Enhanced interogation

The typical argument for the use of so called "enhanced interrogation" which I will call by the non euphemistic name torture.  is lives are on the line and the CIA and military need to get information from terrorists as quick as possible- so why should we be concerned about their rights and humanity - with enough torture they will talk and give you the information you need to hear to diffuse a ticking bomb.
The fundamental flaw in this argument is that it is based on the notion that a terrorist would not lie in order to have the torture end- which is what history show happens.
In order to believe the ticking bomb argument- you should believe the following as well.
1. people in the late medieval period and Renaissance routinely made potions which allowed them to fly on brooms to attend orgies with Satan - these confessions were obtained after torture.
If you even suggest that people may have lied because they were looking for an escape is to invalidate the ticking bomb argument.
3. there was a massive infiltration of German saboteurs in the USSR in the Stalinist era.
2. The U.S. sent pilots into combat in Vietnam who were fresh out of ground school with only enough fuel for a one way flight- and the many other  lies American pilots told the guards at the Hanoi Hilton.
If there was a ticking bomb you want to get accurate information as quickly as possible not to allow yourself to follow a wild goose chase where the bomb explodes killing people because the leads were lies.

All lives matter

There are some articles I'm hoping originated from the onion-
http://reason.com/blog/2014/12/10/a-college-president-had-to-apologize-for#commentaddingblock
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/julia-craven/please-stop-telling-me-th_b_6223072.html
In this case it is people getting upset over Kathleen McCartney of Smith college tweeting all lives matter and saying such a tweet is culturally insensitive.

Such tweets strike me as racist-  as they sound like they want us to ignore other police shootings.

The people complaining will ask questions like 

the question that stands and begs the answer is, do black lives matter?

The answer is yes- as the category of all people does include black people. Any statement with the word all- means if there is one exception then it is false-so accept the fact we mean what we say.

Then they ask if we would have felt the same if the skin color was reversed- and my answer here is simple yes I would- and that is death is tragic and when police shoot people we must be willing to look at the evidence and be willing to hold the police accountable when they cross over the line.

I ask these people how do they feel about the Dillon Taylor case?  

Dillon Taylor was a 20 year old white man who had been shot by the police in Salt Lake City, Utah

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/58472404-78/taylor-cruz-hands-gill.html.csp

If they are upset over his death after reading about it- then they have proven all lives do matter however if they want to give any excuse that states that these three case should not be viewed with the same lens that is built on a notion that their is a difference in any of these due to skin color - then the complaint is racist.  

The usual line is that the relationship between the black community and the police is problematic at best. This might be true but it does not change the fact the cases should be looked at individually and the verdicts should be based completely on the evidence at hand. People might bring up issues like race relations- or the historically bad relationship between the police and black community these are important issues that need to be honestly discussed with people recognizing the fact the dream of the civil rights movement where people are judged by their character and not skin.

I refuse to make an exception/

GMO

At times it feels like I am one of the few people who believe in the free market when it comes to genetically modified organism.
There are plenty of post on the internet demanding GMO either get labled or flat out banned often times promoting the alleged superiority of organic foods. When discussing our food supply it is important to remmeber the following fact yield per acre and the amount of farm land needed to support the population has steadily increased as people switched from purely organic methods to modern methods.
At the grocery store- organicly grown food costs about twice as much non organic food. There are two possible reasons for this- either it costs twice as much to farm organically and a higher percent is tossed out or the market is rather small but filled with wealthy yuppies who allow themselves to be gouged.
I'm more inclined to believe the first- because unless there are laws that limit organic farming and make it essentially impossible to start an organic farm agricultural companies would be starting organic farms- to rake in the higher profits.
Some of the arguments for organically grown food are the following.
1.) they are healthier- there have been some studies that have brought this into question claiming there is not that much of a difference. Then there is the question about how healthy is a plant grown in manure ?
2. They are better for the environment- they will state pesticide use but ecosystem is affected by more than just pesticides and there is a possibility that the right GMO could result in in a plant that uses fewer chemicals.
As I am not an agricutluralist I can't say what is possible or what people are working on.
Nor do I know the full pros and cons of any given GMO.  The public needs real information- and not simple fear mongering by people who fear the advent of a new technology. The last thing would be a ban on all current and future GMO technology or laws that would ban alternatives.

