provide " for them? I mean all they have to do is pray hard enough and eventually they'll be rich too. Or at least that's what a lot of evangelical churches are teaching. They teach that poor people weren't pious or good enough, because obviously if they were, God would have provided for them

I haven't seen anything to indicate that more than a vocal minority of creationists believe this kind of foolishness. It's popular to assume that if someone believes in creationism or ID, they're morons who think that thunder means that God is angry with them. This is reinforced because we all stand around telling each other it must be so.

The funny thing is, though, that I know a lot of religious people who are also intelligent. If the subject weren't taboo in the work place, you would probably find that you do as well. These people are successful in their fields (business and science); and they believe that there is merit to both creationism and evolution and that the two are not mutually exclusive. They certainly don't advocate that science not be taught, or that the scientific method be abandoned in favor of faith and magic.

Few of them even care whether "ID" is taught alongside evolution or not - these are people who go about their lives, usually rather successfully. Personally, I believe these "quiet faithful" are the majority of our society's religious people. You might be surprised how many of them you know - and at how little interest they have in shoving their religion down your throat. On the other hand, they /do/ get tired of being considered morons because they have faith in a 'higher power'. I think this is a large part of why McCain is able to make this a close race.

It's much easier to tell ourselves how smart we are when we can paint all of "them" with a single brush as fanatical morons who sit on their asses and wait for god to provide. As is often the case, though, stereotypes only actually fit the smallest minority of the group being classified.

Re:Looking from afar...

[daem0n1x]

I would suggest to libertarians that they moved to a libertarian country and see for themselves. No big government messing in your business, no taxes, guns for everyone. If you are smart enough, strong enough, hard working you can have everything.

Examples of heaven on Earth: Congo Democratic Republic, Afghanistan, Somalia, Colombia, Kosovo.

You will live happy as can be, at least until the next warlord/druglord murders you to get your place.

Re:Looking from afar...

[Archangel Michael]

Here's a thought.

Teach READING, WRITING, and MATH. Everything else can be learned once we have the basics. We have whole groups of people, going through nine to twelve years of schooling that can barely READ, WRITE and do basic MATH.

I believe in creationism (of a sort), but that hasn't kept me from being reading, writing, and doing advanced math. They aren't related at all. It hasn't stopped me from being functional in our society. It hasn't stopped me from producing an income to support my family, and have offspring who are smart and intelligent.

My daughters started college in high school, and are well beyond their peers. My 16 year old will graduate High School with her AA degree in hand, two years of college complete by year 18. AND it hasn't hindered either of their science learning either.

We haven't fill her brains up with useless information like Johnny has two daddies and Mary had a little lamb (for a lover) crap.

You don't want creationism in the classroom, great! I don't want your bullshit crap in their either.

I work for school district and I can tell you that I don't like what I see going on in classrooms today. From the Home Economics teacher teaching relationships from the likes of Rikki Lake (no kidding!) and movies to babysit the kids for days on end.

So, the whole "creationism" line many spew is a red herring of hatred against the Judeo-Christian ethic. I often wonder how bigoted they really are.

Re:Looking from afar...

[Nyeerrmm]

What us guys mean by "small government" is a small restricted federal government... not gone, I'm pretty sure most of us guys aren't anarchists, just limited. The federal government is primarily meant to act as a single unit with the outside world, including military forces, diplomacy and trade, and to facilitate trade and cooperation between the states. This means that a military, the interstate highway system, monetary policy, and other acts of the federal government are well within their purview and worthwhile. However, on education, police and most other internal matters, many of us guys would prefer the federal government to stay out.

This does not mean, however, that we don't want those things as a public service, just not one provided at a federal level. On police and fire protection, education, drug and alcohol policy, city roads, etc., many of us feel that the local governments serve us better, since they are closer to the people, have a smaller system to administer (less bureaucracy), and if it ever gets too bad where you are, its much easier to move between cities and states than to leave the US entirely. Plus, look at No Child Left Behind, the War on Drugs, and the 21-year drinking age to see exactly how well the federal government has done at getting involved in what should be local affairs.

Of course, there are some problems with the system, it tends to create a patchwork of laws that vary in arbitrary ways (look at our voting laws), which I see as a necessary inconvenience. The biggest concern I have is that with an education system based almost entirely locally, you have a situation where poor areas have poor schools, and you strengthen the feedback where poverty breeds poverty. Even then though, federal involvement has usually had the effect of bringing all schools down to the same level rather than improving the bad ones, while in Tulsa, Oklahoma (not exactly a bastion of liberal thinking) we've had some pretty good results where the school districts include both rich and poor areas, and the poorer districts create magnet schools. Could it be improved, yes, but I'm not sure federal mandates are the way to do it.

So thats what us guys, in a very large country with strong streak of individualism mean when we say small government... and Palin makes me think of an evil mix between Bush, Rove, and Martha Stewart.... I agree with you there.

Re:Looking from afar...

[blair1q]

"Unless Palin is actually teaching the class her outlook on evolution has zero to do with her relation to education."

False.

Educational programs are the result of political processes.

Re:Looking from afar...

[Archangel Michael]

In my house, we discuss ideas, not positions. I have a problem with people who take a position such as "Creationists shouldn't be in office". That's their opinion. They don't have any idea what we're like, or not like. They don't care, we scare them, and that is all that matters to them. It isn't really any difference between the Creationist boogieman and the "Terrorist" boogieman. Both are the result of IRRATIONAL FEAR mongering.

Additionally, the problem with that opinion, is that people holding it try to bring that into the full force of law. Our legal system is filled with laws because someone says "There ought to be a law", and thus, there is. Nobody asks the question "WHY do we need a law for that?" All those Political Correctness laws and "hate" laws are meaningless drivel that distract from real harm.

