27 replies to this topic

[Tucson Frog]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BpL6eQyXDs&feature=youtu.be

[SFA Frog]

I think what this video show more than anything is that Ron Paul has really loyal followers.  When he shows up somewhere, all of his followers come to support him.  While other candidates don't have these die hard dedicated people that show up.  That doesn't mean that they don't have supporters or people that vote for them.  If Mitt Romney showed up somewhere close to here, I don't think I would go to see him.  Right now, it looks like I'll be voting for him though.  I also think that for every die hard Ron Paulian, there is at least one person that is completely turned off by him.

[NatonWolf]

SFA Frog, on 08 April 2012 - 09:40 PM, said:

I think what this video show more than anything is that Ron Paul has really loyal followers.  When he shows up somewhere, all of his followers come to support him.  While other candidates don't have these die hard dedicated people that show up.  That doesn't mean that they don't have supporters or people that vote for them.  If Mitt Romney showed up somewhere close to here, I don't think I would go to see him.  Right now, it looks like I'll be voting for him though.  I also think that for every die hard Ron Paulian, there is at least one person that is completely turned off by him.

That is interesting. What would turn them off about him? What do you know about him that would turn you off?

Quote

Filmmaker Brent Bateman exposes the media blackout of Presidential candidate Dr. Ron Paul, while his support continues growing by the millions. As he draws 10,000 citizens to UCLA Los Angeles, youth from all over the world flock to Westwood, California, in their hopes of catching a glimpse of the Rockstar of Liberty.

Rachel Maddow: Mitt Romney 'Lies All The Time' (VIDEO)

http://www.huffingto..._n_1372408.html

I guess if that's what you want, go for it.

[SFA Frog]

The main problem I have is that he seems to lack compromise. No one is 100% right on 100% of everything.  There are two sides to most everything and always being on one side without any wiggle room isn't the way to govern a diverse group of people.

[SFA Frog]

I don't agree with a lot of this either and it's just the summary:

Quote

Cuts totaling $1 trillion during the first year of a Paul Presidency would be achieved by eliminating five federal cabinet departments – the Departments of Energy, Housing and Urban Development, Commerce, Interior and Education.  Cuts of this scale will also be accomplished by a Paul Presidency abolishing the Transportation Security Administration and returning responsibility for security to private property owners, abolishing corporate subsidies, stopping foreign aid, ending foreign wars, and returning most other spending to 2006 levels.

[Smitty]

SFA Frog, on 08 April 2012 - 09:40 PM, said:

I think what this video show more than anything is that Ron Paul has really loyal followers.  

"It does not take a majority to prevail...but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men." ~ Samuel Adams

[RSF]

Smitty, on 09 April 2012 - 08:05 AM, said:

"It does not take a majority to prevail...but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men." ~ Samuel Adams

Did Sam ever win an election with 9% of the vote?

[Tucson Frog]

Smitty, on 09 April 2012 - 08:05 AM, said:

"It does not take a majority to prevail...but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men." ~ Samuel Adams

His following seems to be growing a bit, don't you think.

[Smitty]

Tucson Frog, on 09 April 2012 - 08:21 AM, said:

His following seems to be growing a bit, don't you think.

Absolutely, freedom is popular :-)

[NatonWolf]

SFA Frog, on 09 April 2012 - 12:10 AM, said:

I don't agree with a lot of this either and it's just the summary:

EDUCATION
Would you agree, the purpose of education is to enlighten, spread literacy and foster intellectual pursuits for the individual that he might use his education for the benefits of society? Do you think it does that? You are much closer to the class room than I am so I value your opinion.

[Tucson Frog]

RSF, on 09 April 2012 - 08:12 AM, said:

Did Sam ever win an election with 9% of the vote?

Catch a glimpse of how old authoritarian assumptions can be washed away by the rising tide of new ideas.

[Tucson Frog]

Tucson Frog, on 09 April 2012 - 11:43 AM, said:

Catch a glimpse of how old authoritarian assumptions can be washed away by the rising tide of new ideas.

