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RE: The most important issue for me in elections is:
by Blue (Hermit) on Nov 08, 2000 at 00:14 UTC
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I believe it was Robert Heinlein who said "What type of country do you have if the only people you can vote for are politicians."
Important topics to me include education, preservation of freedom, honesty, and no censorship. With these, it's hard to find a candidate who matches all. And there is always the nagging feeling if you don't vote for one of the "big two" candidates that perhaps you are throwing your vote away because of the electoral college system, a crime of the same magnitude as not voting.
It's a tough world, and I always feel that I am casting my vote to the lesser evil, as opposed to the greater good.
That saddens me.
=Blue
...you might be eaten by a grue... | [reply] |
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Not a rant at all, good points. I think because of how 'big' it is in the media, it's easy to get blinded by the glamour of the presidental election and not give the proper attention to local issues.
As for the website you mentioned, I saw one at SpeakOut!, and I think I've heard of others. However, the candidate which matched closest to my opinions had withdrawn. 8( (Bill Bradley for anyone interested.)
Thanks for the reminder that acting locally is where we can make a big difference.
=Blue
...you might be eaten by a grue...
UPDATE: Fixed the link
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Education? Anyone?
by PotPieMan (Hermit) on Nov 08, 2000 at 11:09 UTC
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I'm actually pretty surprised that no one has introduced education into the discussion.
I live in Florida, where I've had to put up with a Republican governor (a Bush, no less) who is pushing for "school accountability" and school vouchers. Jeb Bush rates public schools based on standardized test scores. If a school doesn't get a high enough grade, under Bush's proposal, parents can request state money to help put their child in a private school.
This is a bad idea for quite a few reasons. The obvious: we're taking money away from public schools, which are already strapped for money.
Additionally, the voucher proposal calculates the cost of educating each child as an average of the cost of educating all children. For example, it costs approximately $3000 a year to educate an "average" child, and about $15000 to educate a challenged child. Because there are fewer challenged children, the calculated cost comes to about $5000 a year.
A year of private education costs, on average, $7000. This means that parents have to come up with the difference. Poorer families will be unable to make up the difference, meaning that the system favors more advantaged children.
How does this proposal help? Why don't we work on reallocating money that is already in the school system, giving more to education if necessary?
Update: Okay, I'll stop ranting. I'm really nervous about the outcome of the presidential race here in Florida. It's really close.
PotPieMan | [reply] |
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(If you think these things don't apply to you, they probably
don't, so don't be personally offended please... just consider
if they might be generally applicable to the "teeming masses.")
I think you're putting the cart before the horse. The
quality and effectiveness of education will not and cannot
improve until the attitudes of people (and especially
students) change. Education seems to only be really
important (as in, "I should actually bother studying and
going to class") to a minority of children. So, no matter
what you do with the education system, a lot kids will
still just not care, still skip classes, still drop out.
Of course, living in New Mexico (lousy schools, very high
dropout-rate) might be influencing my impressions. :)
In my opinion (currently valued at 2 pfennigs), the way
people are attacking this problem is very similar to the
way that abortion is attacked. They're going after surface
issues and ignoring the underlying ones. Some people want
to make it really easy to have one, some people want to
make sure no one can have one, but almost nobody is trying
to change the attitudes of people which induce them to
want one. As long as there are incentives to have
bastards (welfare) and have unprotected sex (boyfriend
approval), there will be people who are desperately
unprepared who will get pregnant and need abortions (or
welfare).
Gaaaaah, now I'm ranting. Sorry. Maybe I should mention
He Who Kills UseNet Threads so this can be ended....
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As a foreigner (not even living in the US any more!)
married to a former teacher in the Boston Public Schools
I can just offer a comparison between the US and European
systems.
It seems to me that the main difference is that in the US money for
education comes largely from local sources. Which means that
poorer areas get less money than richer ones, hence increasing
the gap between rich and poors. In Europe, by contrast,
money if managed at country level, which makes it much
easier to send money to the places where it can make a difference.
Despite Massachussets being a fairly progressive place
(and probably the best place on Earth to be a Perl geek!)
no amount of state or federal funding seems to be able to
overcome the basic fact that poor people do not pay enough taxes
to pay for a decent school system (except if you're a rat
or a cockroach!).
Now (to try to come back slighltly on-topic) how this impacts the Perl Monks population is probably easy
to find out: have a poll on race/ethnicity/whatever, especially
amongst US citizens here and you'll likely to find an
overwhelming majority of white folks, at least if I can
judge by the crowd at the Perl Conference or YAPC.
PS: sorry PotPieMan, as I am typing that it looks like
dubya carried Florida and the Presidency with it :--(
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Your information is incorrect, most funding is at the state level.
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Your doing the very same thing that your accusing them of, on average a private education may cost $7000 this means you can get it for less
Money also is not IMHO the problem, I went to public schools last, (Gardner, MA) they had plenty of money, classrooms could easily have held twice as many students
And compition is NEVER a bad thing, nor is choice. freedom==choice.
What does more money actually do? reduce class size? That doesn't do anything, most catholic schools have classes of 60+ students but have better results than the public schools
And it can put computers in the class room, but what exactly are they going to do with these computers? If your students are failing your current classes adding more isn't going to help, and having a couple computers in a classroom isn't going to magically change anything
I very much disagree with the idea that we should just randomly throw money at public schools and hope the problem goes away, it won't
BTW before any federal money gets added to the department of Education they should get their books in order. Congress hired a private company to go through and straighten out the books, that company was unable to do it. Their should be accountability on every level down to the cent.