Personally, I don't see any problems with Creationism OR Evolution. We'll see in the end ... or not.

As for those that don't even grasp what the basics are, they should be taught the basics and not the fullness of crap that is currently being taught in the name of "social engineering".

Re:Looking from afar...

[Phroggy]

That sounds refreshingly reasonable, but it's not a position I've heard espoused by any candidate running for office in a long time. The Libertarians always talk about "small government", but they seem to be suggesting that the scope of state and local governments should be reduced as well, which is an idea I strongly oppose.

There are certain things that capitalism does well, and things it does badly. Health insurance, primary education, emergency services (police, fire, etc.) and infrastructure (roads, utilities, etc.) are in the latter category. When private companies do these things and everything works really well (e.g. the electricity and natural gas companies), there is usually heavy government regulation involved.

Health insurance, education, and emergency services are on that list, because it is in society's interest for poor people to receive the best health care, education and emergency care possible. Healthy and educated people make positive contributions to society and work their way out of poverty; unhealthy and uneducated people become a drain on society (they often become criminals, for example). If a poor person's house catches on fire, their rich neighbor doesn't want it to burn to the ground because they couldn't afford to pay the fire department to put out the fire.

Infrastructure is on that list, because rich people need to be able to drive on good roads in poor neighborhoods, and call poor people on the phone; poor people need roads and utilities to help them to become less poor.

So yeah, you obviously understand this stuff, and when you say you want "small government", you just mean you want states and local governments to step up to the plate and make all of this happen. Unfortunately, not everyone is as smart as you are. When a lot of people say they want "small government", they really mean they don't think state and local governments should be providing these services either. They think private companies should provide these services to those who can afford them, without government regulation at all.

Note that the lack of government regulation was a major contributing factor to the current economic crisis.

Re:Looking from afar...

[Scannerman]

Missing the point slightly.
The point is that small government benefits only the rich, Who just get the things (defence, law and order, maybe roads) that they cannot provide for themselves. Meanwhile they avoid having to pay taxes for healthcare, education etc, which they can easily buy for themselves.

The weird thing about America , as seen from the rest of the world, is that so many people have the illusion that one day they will be rich (I'm a good guy, so god will deliver eventually) and seem to care more about having a system that will benefit them then, rather than one that suits where they are now. (deep in the crap, along with everyone else.)

I lived in the states for a few years back in the Reagan era, and the fraction of my income that went on "taxes plus things taxes should pay for" (healthcare, decent education for kids etc) was (or would have been if my kid was school age then- without it was marginal) significantly higher that it would have been here in the UK at the time.

I can understand how selfish bastards on $200k+ would vote republican, I've spent 30+ years trying unsuccessfully to understand why anyone else would

It's the teachers, and the parents.

[Geoffrey.landis]

If I had to make on comment on the presidency and eduction, it would be that education has to be reformed from the bottom up, not from the top down. It's the parents, and the teachers, that are important here-- not the president.

The federal government really isn't the appropriate place to deal with any kind of primary educational policy.

Re:It's the teachers, and the parents.

[TheRaven64]

Uneducated parents are hard to persuade of the value of education. Indoctrinated parents are even harder. Here in the UK, parents are allowed to have their children excluded from religious education classes in case they encounter something that contradicts their home indoctrination. Apparently children who have done comparative study of half a dozen religions are harder to convince that mummy and daddy's religion is the One True Path(tm). Unfortunately, parenthood is an institution with very low barriers to entry.

McCain...

[Notquitecajun]

MAYBE Obama will get rid of NCLB, but I don't see him getting away from the typical left position of supporting the teachers' unions goals and just throwing money at education without real standards. We spend more money - under left and right administrations - per student and don't see the results, which means the overall system is broken.

I don't see him actively supporting homeschooling as well, and we know he's going to be against vouchers.

The biggest problem, however, will NEVER be government involvement. I don't care who is in power, but the ONLY real influence on children's education is PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT. It doesn't matter what teachers, principals, politicians, and everyone else does if a parent doesn't care about how well their kid is doing in school - it's nearly too great a hurdle to overcome.

I think that the only thing that I have ever seen that may do something is a performance-based state-sponsored tuition program (like Louisiana TOPS or Georgia HOPE) which is directly tied to secondary school performance with college tuition on the line - there are a LOT of parents in those states that I know of who pushed their kids to get good grades simply because there was a near-free college tuition at stake (it's what paid for my own tuition at Louisiana Tech).

Re:McCain...

[hey!]

Well, in the only comprehensive, nation wide assesment of student achievement (not just self-selected college bound seniors), Massachusetts ranks #1 in both verbal and math.

We rank in the top 10 for both teacher student ratio, as well as in teacher wages adjusted for local cost of living. So it is true that we throw money at the problem.

The difference in the percentage of kids who are proficient on state standards vs. proficient according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress testing is a measure of how "tough" a standard is. Massachusetts has the lowest gap, only 5%. The next smallest gap is California, at 27%. So we also throw standards against the problem.

The way I see it is that we treat education as important enough to spend money on, but also important enough to pay very close attention to what happens after that money is spent. As a result, we get the best results in the country. The teachers' unions aren't completely on board with every aspect of this, nor should they be. No program is perfect. But teaching is an honored and well compensated profession in my state, and it's probably not coincidental that teachers are not a significant barrier to progress here.

Maybe not every state is willing to spend the money and effort on this that we do. Maybe there are other ways to get results. But I doubt looking for scapegoats helps as much as rolling up your sleeves and working on the problem.

Great plan you have for being competitive w/ China

[apparently]

The federal government really isn't the appropriate place to deal with any kind of primary educational policy.

