The Political Compass

[Occhidiangela]

Cheers indeed.  snip  "TO the popemobile!!"
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I guess the Pope is 61st level priest, with a few über items, and that the Popemobile is his epic mount. Personally, I think the NE Sabercats look cooler, and that a dwarf's Mountain Goat would be a better in the off road department. :D

My due sisterti.

Occhi

[--Pete]

Hi,

On the test, the question of teaching our children religion in schools appeared. I strongly feel that teaching religion in school is not okay, however I'm torn in my answer because I also strongly think our society (the worlds) needs to teach MORALITY to our children in school! Why is it our systems are made to educate the pre-college children on subjects such as math, grammar, and history but leaves out important social and moral teachings such as interpersonal communication and meditation (self-evaluation)?[right][snapback]94713[/snapback][/right]

I think you are falling into the modern trap of thinking that all we learn, we learn in school. This raises an impossible expectation of the school system, especially in that there are so many conflicting points in moral codes.

Secular schools should indeed teach no more than "subjects such as math, grammar, and history". Moral values should come from the family, from the community, if applicable from the church. And social skills should be developed by social interactions, both with the child's peers and with adults, so that equality and respect are both fostered.

And that other set of skills, so necessary for a working republic, should be learned from the playing fields. Fair play, sportsmanship, respect for effort, for teammates and for opponents learned by practice. However, this venue has been clogged, almost destroyed, by those to whom competition means hatred, striving to win justifies any form of cheating, the rules are to be exploited, bent, broken. Indeed, if Socrates was justified in drinking the cup of hemlock for leading the youth of Athens astray, then there is not enough hemlock in the world for the all professional athletes who have done much worse.

But, back to your point of teaching morality in school. Even if we, as a society, decided to attempt to do so, it would involve starting school much sooner. Apparently, we absorb morality as we absorb language, at a young age, and to a large extent, our fundamental moral structure is very much in place by age seven or so. If the parents have failed, working as they were with a malleable medium, can we reasonably expect the schools to repair the damage once it has calcified?

--Pete

[--Pete]

Economic Left/Right: -1.88
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -2.92

Hi,

So, they start out telling you that one axis is not enough to map the complexities of social-economic opinions, and then they ask you to believe that two are? It is to laugh.

--Pete

[Armin]

So, they start out telling you that one axis is not enough to map the complexities of social-economic opinions, and then they ask you to believe that two are?  It is to laugh.
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The sad thing is, most business decisions and company strategies - decided by people who earn 200 times what most of us do - are made using such a 2-axis matrix and not much more :wacko:

[jahcs]

The sad thing is, most business decisions and company strategies - decided by people who earn 200 times what most of us do - are made using such a 2-axis matrix and not much more  :wacko:
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I think you may be overcomplicating that Armin... :P - at least considering some of the management folks I've worked with.

[Occhidiangela]

Hi,
I think you are falling into the modern trap of thinking that all we learn, we learn in school.  This raises an impossible expectation of the school system, especially in that there are so many conflicting points in moral codes.
==snip==
But, back to your point of teaching morality in school.  Even if we, as a society, decided to attempt to do so, it would involve starting school much sooner.  Apparently, we absorb morality as we absorb language, at a young age, and to a large extent, our fundamental moral structure is very much in place by age seven or so.  If the parents have failed, working as they were with a malleable medium, can we reasonably expect the schools to repair the damage once it has calcified?

--Pete
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I'll offer that the problem of morality and school runs afoul of rational standards of behavior being forced to contend with widely varying social assumptions, assumptions induced by kowtowing to multiculturalism and the fallacy that all opinions and POV are equal. Schools run afoul, from the behavioral assumption standpoint, of:

-- "it's all about me" (an attitude indulgent parents enable)
-- falsely identifying school with "the man"
-- deep pockets lawsuits against schools driven by egotism
-- short of lawsuits, adversarial relationships between some parents and some school systems (It works when the adults are a team, not on opposing teams.)
-- confusing making people feel good about themselves with the learning and educating process.

Self confidence grows from mastery. Mastery takes work and practice, albeit at different rates for many folks. We can't presume equality in rates of learning, nor of talent and natural gifts, (my singing voice being a brilliant case in point :o ).

So, while grasping for a neutral common assumption, we seem to have confused the presumption of a rough equality under the law and a rough equality of access to education (via public schools) with an entitlement to equality of outcome and opportunity to excel . . . irrespective of foundational input. (Ages 1-6) Not to mention dumb luck (DNA.) Nature AND nurture apply. One can't resolve all "inequalities" via nurture unless, like the lumberjack with his saw, you create equality by cutting all down to the same LOW level. So much for forests and trees.

