
Journal pudge's Journal: Bong Hits 4 Pudge 8
Someone says to me "If school weren't essentially mandatory I would agree with the sentiment that you check your rights at the doors. But the reality is very few people have the ability to opt out via private school or home education. So given that the govt basically forces the kids to be there via mandatory attendance laws, I think it becomes critically important that your rights be maintained while under the govt thumb."
Setting aside home and private education, and also the internal logic of that argument, I'd like to question the premise a bit.
Isn't the greater offense that we are forced to be at school, in the first place? Sure, you can say it is for the greater good. So too can I say speech restrictions are for the greater good.
Let's look at relative harm (setting aside positive benefits, for now). You are forcing me, without being convicted of a crime, using physical force if necessary, to spend the better part of 12 years of my life's waking hours in a government-run institution, which I believe to be largely concerned with my indoctrination, at least as much as my education. And on the other hand, you don't let me hold up a sign that says "Bong Hits 4 Jesus."
Which is the greater harm? In most contexts, the former is called "kidnapping." I don't care what you call the latter, to me, it doesn't approach the relative harm of the former.
I'll take "forest for the trees" for one thousand, Alex.
That's not to say there's no greater good to come out of the former. But as an originalist and a little-l libertarian, I do not believe that the greater good can or should come out of the denial of fundamental liberty for the individual, unless, in some extreme hypothetical case, it's the only way to protect the liberty of the individual. And that is, of course, not the case here. You can accomplish the same thing by having schooling (of any kind) be voluntary.
But since school is going to remain mandatory, let's talk of rights. Since I am forced to be in the school too, shouldn't I have rights as well? You are taking away my right to be where and do what I want to do, and significantly harming my right to association. The government forces me to sit next to you and to be with you for hundreds of hours; should it allow you to subject me to any expression that you wish?
This is not a public square where I can just leave, or a TV where I can change the channel. I am forced, by the government, to be here. Should that crime be compounded by allowing whoever I am forced to be here with subject me to things I'd rather not be subjected to?
Of course, we can't take this too far. We can't let everyone say "that offends me" and have it thereby disallowed. You need a balance. You need to at once protect the kids who are forced to be there from potentially damaging expression, while at the same time protect the rights of all to reasonably express themselves. There's got to be a "reasonable person" standard here, and that standard should be enforced by the local authorities. If you don't like how it is enforced, get a new school board to fix it.
Bong Hits For RailGunner (Score:2)
I'm fine with "advocating illegal activities" as being verboten in public schools, and all political / religious speech being allowed. The "Bong Hits" would be out, obviously, as it is advocating use of an illegal, controlled substance.
Unfortunately, that isn't the standard used in schools. Sadly, I have a suspicion that if the kid was advocating "Bong Hits for Peace" or "Bong Hits Again
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I think the law regarding drinking ages should be changed to 18, since 18 year olds can vote and can fight and die for their country in the military.
That does not mean I think 18 year olds should start drinking, and does not mean I'm advocating under age drinking, and it also does not mean I'm willing to provide alcohol to minors.
Not everything that is legal is a good idea. Smoking is legal (for adults) and that's amazi
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Indoctrination? (Score:2)
Where is concrete evidence of this alleged indoctrination curriculum and what is it's purpose?
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You are forcing me, without being convicted of a crime, using physical force if necessary, to spend the better part of 12 years of my life's waking hours in a government-run institution, which I believe to be largely concerned with my indoctrination, at least as much as my education.
Where is concrete evidence of this alleged indoctrination curriculum and what is it's purpose?
Apart from teaching us how to use apostrophes correctly, you mean?
OK, that was snarky, I take it back.
But it is sorta the point. The primary reason school is mandated is so that it can create cogs for the great national machine, who will get good jobs to keep the machine running, and follow the rules so the gears won't get mucked up. Yes, there's another prominent reason: because an informed public cannot make choices, and is therefore not truly free. But that is, of course, not the main goal of our pub
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A good book to recommend about this indoctrination is John Taylor Gatto's Underground History of American Education, available freely online (and once reviewed on Slashdot, IIRC). For the first half of the book he sounds like a wild conspiracy theorist, until you finally realize he's not saying that specific people had an insidious plan so much as he is saying that people's specific plans resulted in an insidious system.
To a great extent, students in our public schools are kidnapping victims suffering fr
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