It's called investing in our workforce to remain competitive in a global economy. I realize long-term planning isn't the Republican's forte; sorry we see things differently.

Re:Make them Pay

[jbeaupre]

We are within 2 days of making the Republican party pay for it's failure, dishonorable behavior, and fraud.

How long before we can do the same with Democrats?

Not the Federal Government's Job

[Thelasko]

If you are concerned about the education in the United States, voice your concerns to your state and local government. The only thing the federal government has authority over concerning education is the ability to tax you and decide how it will spend that tax money. Looking to solve education issues at the federal level is a farce.

Do Over?

[jchawk]

Can we vote for a do over all the choices suck?

Smarter?

[Selanit]

Neither candidate will make the next generation smarter. Either one might put policies in place to help the next generation get education, but ultimately learning happens inside the heads of the students.

That said, Obama looks a lot more tuned-in when it comes to educational issues. His keynote address to the American Library Association's conference in Chicago (2005) pretty clearly demonstrates his commitment to education, particularly literacy programs and such.

Whereas McCain is, well, not. Remember that McCain proposed a governmental spending freeze as a remedy for the fiscal crisis? With a few exceptions, such as Defense. Well, education was not on the list of exceptions.

Err..

[brian0918]

Why should the president, or the government, have a role in "making everyone smarter"? I also don't see how people can be "made smarter" when they are spoon-fed a pre-packaged education and are not driven to learn on their own - something they would be more motivated to do if we moved away from our current nanny-state that lets us get by without being informed about the choices we make.

It's easy, just think logically.

[m4cph1sto]

Why can't McCain properly defend his education policy? It is the most important issue facing our nation, and it is where McCain is leaps and bounds ahead of Obama!

We have the best private education system in the world. We have the best college education system in the world, both public and private. We have one of the worst public school systems in the developed world. Why? What's the difference between our tremendously successful college system and private system, and our horrendous public school system? Guess what, it's NOT MONEY. Per-student spending in public schools is almost DOUBLE what it is in private schools! Surprised? You certainly didn't hear that in tonight's debate. Only the absolute top most elite private schools cost more per student than we spend on our public schools, and the difference is not much, just 10-20% more. And students at those elite schools get WAY more in return for that extra 10-20%. Oh, and public school teachers earn more than private school teachers, so that's not it either.

So what's the difference between how our public, government-run schools operate, and how our colleges and private schools operate? Here are the differences:

1. No teachers unions in private schools and colleges.

2. School choice: private schools and colleges must compete for your dollars. Public schools don't; the government decides which school you must attend, based on what neighborhood you live in.

Let's go into #1.

The teachers union is the most dangerous organization on the planet. They are more of a threat to our nation than Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea combined. They are ruining the education of our children and destroying our only hope of maintaining our prosperity and peace.

The teachers union has made it impossible to fire teachers for poor performance. To be fired, a teacher basically has to break the law or molest a student. They can't be fired for simply being a terrible teacher. It's gotten so bad that at public schools across the country, bad teachers are paid full-time salaries to simply sit in the teachers' lounge all day and not teach! Schools are forced to do this because they don't want these bad teachers anywhere near their students, but they haven't done anything that the union says they can be fired for.

In private schools and colleges, teacher pay is based on performance. In public schools, because of teachers union demands, pay is based on seniority (i.e. how long they've been working there). You can't pay good teachers more and bad teachers less, and therefore you can't attract and reward the best teaching talent. Public teachers as a whole lose the motivation that drives the private sector to work harder and better: more money.

Finally, the teachers union is 100% opposed to school choice. Why? Because it would force all public teachers to work harder and compete for their job, just like everyone does in every job in the private sector.

And this leads directly into Point #2.

It is school choice, in the form of vouchers, that will save our public education system. The way our system works now, schools tell the government how many students they have each year, and the government funds them with X amount of dollars per student. The way school choice will work is this: instead of the government giving those dollars to the school, that money will be given directly to the parents in the form of a voucher. The parents can then take that voucher and use it to send their kids to any school they want, public or private.

What affect will this have? Competition. The same thing that makes our private schools and colleges perform so well. They'll have to wise up, stop wasting money, become more efficient, and start teaching better, or else they'll start losing students. Parents will choose to send their kids to better-performing schools.

Cue the teachers union yelling "But you'll be taking money away from already struggling schools!". Of course, that's the point, and that's a good thing - because the struggling schoo

Re:It's easy, just think logically.

[SlamMan]

I think you're missing the corollary of #2. You also have to compete to stay in private school. If you screw up to badly, don't show up, or don't perform, the private school can get rid of you. Public schools really don't have that as an option, so disruptive, lazy, and sometimes dangerous students stay in the schools, in the classrooms with everyone else. Private school can just kick them back to the public school. You also need to have a certain degree of perental involvement to even be at a private school to begin with, as oppsed to public schools being a free baby sitting option for some parents.

Re:It's easy, just think logically.

[AdamHaun]

You forgot:

3. Private schools get to choose who they admit and keep, which allows them to only teach smart, well-behaved, native English speakers with parents who care about education.

Re:It's easy, just think logically.

[Anonymous Coward]

>In private schools and colleges, teacher pay is based on performance.

How do you determine a teacher's performance? The number of students that pass?? The number of student who go to a prestigious university? The knowledge they have gained (how do you measure this)?

>We have the best private education system in the world.

Do you have any proof of this? Of course you can define 'private education' such that it only includes US schools. And let be honest, having the 'best' private education system in the world that is still inferior to public systems in place elsewhere is not something to boast about.

Re:It's easy, just think logically.

[UnknowingFool]

The teachers union is the most dangerous organization on the planet. They are more of a threat to our nation than Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea combined. They are ruining the education of our children and destroying our only hope of maintaining our prosperity and peace.