A goal of education, which starts with the first breath, is to inculcate a sense of a lifetime journey through a series of masteries of X, Y, Z, ad infinitum (mastery of simple tasks, such as correctly tying shoes, is a mastery nonetheless) Mastery at gradually more complex levels. This sort of focus in education and child rearing harmonizes with your ideal, Pete. It logically follows, perhaps, that one not have children until one has considered how to raise them in toto, which includes their education.

This leads to insisting on earning a parenting license before having children. Why? Raising children is at least as important as driving, and badly raised children are a risk for societal disruption and waste. Check our prisons for some evidence. Of course, I don't see that licensing coming any time soon. Considered from a cradle to grave development cycle, the child being what is under development, the system as it exists is built on sand of variable density and quality.

The progressive approach has been tried, but not perfected. Like most clearly analytical approaches, it ignores the human element. A slightly exaggerated course of action is to adopt the Statist approach in a purer form: make every child a ward of the State at birth, consign women to the role of brood mares for the state, and men to DNA disseminators. That appears to be the condition that some of our children are in, albeit somewhat unintentionally.

Such a social engineering model allows any and every parent/sire/dam to abdicate the role of mentor, stick to the specialized role of passing genetic code along to the next generation, and then . . . let the State educate. (Johnny Cochrane, my sound bytes are better than yours. And you're dead.) Such a Brave New World. Oh, check our prisons, again, for some evidence of how well that works, see that disconnect from my opener on agreed behavioral standards and what they run afoul of.

The reaction? In some places, people who can are home schooling more often. Talk about retro, that is a log cabin society approach to rearing children, since public education was not available to that society. A system that meets the needs of none of, or many of, the children seems to be as useful as no system at all. Well, that's overstated, but that is the perception. My neighbors who home school have no faith in their fellow man, "the system" to reform itself, and will not risk their children to that sort of misplaced faith. (My kids go to public school)

The growing homeschool population are people who care deeply about their kids, and their development, from the day they are born. They care in a way the State never can. The State is not Flesh and Blood. It is a non corporeal icon, something that represents our shared common condition and experience as a society. I'll get cynical and call it a graven image, represented by a flag. This inhuman (though run by humans) system is not responding to them, so they are opting out. So are the kids who drop out. They too are opting out. I think we all lose when you add the two effects together.

Home school is a different approach from turn on, tune in, drop out of the 60's, eh? More along the lines of "Teach, your children well." Which gets us back to

Who is qualified to teach your children?

Obviously not everyone. But I know where it starts. Same place as Charity. You have to make that commitment before you have them.

Occhi

[whyBish]

Economic Left/Right: -1.88
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -2.92

Hi,

So, they start out telling you that one axis is not enough to map the complexities of social-economic opinions, and then they ask you to believe that two are?  It is to laugh.

--Pete
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Lol, I was expecting you to be in the high positives on both as well.

One particular question was nagging me. I believe that parents have the right to beat their kids (or whatever the PC term is), and I'm guessing that this counts as being liberal for the test (increased rights to parent), rather than authoritarian, but I would consider it authoritarian rather than liberal (decreases rights to children (... that have 'misbehaved'... i.e. not followed the 'rules'))

[Doc]

Lol,  I was expecting you to be in the high positives on both as well.

One particular question was nagging me.  I believe that parents have the right to beat their kids (or whatever the PC term is), and I'm guessing that this counts as being liberal for the test (increased rights to parent), rather than authoritarian, but I would consider it authoritarian rather than liberal (decreases rights to children (... that have 'misbehaved'... i.e. not followed the 'rules'))
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I have never really seen the need to beat kids. It's the five minute fix. I know it didn't bother me as a kid, hell, I'd rather be spanked and get it over with.

I don't have kids, but I am good with kids, and I know of some really effective means of punishment. But they involve a lot of work and time on the parent / adult part. And this conflicts with people's busy lives. Or they are just to lazy to put forth the effort required to make these punishments work. I know how to make kids' lives a living hell.