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It is true that the average cost of a private education means that there are some schools at which you can get it for less money. (Specifically in my city, I don't think there is one private school that goes for less than $7000.)
Competition is fine, as long as it's judged fairly. Jeb Bush judges schools on standardized test scores, which, in my opinion, don't show anything about intelligence. Just to get a passing grade under Jeb's system (the tests aren't very well written, by the way), teachers have to spend half the year teaching to the test. School vouchers might work if the money weren't allocated based on standardized test scores.
Also, I'd like to reiterate that I wasn't necessarily for straight up giving more money to schools. The system definitely needs to be restructured so that it works more efficiently. For instance, teachers need more control over the money in a lot of schools.
P.S. It's great that you lived in Massachusetts, where education is an important issue already. It's also a smaller state, so the system is easier to manage.
PotPieMan
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RE: The most important issue for me in elections is:
by AgentM (Curate) on Nov 07, 2000 at 23:06 UTC
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I'd like to see more technological intelligence among the politicians. While Gore maybe gave some money to create the Internet, I doubt he actually knows what "an Internet" is. All the more reason to vote Larry For President.Paid for by the Larry Wall for President Committee. Not asscociated with Abdullah.
AgentM Systems nor Nasca Enterprises nor
Bone::Easy nor Macperl is responsible for the
comments made by
AgentM. Remember, you can build any logical system with NOR.
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(d4vis)RE: The most important issue for me in elections is:
by d4vis (Chaplain) on Nov 08, 2000 at 00:18 UTC
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I voted for "The morals the internet is pushing on our kids "...seriously.
I think it's an important issue only in the negative sense, ie. any politician that blames the internet for the 'moral decline' of America immediately earns my contempt.
I'm tired of pol's scapegoating the internet (or the media for that matter) rather than addressing the real issues.
Has America declined, morally, in the last dozen years? The last fifty? I don't know, but my sense is that it has not. It seems that many a pol who longs for the "good old days" convientiently forgets things like the relative unequality of women in the workforce (as well as society in general) widespread poverty, institutional racism, etc...
Either way, I think the 'net is more of a mirror to morality that a causal factor, but it's always easier to blame something when most of the population doesn't really understand it.
~monk d4vis
#!/usr/bin/fnord
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That is a great link! What a riot.
And proves your point quite elegantly. *smile*
Roy Alan
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Interracial marriage?? Shocking!
Premarital whats-that-you-say?? Shocking!
Where's my household butler robot, dagnabbit?
e-mail neshura
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Take a hint from the wackos
by TGI (Parson) on Nov 08, 2000 at 03:20 UTC
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I was talking with a friend recently, discussing our disgust at the level of current politics. She said that she was going do what the whackos do.
Extremist wackos, like the ones who bomb abortion clinics, have a simple method of pushing their issue.
- They vote in every election
- They vote based on one issue
- They work with like minded whackos to recruit others
So, maybe we should each pick one issue that we (individually) care about and persue it madly. I may try it and see if I'm any happier. What do you think?
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RE: The most important issue for me in elections is:
by amelinda (Friar) on Nov 08, 2000 at 01:26 UTC
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Where's "all of the above"?
Semiseriously, there isn't a single most important issue to
me... so I can't really answer.
Update: Er... there isn't a single {most important
issue}. I'm concerned about liberals spending our money
like it's water, and about conservatives sucking away
our rights like they're water, for starters. | [reply] |
RE: The most important issue for me in elections is:
by nop (Hermit) on Nov 07, 2000 at 22:59 UTC
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I got the first vote at Perlmonks today, so (for the moment at least) I am not only in the majority, I am the majority!
Seriously, just voted for real in the national and state election, and encourage everyone here of age to do the same....
nop | [reply] |
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Do so early, and do so often.
Don't blame me, I voted for Bill n' Opus!
Philosophy can be made out of anything. Or less -- Jerry A. Fodor
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RE: The most important issue for me in elections is:
by jynx (Priest) on Nov 07, 2000 at 23:58 UTC
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In concurrence with William Baldwin (author of
Bruno the comic strip, shameless plug ;), there is a
considerable lack of good voting candidates this election.
When did we go wrong so that we no longer vote for the best
candidate but the lesser of two evils?
jynx | [reply] |
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I expect it was when people got so caught up in listening to prognosticators do what they did. Seriously, if the media didn't say "well, you know it's going to be one of these two guys," it seems to me it wouldn't be such a foregone conclusion. I don't claim that the chicken came first, only that the chicken's presence acts to increase the likelihood of the egg's being created.
Philosophy can be made out of anything. Or less -- Jerry A. Fodor
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RE: The most important issue for me in elections is:
by bastard (Hermit) on Nov 08, 2000 at 19:53 UTC
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Doh!
I thought it was "Eradication" not "Education"!
Damn, better luck next time I guess. | [reply] |
RE: The most important issue for me in elections is:
by TStanley (Canon) on Nov 08, 2000 at 19:04 UTC
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My big issue is the readiness of the military. Having spent 10 years on active duty
I saw how many deployments and TDY (Temporary Duty) assignments that my friends did.
Not to mention, the military itself is approximately half the size that it was, before
Clinton came into Presidency. I felt that Mr. Gore is going to carry on the plans of his
predecessor, so I voted for Mr. Bush.
TStanley
There can be only one! | [reply] |
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