Talk about hyperbole.

The teachers union has made it impossible to fire teachers for poor performance. To be fired, a teacher basically has to break the law or molest a student. They can't be fired for simply being a terrible teacher. It's gotten so bad that at public schools across the country, bad teachers are paid full-time salaries to simply sit in the teachers' lounge all day and not teach! Schools are forced to do this because they don't want these bad teachers anywhere near their students, but they haven't done anything that the union says they can be fired for.

That is a rather large generalization. Not all districts are the same. In some districts, a teacher can be fired for any reason. One of the problems is that there are not enough teachers. If someone is performing poorly, you can't just fire them because there is no one to replace them. Why? Because no one will take the job for the pay. I've personally known many individuals who love children and love to teach. Financially they could not afford to live on a public teacher's salary and had to pursue other employment. That is everyone's loss and that really is the root cause of the problem.

It is school choice, in the form of vouchers, that will save our public education system.

If we have learned anything in history, it is that many complex problems like education are not easily solved by a panacea. School vouchers is just one thing we can do. But they won't solve the problem if you don't actually address root cause of the problem. Eight years ago, the solution was standardized testing. Then Governor George Bush said "Look what it has done for Texas." Having lived in Texas, I can say that solution has done more to harm education than help it. When they tied school funding to standardized testing, it had the opposite effect of raising the standard of education. Given limited resources and funding, schools have started teaching the test as opposed to general education.

Re:It's easy, just think logically.

[Theolojin]

You forgot:

3. Private schools get to choose who they admit and keep, which allows them to only teach smart, well-behaved, native English speakers with parents who care about education.

Perhaps they get to, but do they? I attended both public and private schools. My oldest child attended a public school and now all three of my children attend a private school, which, quite simply, provides the best education in my city, period. There is no screening based on intelligence. In fact, in the school's secondary school (er...roughly junior high/high school), there is a student who has a mild form of autism. He is a terrible student (I think he's sixteen in ninth grade) but the school lets him attend (at a greatly reduced tuition). Why? Because the administration of the school cares for him. While some private schools may screen for intelligence, in my rather limited experience such screening is not prevalent.

Re:Make them Pay

[Ogive17]

and replace it with the Democrat party which will bring more failure, dishonorable behavior, and fraud.

Obama may be a breath of fresh air, but as long as the same career politicians keep getting elected to congress, they will keep acting on their own benefit and not the people.

Give them something to aspire to

[MosesJones]

In terms of education here we have

1) Obama - raised by a single mother to a kenyan father who buggered off, progressed through school and demonstrating ability and prowess at all stages before coming top in Harvard Law.

2) McCain - Rich family with a history in the services, graduated near the bottom of his class, married a richer woman on the second try. Paired up with Palin who things that education is elitist.

Seriously when it comes to education shouldn't we be teaching kids than anyone can become the leader of the country if they work hard and are smart enough not just that you have the right set of bigotry and name-calling to get yourself elected?

Given that in the US education is a State (or lower) level then this isn't a big area for impact at the Federal level, but the best thing the US President could do for the children of the country is demonstrate the value of a good education.

Only Obama does that.

Can you define "education" please?

[TheRon6]

If I learned anything in high school, it's that in this country "education" no longer means the process of learning. Instead, school has become a daycare for parents to send their kids to until their old enough to move out. I may not be in the majority but I learned very little from actual classes and tests. I received my own computer at the age of 15 and taught myself about hardware and how to program, neither of which my school offered any classes about beyond keyboarding. Now I'm 24 and a senior systems administrator for a large dedicated server management company... thanks to our country's educational system? I think not.

Parents aren't going to give up their free daycare so if I support any educational plan, it's going to be one that involves getting kids who want to learn out of the classroom and into environments where they can use their time more productively.

So is McCain

[WindBourne]

Fortunately, it looks like Science and Logic are about to take the stage again. Sadly, here in America, we have upwards of around 20% that believes in creationism of some form. So far, nearly all that I have meet that believe in it, are real whack jobs. When I asked one of my past students about it, he said that James Dobson showed conclusively that Carbon dating does not work. Dobson tested a metal knife blade. When I pointed out that it only works on items that were living before, he said that dobson said otherwise. Sad, sad, sad.

Thank God we are heading back into cooler and logical minds.

Re:So is McCain

[jgtg32a]

I think technically I fall in that 20%, I've always thought evolution was a rather intelligent design. So they aren't all wackos, mainly the evangelicals

Re:So is McCain

[Shakrai]

The actual number [pollingreport.com] is usually over 50%, depending on how the question is asked. In particular, over half of Americans support teaching Creationism alongside evolution in public schools.

See, it's the "alongside" part that I have a problem with. If you want to teach creationism in theology class then all the power to you. Hell, I'd sign my kids up for that class. It's when they start talking about teaching it in science class that I have issues.

Re:So is McCain

[canUbeleiveIT]

Fortunately, it looks like Science and Logic are about to take the stage again. Sadly, here in America, we have upwards of around 20% that believes in creationism of some form. So far, nearly all that I have meet that believe in it, are real whack jobs. When I asked one of my past students about it, he said that James Dobson showed conclusively that Carbon dating does not work. Dobson tested a metal knife blade. When I pointed out that it only works on items that were living before, he said that dobson said otherwise. Sad, sad, sad.

I always get confused when "Creationism" is brought up here. If you're talking about a Young Earth type of system, that clearly has the burden of evidence against it. But if you're talking about the metaphysical necessity for a creator, I don't see how that is so preposterous.

Without a creator, aren't we left with the following possibilites?:
1. What exists has always existed, or
2. What exists simply came into existence out of nothing, for no reason.