My Goddaughter has a terrible fear of doing anything wrong around me. She knows that she will be punished. It's not like living with Grandpa and Grandma, who will let her off the hook if she whines and fusses enough. Doogie means bidness. And if she does something that she knows she shouldn't, she knows it's going to mean hours of horrible boring awful punishment. It means sitting on the back steps polishing the silverware for hours. Or scrubbing the stove. Washing the dishes. Washing the windows. Cleaning the cat boxes. Dusting. Yes, she is little, and she is young, but she is capable and she can be made to do unpleasant work. And she usually cries for the first hour or so as she is working, sniffling and snotting away like she is going to die or something. If everything is spotless and there is nothing to be done, I hand her a pair of pliers and tell her to pull 20 bullets out of Doogie's Angry Tree. (I spend a lot of time shooting that rotten old tree.) She hates that. Or worse, it means NO TV. And that just kills her. But she doesn't watch much tv when she stays with me. She sticks her nose in a book or goes outside and plays. She spends a lot more time reading when she stays with me. At Grandpa and Grandma's house, she doesn't read nearly as much as she should. :angry: And she watches tv for hours on end.

Oh, and by the way, don't even start calling me Doogie. Yeah, I know, it's cute and all, but it's only because she can't say my name. :P And unless you are a cute little girl with rosey cheeks, curious eyes, and dimples, you can't call me Doogie.

[Jester]

"Lol, I was expecting you to be in the high positives on both as well."

Economic positions are a little tough to judge. But if you were guessing Pete would come out on the high end of the authoritarian scale, you haven't been reading as attentively as you should. ;)

-Jester

[Occhidiangela]

"Lol, I was expecting you to be in the high positives on both as well."

Economic positions are a little tough to judge. But if you were guessing Pete would come out on the high end of the authoritarian scale, you haven't been reading as attentively as you should.  ;)

-Jester
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The lack of a "Z" axis in the model is one of many shortcomings. :)

"What was that third thing?"

Occhi

[Ashock]

One particular question was nagging me.  I believe that parents have the right to beat their kids
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Beat or spank? Although in today's bleeding heart world the terms might mean the same, the are not.


-A

[Doc]

Beat or spank? Although in today's bleeding heart world the terms might mean the same, the are not.
-A
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In general, I would say that responding to a child with violence of any kind is rather pointless. Not from a bleeding heart point of view or anything. There is enough violence in the world. There are other just as effective means.

Send your kids on a Reach Out Program or Suess' Desert Trek. Making them haul a 90 pound pack over 150+ miles of hard trail eating only what they can catch, scavenge, or find will straighten them right out. (Well, they get a little rice, some beans, and some oatmeal in their packs, but once it runs out, it is gone.) They also have specialised hikes for kids as young as 6 or 7, if they meet the weight, hight, and strength requirements. Troubled kids come in at all ages. These hikes are brutal. They can last for weeks. There are blisters, pain, and some serious attitude adjustment. There are snakes and scorpions. There is very real danger that, if they do not listen and obey, that they will pay some dire consequences.

I am one of those advocates of tough love. But it takes a dedicated parent.

[--Pete]

Hi,

The sad thing is, most business decisions and company strategies - decided by people who earn 200 times what most of us do - are made using such a 2-axis matrix and not much more  :wacko:
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Yeah, and what's scary is that the horizontal axis is 'time' and the vertical 'misconceptions'. ;)

--Pete

[--Pete]

Hi,

And if she does something that she knows she shouldn't, she knows it's going to mean hours of horrible boring awful punishment. It means sitting on the back steps polishing the silverware for hours. Or scrubbing the stove. Washing the dishes. Washing the windows. Cleaning the cat boxes. Dusting.[right][snapback]95005[/snapback][/right]

How clever of you to identify to a young child honest work with punishment. I hope she has the means to become what they used to call 'a lady of leisure', or the talent to aspire in to a position where she will be well rewarded for doing nothing, for that is the course that you are preparing for her.

As to appropriate corporal punishment -- pain is nature's way of telling you you screwed up. It's an ancient and subtle mechanism that should neither be abused nor ignored. See RAH for more.

--Pete

[--Pete]

Hi,

The lack of a "Z" axis in the model is one of many shortcomings.  :)

"What was that third thing?"

Occhi
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Well, we have the 'economics' scale and the 'social' scale. What could be missing?

Oh, oh! I know!

A scale of responsibility. The willingness, displayed by neither side, economically or socially, to take the blame when things go wrong, to pay the price when new programs are implemented, to maintain a fully staffed standing Army, Navy, and Air Force when we wish to engage in foreign adventures.

But that's OK. Spin is better than funding. Plausible denial is better than a damaged career. And the National Guard and Reserves have nothing better to do (and they are cheaper, anyway).

On that scale, color me ten.