"A voice crying in the wilderness for decades reaches a new generation and inspires it with a vision of what a free society could look like."

[SFA Frog]

NatonWolf, on 09 April 2012 - 09:54 AM, said:

EDUCATION
Would you agree, the purpose of education is to enlighten, spread literacy and foster intellectual pursuits for the individual that he might use his education for the benefits of society? Do you think it does that? You are much closer to the class room than I am so I value your opinion.

"The cultivated mind is the guardian genius of democracy and, while guided and controlled by virtue, the noblest attribute of man. It is the only dictator that freemen acknowledge and the only security that freemen desire." - Mirabeau B. Lamar

I think that education is the key to having a free and democratic society.  When you control knowledge, you control people and their society.  Every person has a fundamental right to this enlightenment.  I think that there are serious issues within our system.  However, abolishing the Department of Education does not make a better society.  Our colleges seem to be preparing us for educating students.  Our schools systems seem to have forgotten that the learning process is more important than the testing process.  The education laws seem to have forgotten that students are individuals.  

A good teacher can teach no matter how badly the system is screwed up.  A good teacher will teach more than the basic standards and the students will thrive within that classroom.  They'll most likely have master more than the test ever could throw at them.  So yes, I think that the system can and does foster these things if teachers are allowed to teach.  While the Department of Education is often misguided, it is necessary.  

However, without the DOE many students would not be educated in this country.  Special education is under a federal funded mandate.  Without the DOE, we probably wouldn’t try and educate these students.  My school would also be in serious financial problems as we are a Title I school.  3 of every 4 students at my campus is economically disadvantaged and the State of Texas is becoming anti-intellectual so we need the feds money to help sometimes.  

What is weird is that education seems to scare people now.  The pursuit of knowledge frightens people.  When I tell people that I studied religion at TCU, they seem to think I was in a pre-seminary school.  When I tell them what I actually studied, it sometimes scares them.  When I tell them that I worked for the Professor of Islam and African Religion, they don't always understand.  People seem to think that studying something is the equivalent of practicing it.  I studied Judaism, Roman Catholicism, Australian Aboriginal religions, Native American religions, Islam and more.  Does my knowledge of these make my Christian faith any less?  Of course not!  So when someone tells me that they don't want their child to learn something, I really don't understand why they would deprive someone of knowledge to better control them.  It seems to fly in the face of everything that I know.

I wrote this quickly and without much proofing so it rambles but I hope I somewhat answered your questions.

[NatonWolf]

Against School*

John Taylor Gatto
http://www.wesjones.com/gatto1.htm

Tucson Frog pointed me to Gatto and I am glad he did. Gatto and Ron Paul are the kind of people who rarely appear on the planet.

Read the article if you choose and if you choose, tell me what you think.

The reason I picked education is because that is where it all starts.

[The Uniballer]

NatonWolf, on 10 April 2012 - 11:47 AM, said:

Against School*

John Taylor Gatto
http://www.wesjones.com/gatto1.htm

Tucson Frog pointed me to Gatto and I am glad he did. Gatto and Ron Paul are the kind of people who rarely appear on the planet.

Read the article if you choose and if you choose, tell me what you think.

The reason I picked education is because that is where it all starts.

Thanks for sharing the article.  I don't think it's possible for me to disagree more with it.  It is a perfect illustration why I would never vote for Ron Paul.  I think Ron Paul has fantastic problem identification skills, but I think his solutions are impractical and would not be effective.

I think we need radical changes in our schooling systems.  But I believe they should be (and can be fixed) but not abandoned.  It seems like that's Ron Pauls' answer to a lot of problems.  It's broken, so let's scrap it.  I think a better solution would be to revolutionize and modernize our failing systems to reflect our current world.   The best solution would be to revolutionize and modernize our failing systems to reflect the world as it will be in the future.