Since both scenarios involve all of existence being an effect with no cause, haven't the underpinnings of logic--being based upon cause and effect--been shaken? Does this mean that I think that any of the particular "Creationist" beliefs are logically sound or even seemingly plausible? Absolutely not, but just because one argument is somewhat less ridiculous than another doesn't make it a good argument.

Decentralized Education

[Anonymous Coward]

Education would be best left up to the states. Obviously some states will do better in different areas, but having education run from the federal government keeps individual states from trying to improve beyond the average.

Re:Great plan you have for being competitive w/ Ch

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

Even better is when I hear right wing christians complain about not being able to be compete on the world stage in math and science then out the other side of their mouths yell about intelligent design.

what.

My Prediction: Failure.

[zach_the_lizard]

Tomorrow we go to the polls to elect the next failed administration, and the next failed Congress.

Regardless of who is elected, I feel that both candidates have the wrong attitude towards government. I feel that the role of government is simply to protect our lives and our property from one another. Both candidates espouse statist ideals that want to take away from our self governance or continue policies that take away our power.

Both throw out petty scraps of meat to the people to get them to vote for their demise. This year, they throw the meager pickings of tax cuts. Perhaps four years from now it will be the threat of terrorists again, or perhaps health care.

Both voted for a plan to give hundreds of billions of dollars to failed banks that gave loans to people who deserved none. Let them fail. The consequences of propping up zombie banks are greater than of letting them fail and having the market adjust.

Tomorrow I go to the polls to vote Libertarian, to fight the establishment.

Re:Great plan you have for being competitive w/ Ch

[kingramon0]

It is not the government's job to plan things for us. It is hilariously bad at it, anyway. It is the government's job to protect our liberties so we can do things ourselves.

We are perfectly capable of organizing our own local educational systems. Some of them won't be as good as others, but they can learn from the ones that are successful.

Having the government plan it, and run it, will just guarantee that the quality continues to degrade universally.

Does it really matter?

[glenfahan]

I joined the military to pay my way through college. My family always stressed the importance of education. After spending all that time getting a bachelor's in IT, I'm worse off than my uneducated parents. I frequently think I would have been much better off being a plumber or an electrician. At least those jobs require a license, some skill and can't be sent overseas. (i.e. manufacturing and IT) What good is an education if no one will pay you to use it?

Re:How do you grade performance?

[Notquitecajun]

You hit exactly on what I am talking about - a parent knowing who and what their child is being taught. I'm not the type that minds alternative values - to an extent - being taught in the classroom, but I AM opposed to them being taught in a manner that makes the ones I want my kids to pick up being the wrong ones.

Get away from homework, let kids live a life after school and make school about learning.

Welcome to homeschooling. No wasted time spent on stuff children already learn, and no "busy-time" spent bored in classroom with a ton of pent-up energy.

One that will NOT help science...

[damn_registrars]

If you feel that scientific research funding is important to education (or anything at all, for that matter), then you should be concerned about the Science Budget Freezes Proposed by John Sidney McCain III.

If I don't vote I can't complain?

[Morris Thorpe]

Silly me. I thought the First Amendment allowed me to bitch until my heart is content.

I'm tired of hearing that I can't complain if I don't vote. Who made up this mantra? The people who want you to vote for them.
And the masses have bought it. They think they really have a say in what happens in government. Ha!

By choosing not to vote I *am* making my statement: I don't like the candidates or the system.

Enough with Groupthink.

Re:If I don't vote I can't complain?

[tbannist]

Actually, you are making no statement at all when you don't vote. It's like you sit there and say nothing. Nobody cares if you don't vote. Nobody.

Your First Amendment right means the government can't shut you up. That doesn't mean the rest of us have to listen to your whining about something you chose to do nothing about.

Re:If I don't vote I can't complain?

[hobbit]

Many thousands of slashdot readers have -- by not replying to your comment -- made their statement that they don't like you or what you're saying.

Presumably, having been on the receiving end of such a crystal-clear indictment, you'll be changing your position on this any moment now.

Re:If I don't vote I can't complain?

[Neoprofin]

No, it's like someone asking you if you want to be stabbed or shot, and refraining to answer because you'd really rather that neither one wins.

Until "Neither" appears on the ballots not voing is a perfect valid way to voice your opinion, sadly it hard to tell if people are protesting or being lazy sometimes.

Re:If I don't vote I can't complain?

[Anonymous Coward]

By choosing not to vote I *am* making my statement: I don't like the candidates or the system.

Go ahead and make a statement. The rest of us will make a difference, however small.

Re:If I don't vote I can't complain?

[bogjobber]

My election ballot had about 15 candidates for president. Democrat, Republican, multiple socialist parties, the Green Party, Constitution party, Libertarian party, and multiple independents (HeartQuake '08!. I imagine it's similar where you live, so there should be *somebody* who shares your view.

Maybe I'm projecting others beliefs onto yours, but I doubt it. What you are essentially saying is that you believe you have no influence in government, and that the government as it functions today is illegitimate. But then you reject the *only* direct means of influencing said government. The great thing about democracy, and the US in particular, is that our system allows for great change from within. I'm not saying you have to vote for a Republicrat, but get off your lazy ass and vote for *somebody* you believe in.

Guess what? The people running the system are not scared of you, because they know people like you do not matter. They would like nothing more than to see you sit this one out. That means they have to spend less money trying to convince you to vote for them.

If you don't do *anything* to try and change the system, either from within or without, and sit there bitching about it that does not make you a free thinker. That makes you a coward who hides your cowardice and inability to influence the world we live in behind anti-government rants on the internet. If you really feel that strongly about where our government is headed get off your ass and do something about it. It's your moral obligation.

Re:If I don't vote I can't complain?

[Wildclaw]

Here in Sweden atleast blank ballots are counted seperatly.