--Pete

[--Pete]

Hi,

In general, I would say that responding to a child with violence of any kind is rather pointless.[right][snapback]95123[/snapback][/right]

Then, Doc, you are ignorant of the similarity of physical and mental punishment. Hours of 'polishing silver' is torture. Two swats on the behind, when both sides know they are deserved is *not* violence.

Punishment should be swift, and once it's done, it's over.

--Pete

[Doc]

Hi,
How clever of you to identify to a young child honest work with punishment.  I hope she has the means to become what they used to call 'a lady of leisure', or the talent to aspire in to a position where she will be well rewarded for doing nothing, for that is the course that you are preparing for her.

As to appropriate corporal punishment -- pain is nature's way of telling you you screwed up.  It's an ancient and subtle mechanism that should neither be abused nor ignored.  See RAH for more.

--Pete
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Good. I hope she develops an aversion to menial labour. I hope she keeps her life on track and focused to where she never screws up badly enough to be stuck living with bad choices that keep her doing common labour. I want her to grow up hating it so much that she is deathly afraid of doing something, anything, so stupid that it might condemn her to a lifetime of housework and servitude. I want her to go to college. And make something of her self. I don't want her pregnant, dropping out of high school, and married to some dead beat and living in some #$%&ty trailer like her own mother that no longer has custody of her. I want her to be so scared of being stuck in a lifetime of doing that that it gives her nightmares and causes her panic. I want her terrified of mediocrity. She is only in preschool now, but she is already reading and showing signs of being exceptional. Her speech and manners are already better than kids two or three times her age, better than some adults. She is well behaved, well adjusted, and bright. And other than a little to much television, she is a good kid. She can read, she can count, she is already doing some simple math. She can write her own name. She can think. She formulates her own thoughts. And when she is out back polishing silverware, she is out there thinking. You can see it in her little wrinkled furrowed brow and her constant muttering.

It's just another form of pain. And like you mentioned, it's nature's way of telling you that you screwed up.

[Doc]

Hi,
Then, Doc, you are ignorant of the similarity of physical and mental punishment.  Hours of 'polishing silver' is torture.  Two swats on the behind, when both sides know they are deserved is *not* violence.

Punishment should be swift, and once it's done, it's over.

--Pete
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And that simply doesn't work.

I know when I was a kid, out of all the ways I could be punished, spanking or swatting was the one I was least worried about. I would rather my ass be paddled with a wooden spoon and get it over with, because after it was done, I could be right back out doing whatever I wanted to get my self in to trouble again. Getting cuffed, paddled, slapped around, kicked, beaten, punched, or wapped on the back of the skull was the easiest way out that there was. And it was no big deal. When I was in school, if I had a choice between paddling and staying after class cleaning the blackboards and erasers, I ALWAYS chose the paddling. Because it was done and over quick and I was off the hook. I would do stuff knowing that I would get paddled, and I didn't care. Getting my self in to that much trouble was usually so much fun that it was worth a minute or two out of my day for a paddling. Shooting the teacher in the ass with a spitball when she was bent over and making the whole class laugh? Worth a paddling. Hawking a huge loogie in the teacher's hand when she asked me to spit my gum out? HAH! The class laughed and giggled at that all day and it cost me ten licks with a paddle. Making disgusting fart noises with my armpit that grossed out all of the girls and made every boy in class laugh, and embarassed the teacher something horribly, so badly she couldn't look me in the eye for the rest of the day? Worth the 2 or 3 minutes spend being lashed with a strap. And twice more that day I was right back in the office having my ass torn up again. It got to the point where I was asking "Is that all you got?" when it was over.

My poor foster mother, God rest her soul, tried so hard to break me with a spanking. She used to make me go out and pick hickory switches. And I would come back with several of them and while she was tearing me up I would completely unnerve her by saying "Ooh ooh a little higher this time." She got so flustered that she couldn't whip me any more. That poor woman broke down and bawled her eyes out one day because she just couldn't get through to me. As an adult, I look back, and I feel damn guilty for what I did to her, but back then I was such a terrible little #$%& that I had no idea how much pain I was causing that poor woman. And when my foster dad finally got off his worthless drunk ass one night and tried to whip me, I knocked him over and whipped the crap out of him with his own strap.

Yeah. Spanking is real effective. Worked wonders on me and all other kids out there like me.

[--Pete]

Hi,

I know when I was a kid, . . .
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First, 'anecdote' is not the singular of 'data', so even if I credited your story, it would have little weight with me as evidence.