[SFA Frog]

I read this last night but went to bed at like 6:30.  Uniballer summed up my feelings pretty well by saying that while there are some broken parts, it doesn't need to be trashed.  Also, I can see why he was a bad teacher.  Standards based education doesn't have to lack creativity unless the teacher teaching it isn't creative.

[NatonWolf]

The Uniballer, on 11 April 2012 - 06:34 AM, said:

Thanks for sharing the article.  I don't think it's possible for me to disagree more with it.
It is a perfect illustration why I would never vote for Ron Paul.  I think Ron Paul
has fantastic problem identification skills, but I think his solutions are
impractical and would not be effective.

I think we need radical changes in our schooling systems.  But I believe they should be
(and can be fixed) but not abandoned.  It seems like that's Ron Pauls' answer to a lot of problems.  It's broken, so let's scrap it.  I think a better solution would be to revolutionize and
modernize our failing systems to reflect our current world.  
The best solution would be to revolutionize and modernize our failing systems
to reflect the world as it will be in the future.

I stopped trying to change minds but to me this is what we have engineered:"We want one class of
persons to have a liberal education and we want another class of persons, a very much larger
class of necessity, to forgo the privileges of a liberal education and fit themselves to
perform specific difficult manual tasks."~Woodrow Wilson

Not only broken but against the law when considering the constitution.

These are statements followed by question marks. Are they true?

Our children’s reading and math skills regularly fall within the bottom 25 percent of developed countries?
These skills have declined steadily since World War II?  
It has never been shown that standardized tests have been able to predict success in later life?
Many our school textbooks are so inaccurate? (history)
A disproportionate number of minority students are relegated to special education classes? There are more than 6 million children taking prescribed psychoactive drugs?
It is believed that sodas are  brain damaging and yet soda machines line the halls of schools? Why are our children fed unwholesome and fattening food?
15 percent of our children carry weapons to school each month?

If these statements are indeed true then it will require more than a little tweaking to fix it.
It is no wonder that we grow up and make terrible destructive decisions and call them reasonable.

[The Uniballer]

NatonWolf, on 11 April 2012 - 04:37 PM, said:

I stopped trying to change minds but to me this is what we have engineered:"We want one class of
persons to have a liberal education and we want another class of persons, a very much larger
class of necessity, to forgo the privileges of a liberal education and fit themselves to
perform specific difficult manual tasks."~Woodrow Wilson

Not only broken but against the law when considering the constitution.

These are statements followed by question marks. Are they true?

Our children’s reading and math skills regularly fall within the bottom 25 percent of developed countries?
These skills have declined steadily since World War II?  
It has never been shown that standardized tests have been able to predict success in later life?
Many our school textbooks are so inaccurate? (history)
A disproportionate number of minority students are relegated to special education classes? There are more than 6 million children taking prescribed psychoactive drugs?
It is believed that sodas are  brain damaging and yet soda machines line the halls of schools? Why are our children fed unwholesome and fattening food?
15 percent of our children carry weapons to school each month?

If these statements are indeed true then it will require more than a little tweaking to fix it.
It is no wonder that we grow up and make terrible destructive decisions and call them reasonable.

I'm for radical reform.  I think a little tweaking is a big waste of time (those sentences also apply to the tax code). I don't think Woodrow Wilson's quote describe the education system at all.

[NatonWolf]

The Uniballer, on 11 April 2012 - 05:31 PM, said:

I'm for radical reform.  I think a little tweaking is a big waste of time (those sentences also apply to the tax code). I don't think Woodrow Wilson's quote describe the education system at all.

I agree with Gatto and Paul. I like very much for people to learn to think for themselves.
I repeat "It is no wonder that we grow up and make terrible destructive decisions and call them reasonable."
Pasting this here as well as elsewhere because it applies.

[The Uniballer]

NatonWolf, on 12 April 2012 - 12:02 PM, said:

I agree with Gatto and Paul. I like very much for people to learn to think for themselves.

And where will they learn that?