And there is a big difference. Not voting means that you are lazy bum that doesn't care enough to get to your voting location. Such lazy bums are ignored, because their opinions are worthless. There is no need for politicians to cater to someone who doesn't vote. Someone who is voting blank on the other hand is not ignored, because anyone who takes the time to go to the voting location and make a blank vote will likely also vote in the next election.

A blank vote is a vote worth competing over in the next election. A non-vote is zero, nada, nothing.

Re:I think that...

[roguetrick]

While that is true in a pragmatic sense, a president is still a great leader and certain symbolic actions can have a great effect on Americans.

It is also proven that a President can at least steer education down a bad path, such as No Child Left Behind.

Really? Education?

[Maury Markowitz]

Over the last 30 years I've watched well-funded lobby groups essentially take over the entire political process. Since these groups are generally better funded when connected to commercial interests, the political process has once again become beholden to big industrial concerns (it was even more so 100 years ago). It's not that lobby groups are bad, pre se, its that they are, by definition, lopsided; they present a single view of the world that may or may no be countered by the "other side" of the issue. As elections become more and more expensive, this process has accelerated to its own quasi-democratic existence.

Obama managed to use Dean's model to rally the individual for his funding. He's still beholden to large groups, but so much less so than any presidential candidate over the last decade or so. This is a wonderful opportunity to mute down the influence of lobby groups, because he won't be committing political suicide by doing so.

And no-one's talking about it. It's completely off the radar.

Maury

Re:Make them Pay

[Zonk (troll)]

We are within 2 days of making the Republican party pay for it's failure, dishonorable behavior, and fraud.

How long before we can do the same with Democrats?

This country would be a much better place if both branches of the corporate party would just go away.

Ideally I'd like to see an end to parties in general. George Washington says it best:

"However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion." --George Washington, Farewell Address, Sep. 17, 1796

At the very least if we had parties that put liberty and independence first we'd be better off.

--
"Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power" --Benito Mussolini

"Last Known Good" Constitution rollback?

[starglider29a]

The Constitution has been trodden upon these last 8 years (and more). Here is just one citation, for those who need one. http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/04/13/1830202

Has ANY of the candidates described the steps they would take to roll us back from the Constitutional abyss?

The inference has been that the current administration has been abusing its power in this area. It strikes me as "illogical" that they would take such steps toward setting up a surveillance society, only to hand the keys to the Bastille to "another" administration.

Help me understand.

Re:Great plan you have for being competitive w/ Ch

[HungryHobo]

Problem:

You seem to think that all private is good. That just means that kids in the rich areas get fantastic schools with the best teachers, kids in the poor areas get a trained monkey and a bucket(with a hole in it).

In the interest of trying to give people some sembelance of an equal playing field it can be a good idea to average things out a little in education.

A government protecting your liberties so we can do things yourself is worth nothing, zero, nada, ziltch if you are born into a family with no money which can afford no eduction or healthcare.
Unless of course you consider the freedom to die before your 12th birthday to be a liberty that should be protected.

Re:Intelligent Design

[wikinerd]

Yes, teaching creationism to biologists and alchemy to chemists can be very useful for helping them understand the society and the role of evidence in science, but teachers and students have limited time and this time has to be invested in the most rewarding activity, and I wonder whether teaching creationism or alchemy is more rewarding than teaching more advanced biology or chemistry. Perhaps a short introduction is ok, but too much time spent on it would be counterproductive?

Re:"Palin's stance" is better

[Kozz]

The last time I saw her state her stance, it was this: "teach [evolution and creationism] in class and let the students critically analyze both."

This is actually a problem in modern media -- the "journalists" (I use this term loosely) want to give equal time to the nutjobs. Take for another example the vaccinations vs autism discussions. There's little credible evidence to correlate these two items, but if one parent squawks loudly enough, the local news reporter wants to cover it, thus elevating the visibility of the nutjob theory far above that which is justified.

On Creationism

[Deathlizard]

As Much as Creationism seems to strike a chord with some people, I've never actually understood why.

I've always looked at creationism historically, as in a "This is what a guy 2-3 thousand years ago though how the universe was made when science rarely existed and wasn't as important as religion" kind of way. That being said, it's not too far off from creationism considering the religious source and the age of the text other than the 7 days thing, but realistically what's 7 days to God? a billion years? 10 minutes? who knows.

Based on that, I believe that it should be taught in schools, but only as an historical reference to how we led to the current evolution theory. Similar to how Spontaneous generation is taught in schools as a previously accepted theory until a new theory proved it was incorrect.

Re:Great plan you have for being competitive w/ Ch

[kingramon0]

Okay, so let me see if I understand you...

My parents immigrated to this country when I was 2. My dad had only a high school education, and my mom a middle school education. My brother and I are the first generation of our family to totally grow up in the US and get college educations.

So, if we become financially successful, and can afford to give our children a better education, you want to deny us that "In the interest of trying to give people some sembelance of an equal playing field?"

That is just immoral.

We went to crappy city schools, and still learned well, because our parents instilled in us a sense of how important our education is. There is nothing the government can do to take the place of that.

Education will never be equal for everyone, and that is the major problem with the ideologues that wish it to be so. It is futile and can only degrade our education system on the whole, not "average things out."

Re:"Palin's stance" is better

[hobbit]

Religion has no place in a history lesson?

Sounds like your education has some holes in it.

Why Obama is a Fraud - in short.

[Anonymous Coward]

Obama is the greatest fraud the country will ever see run for president.

We don't have his school record, birth certificate, health records, legal clients, or anything about him. He's probably very deep in with Ayers, Khalidi, and Wright still. All anti-semite friends, yet jews are foolishly voting for him. Because we don't know the truth. We are just sheeple who the media is lying to.