Second, assuming for the moment that your stories about yourself are true, you were an abused kid. You were incapable of distinguishing random physical abuse from corrective punishment. Apparently your years have not increased your wisdom in this matter. Since, by your account, you had damned little affection or tenderness, do you really think an appeal to either emotion would have worked? You take an extreme case, the one you portrayal of your self. You admit, indeed glory, in its deviation from the norm. And then you claim to understand the norm on the basis of that same extreme case. Even if your account of yourself is true, your logic is false. A deviant situation is not an indicator for the norm except, occasionally, in the negative.

As for me, I'd a damned sight sooner discuss this with someone that has something more than doubtful personal stories as a basis for their opinion and argument.

--Pete

[Doc]

Hi,
First, 'anecdote' is not the singular of 'data', so even if I credited your story, it would have little weight with me as evidence.

Second, assuming for the moment that your stories about yourself are true, you were an abused kid.  You were incapable of distinguishing random physical abuse from corrective punishment.  Apparently your years have not increased your wisdom in this matter.  Since, by your account, you had damned little affection or tenderness, do you really think an appeal to either emotion would have worked?  You take an extreme case, the one you portrayal of your self.  You admit, indeed glory, in its deviation from the norm.  And then you claim to understand the norm on the basis of that same extreme case.  Even if your account of yourself is true, your logic is false.  A deviant situation is not an indicator for the norm except, occasionally, in the negative.

As for me, I'd a damned sight sooner discuss this with someone that has something more than doubtful personal stories as a basis for their opinion and argument.

--Pete
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But there are entirely to many other kids just like me, and adults that were at one time, kids just like I was.

I see it when I go out in public. The mothers walking around with their filthy broods in Wal Mart. Some kid bawls for something and gets slapped in the back of the skull or has a hard slap on the ass. It does nothing. These kids are right back to misbehaving a moment later or asking for something else. If these spankings worked, why is it that a mother can slap her child silly at least a dozen times or more while they are in the store and the kid does nothing to change their behaviour? I mean, if it works, why does it keep happening? Why does it need to keep happening? Why is it that when I was sitting on the bench by the restroom in Target not to long ago waiting on my wife and her squirrely friends, I saw some poor mother haul her kid in the restroom not once, not twice, but four times to tan her little kid's ass? He was just kicking and screaming away as he was being hauled over the floor and everybody who was anybody could hear what was going on in the ladies restroom. If these spankings are so effective, and work so well, why was it that it took four spankings and then leaving the store with a cartful of goods left unpurchased to deal with this little brat?

I don't see it working. What I do see work in long term is in the trenches tough love. Boot camp like conditions. Take away stuff that kids like. Stripping their room bare except for a bed and a blanket. And then sticking to it instead of folding like a house of cards when the kid bitches. Make their lives a living hell. No kool aid or delicious snacks. No desserts. No treats or delicious foods of any kinds. If you make their lives miserable and stick to it and apply the effort that it takes to enforce the rules, it works. I have seen it. Kids can't stand being bored. It kills them. And making them work to get their stuff back also kills them. Instead of just getting everything they had back all at once at the end of the week, it's better to make them slave away for it. If they want their nintendo back, require them to do 20 hours of labour. If they want computer time back, more hard labour. If they want snacks and something other than water to drink, make them earn it. If they want to watch tv that night, make em work an hour for each hour of tv they get to watch. Believe me, when kids realise that you can make their lives a living hell, they are capable of extraordinary behaviour. Kids aint dumb. They know if they screw up, it's going to take bloody forever to get stuff back, they don't screw up. You can't beat it in to kids to behave. But you can make deals with them if you keep it simple and on terms they can understand.

Spanking is the easy five minute fix. Instead of being an effective active parent, it's easier just to apply physical violence and get it over with. That way you can go about with your own business and not have to worry. It takes to much time and effort to strip your kid's room bare, lock all of their stuff in a trunk, take away their tv, their games, their cd collection, their radio, and strip everything out of their room. That's way to much trouble. Heck, most parents would rather sit on the couch and watch tv themselves. Or do whatever it is that they do. Either that, or they are to busy to even care. And that is the problem that I see. Bad kids, bad parents. There are exceptions of course, good parents with really bad kids. But with two parents both working jobs, and all these little latch key kids running around, these kids are monsters. Horrid little monsters. These little monsters are going to grow in to horrid adults. I don't even like to think about it.

I watch and I observe a lot of what goes on around me. I like to watch people. Some times. When the mood strikes me. And I don't like what I have been seeing lately.