And he takes foreign donations on his website, and will use acorn in the general as he did against hillary - to cheat.

Education is just one important factor.

[ErichTheRed]

I've never been a big-time political activist, and I'd say I have a healthy skepticism of _anything_ having to do with politicians. However, I really do think we'll be better off with Obama in the long run. Here's why:

• On education, one of the things Obama did say that I agree with is that there's "no government program that can replace an involved parent." This is 100% true. However, government also needs to fund education properly to ensure schools are teaching what employers want for the future. Look at China and India, they're turning out science and tech graduates faster than ever. Take some of the tax money being wasted on wars, corrupt contractors, etc. and use it to fund education.
• For education to work, you have to stop encouraging the creationists and other similar anti-science people. Giving the Republicans another 4 years is going to encourage more of this kind of thinking.
• Also in education, some ideas need to be explored that may be controversial. One idea is having multiple tracks for students...sending only the smart kids to college and giving the non-smart ones jobs appropriate to their abilities. Recognizing that there is a distribution of smart and stupid people is very important so you can help the best succeed.
• I truly believe trickle-down economics doesn't work. You can't just give every tax break and advantage to the rich and assume they'll be nice and help the less fortunate. It doesn't work. Wealthy people may buy the occasional house, car or boat, but most of that money just sits in the bank/market for decades. Taking some of that huge sum and using it to fund public projects (roads, transportation, healthcare subsidies, etc.) is not stealing. You're buying a more stable society.
• No matter what they say, McCain/Palin is just another retread of the same politicians we've been getting for years. McCain is a Cold War relic, back from the days when we were the #1 country on Earth by a huge margin. I know I'm going to get dinged for this, but that's not going to be the case in the 21st century. I think that either China or India will become the dominant power because (a) we fell behind in education, (b) we gave China all our manufacturing capacity and India all our white-collar work, and (c) China/India both have huge populations, and China's government can do whatever it sets its mind to. We need someone who can recognize that we might be #2, #5 or #9 in 20 years' time and learn to live alongside everyone else.
• Obama's healthcare idea of basically creating the assigned-risk pool for health insurance companies is the best he can do in the current climate. Until costs really get bad and more people are telling stories of bankrupting illnesses, there's no way to get universal health care passed.

I'm actually hoping for a bigger social change than any one person can do, but we'll see how well that goes. My hope is that credit will continue to be difficult to get, forcing people to cut back on consumption. Once that happens, people won't be scrambling for that next promotion at work because they need more money to feed the debt monster. People will then spend less time at work, and maybe pay attention to their kids again. Education may improve as a result, or it may not. Long-run, if wages go lower and people spend less, maybe we can actually compete with the foriegn labor markets (at least after you consider things like the time it takes to clean up a project after it's been delivered by an outsourcer.) This would be an extremely harsh transition -- we've been used to having access to anything we want for so long. However, the rest of the world lives this way, so we should be able to adapt.

Anyone who says that the President can't really do anything on his own is correct. But, I think voting in McCain is just inviting more conflict with the rest of the world.

Re:How do you grade performance?

[foniksonik]

I'd vote for your platform.

I'll add this bit.

Retrain retired professionals to be teachers. They are going to need to re-fund their retirement anyways after this economic dump.

Provide college grad students with opportunities to be teaching aids in local elementary schools, taking some of the stress off the teachers. All they have to do is show up and be decent human beings. They can get work credits towards tuition. I say grad students because they are more likely to have gone past the stage where they need to party every night.

Re:Huh?

[EastCoastSurfer]

Huh? No one is saying anything remotely close to that. Maybe if you didn't build your arguments on false premises, you'd actually understand what "the ideologues" are trying to say. Enjoy your vote for Strawman '08.

No, he's saying it's not an education or school problem. It's a parents and social issue. Education is not valued in lower incomes. For whatever reason it's not the 'cool' thing to do. When a higher income family sends their kids to private school they are not only spending their money to do that, but showing that they value an education. I was poor growing up and went to some pretty poor public schools, but my parents pushed education from day 1 as a way to better myself. When I talk to my teacher friends today they can't even get a parent to call them back to discuss their child. More money is not going to solve this issue, and neither is sending these kids to 'better' schools. A does of harsh reality is the only way to fix it at this point. It's time to stop blaming their current situation on everyone else and do something about it.

That was the design here

[Quila]

A federal government with limited powers, multiple state governments, county governments (3,000+ as of now), and city governments. Our current problem is that the governments at the top want to dictate what the governments below do. The system wasn't designed for that, but that's how it is now, with the resulting problems.

A clear example is the drug laws. The federal government tries to override the choice of states to legalize certain drugs. That wasn't a stated power of the fed, so the fed has no business dictating to the states.

You guys over in the EU, watch out. Our country was once a collection of sovereign states.

Re:How do you grade performance?

[jkorz]

>Start by giving teachers livable wages For working 9 months out of the year, most teachers are paid very well. If the starting wage for a teacher is $32k (as it was in 2005 for a very small district I used to work for), they make almost $43 annualized. That's straight out of college and doesn't even take into account their 30 hour work week. It also gives them 3 months to get a summer job and make even more. The union does a very good job at haggling to get teachers to be paid more than they would be worth in a free market and keeping teachers that would get fired if there was any accountability to parents for the jobs they do. The partial answer to this problem is to get rid of the teachers union. If they didn't have such a safe little job where they can't get fired no matter how rotten they are, it would provide incentive to either do their job or find another one - just like it is for the rest of the world. Look at what the unions have done to Ford, GM and Chrysler... they have been doing the same thing to the education system, I have witnessed it first hand. The rest of the answer, as I see it, is to put the power in the hands of the stakeholders rather than the bureaucrats. In the USA, parents are responsible for the education of their children, not the school district. Why not get the parents involved in evaluating the teachers. If the teachers realized that they are there to serve the students and families they interact with, they might start trying to do what's best for the kids.

The most important thing

[dlevitan]

I'm personally a libertarian, but one of the few things I think the government should be spending money on is education and scientific research. Education is an investment in the future. If we raise the level of education in this country, encourage students to like learning, and really progress we will remain a superpower, if only because we will dominate technology and science in the world.

We need to pay teachers a competitive wage to get the really bright people interested in being teachers. And we need to give them the resources to really inspire the next generation. A good teacher can make the difference in someone's life. We also need to fund programs to give smarter children access to the resources they need to jump to the next level, not just keep them with the average person. And we need to stop pandering to the lowest common denominator - the slowest person in a class should not be dragging everyone else down.

For college, we should be paying students who do well and who aren't going into high paying careers like Wall Street or lawyers. If you offer someone the ability to go to the top private schools for free if they later become a teacher or scientist a lot more people will do that. Higher up, we should be paying more money to graduate students, postdocs, and scientists. Only the most dedicated stay in the field when you get paid so little (disclaimer: I am a graduate student in astrophysics right now, and I've seen plenty of people leave for higher paying jobs in other fields after finishing).

And instead of welfare, we should be getting people educated so that they can work in a more demanding job. I would much rather pay $50,000 for someone to get a college degree and then start working at a good wage then pay someone $20,000 as welfare.

How can I justify this based on my libertarian leanings? Because it's an investment. If the government funds someone's education and it costs $100,000, but then that person is able to make $150k/year instead of $50k, the government will get it's money back in a matter of years. Hopefully there will be fewer criminals because more people will be interested in working instead of doing nothing. Obviously money won't solve everything, but it will be a good start and personally I would much rather see the money currently being spent on social programs invested in the future, not in the present.

I want to pay more taxes.

[FatSean]

The USA's bullying foreign policy has resulted in huge deficits from Offense Spending. I don't want my kids to have to deal with MY problem.

Unlike the whiners and non-competatives, I WANT to pay more. I WANT to pay down the debt. It's the responsible, non-selfish, thing to do.

Re:I want to pay more taxes.

[NoseSocks]

Then you go ahead and pay more. Donate extra amounts of your hard earned money to the government. I and many others will not stop you...
But you're really asking that everyone pay more, not just you. That's where the problem lies. I don't want to pay more for anything of which I lack control. I have no issues with charity and donate to charity freely. Government is forcing charity on us these days, and often it is not efficient and not for causes I support.

Re:I want to pay more taxes.

[Grishnakh]

Let me be the first to say, don't let the door hit you on your ass on the way out.

That being said, I only said it because instead of fighting for what's right, you seem to want to jump ship.

There's nothing wrong with jumping ship. Ever heard "pick your battles carefully?" Those are words to live by. If the situation arises where I think I can do some real good by sticking around and fighting for what's right, I will. However, if I feel like everyone is against me (which is the way I feel now), then it makes a lot more sense to jump ship. For an extreme example, think of the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. The bomber (Terry something, I forget now, he doesn't deserve to have his name remembered anyway) thought of himself as some kind of revolutionary, and in his twisted thinking, thought that people would support him and his "cause". In the end, people just thought he was a nut and a murderer. But other people in history have untaken violent actions to achieve social change, and they succeeded and were called heroes. We now put their pictures on our currency, even though they were considered "terrorists" and "traitors" at the time.

While this country sorely needs change, the people in this country are either not smart enough, or not willing to do what it takes to achieve real positive change. They actually think that electing either Obama or McCain is going to fix things. They're not willing to do whatever's necessary to get decent people into positions of leadership to really fix the fundamental problems in this country, and instead elect the same corrupt fools that they've been electing all along. So if things get really bad, why I should I stick around and suffer with everyone else, if it's possible for me to jump ship and go somewhere better?

Now they are complaining about all the jobs leaving and in some cases, they are just going to other states and staying within the US. Of course the liberals are blaming it on everything else which might explain the jobs going over seas but it doesn't address jobs going to other states.

Nothing wrong with jobs going to other states. If the people in your state keep electing bad politicians who make it worthwhile for companies to pack up and move to other states, then those voters deserve to suffer the economic fallout that results from that. This is why I was a big believer in Ron Paul's philosophy of a weaker Federal government, with more power and responsibility going back to the states. States should be more free to make their own decisions, and then suffer the consequences (or reap the rewards). If California, for instance, wants to legalize marijuana, they should have that freedom without having the Feds tell them they can't. Then the rest of us can see if this works out for them, or not. If some other state wants to enact a giant welfare system paying lots of people to not work, they should be able to do that, with their own money, and then the rest of us can see how this works out for them. Many different things could be tried, and we'd find out as a society what works well and what doesn't, and economics would force states to do the right thing, or suffer from having all the good jobs and people move away. Plus, it's not hard for people to move from state to state (unlike moving to another country), so states doing the right thing would be rewarded relatively quickly.

Obvious

[brkello]

A huge number of Nobel laureates have come out with a letter that endorses Obama. Nature, one of the top science magazines, endorsed Obama (even though it never had before). You have a guy who is the top of his class vs. someone who was the bottom of his class. You have someone who thinks and another that just acts. If you are going to choose between the two major parties on education, the choice is so easy it is silly. The only people who can't see this are people who watch Fox News and listen to Limbaugh and think they are hearing facts.

Recent Experience

[srothroc]

Obama has several kinds of experience with the education system going for him, since he's been through it a lot more recently than McCain, he worked at a university, and he's got daughters going to school right now. McCain is so old that I can't help but feel he's out of touch with how education works in America now.