Blow back

there is an old saying - no good deed goes unpunished. This expression is about the law of unintended consequences and what is often called blow back in political circles.
When ever you hear some one advocate a policy you must ask the simple question-
what is the worst thing that can happen if it is implemented?
For example when you hear a politician advocate that we get into the middle of some war- either by supporting one side or even sending in troops- you need to ask the following questions.
1.) What is the cause of the conflict and what is happening on the ground. This means looking at articles from outside the mainstream media and and taking everything with an ocean of salt.
The first casualty in war is the truth. Nothing is worse than a false narrative that is used to bring about war.
( so look at antiwar pages like
http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/
http://antiwar.com/
and others
)
2.) What are possible peaceful solutions being suggested- there are some politicians and pundits like Paul Wolferiz , William Kristol, Charles Krauthammer, John McCain and others who want to paint every conflict as the Munich accord in 1938- and view themselves as Churchill and who ever wants a peaceful answer as Chamberlain. The problem with this analogy is that it ignores what is happening now.  In my view the only thing worse than a major war that happens because a pacifists made the wrong call would be to have a major call because someone supporting a bellicose interventionist foreign policy made the wrong call. Since in the first- a lot of people died but you tried to prevent it. While the second the deaths could have been prevented- but a peaceful solution was not sought.
We take a look at Ukraine - what started the Ukrainian civil war was the EU and Russia's Eurasian customs union getting into a bidding war over Ukraine. The EU offered an association agreement and future membership provided they underwent some austerity measures in order to get their economic house in order the Russians promised them a major aid package and membership with out any strings.
the people in eastern Ukraine favor ties with Russia and and the west they favor ties with the EU and internal extremest combined with outside influences turned a trade dispute into a civil war.
If I had been in the EU when the Ukrainian government started accepting the Russian offer I would have been taking the approach of lowering trade and travel barriers against the Russian trade union so that both halves of Ukraine would have been able to get what they wanted.
3. ) what is the worse thing that can happen if things go wrong.- for example during the lead up to the Iraq war - I was opposed to it as Saddam Hussein had more or less a secular government and during the first gulf war he had plenty of opportunity to hit coalition troops and Israel with chemical weapons before January 17, 1991 but he did not do so. The simplest explanation in my view was Saddam Hussein believed doing so would possibly result in nuclear retaliation or at least the dismantling of his regime. In short- Saddam may have been simply evil or even crazy but he was not stupid.  Then more recently we have ISIS.  The US has been siding against asaad in the Syrian civil war. This has helped build up ISIS. There are one of two reason this happened- either the Syrian civil war has been a fight between Asaad and ISIS all a long with the US ignoring realities on the ground or ISIS rose to power because they are the most ruthless and well organized group in Syria and have exterminated all third options which are better.  Either way if we had stayed out- Asaad may have crushed ISIS years ago. The lesson here is some times the devil you know is better than the one you don't know.
4.) remember that there will never be utopia as long as the world is governed by fallible humans and there is only so much that anyone can do to combat evil with out being a source of evil oneself or grinding yourself to the ground. Empires tend to fall because they get overstretched and can't afford to defend the frontier. So if you feel you have the duty to intervene everyplace you will fall either from 10,000 paper cuts or one strong blow that you failed to react to as you were tied up with 10,000 pieces of paper.

Classical Education

Classical education is what existed in America and the western World in General, prior to the system that was established in the post WWII Era. It really began in Ancient Greece and Rome, was lost in the Dark Ages, then resurrected with the advent of the renaissance.

Classical education has a very, very high view of humanity and human potential. This makes perfect sense, considering that what we now call classical education was first developed by the Greeks who believed “Man is the Measure of All Things” and later adopted by Jewish and Christian Communities who believe as a foundational part of their world view that humankind is created in the divine image of God.

To the Classical Humanist, the world makes sense and the job of the educator is to equip the student with the skills and the knowledge foundation to discover that sense for themselves.

For that reason, Classical education emphasizes learning for learning’s sake, unlike modern public education, which focuses on assessment.

Classical Education places large emphasis on the liberal arts, language, literature, history, art, music, rhetoric, and philosophy, are key areas of study in any classical education curriculum, BUT math and science are also considered very, very important.

Another key hallmark of Classical education is that all subjects are taught with the connections between them acknowledged. Unlike in public schools, where beyond the most basic skills taught in the first few years, subjects are, for the most part, treated as wholly separate and having little or nothing to do with each other. This of course is simply not the reality. For this reason, classical students are not permitted to simply ignore one or more “non-essential” areas of study, but must gain a strong and stable foundation from all subjects on which they can build the rest of their educational lives beyond secondary school.

Classical students start learning foreign languages, often Latin and Greek, as early as first grade, not in high school.

The essential methodology of a classical education hinges on the Trivium

The Trivium was the foundation of classical education. The Latin word “trivium” refers to “the three paths,” which are grammar, logic, and rhetoric.

Grammar teaches us how to read and how to understand what we are reading, and it teaches us the rules for writing intelligibly, according to the rules of a particular language. The grammar stage, is applied to all subjects. This is when the bare necessities are taught, for reading, the grammar stage is when they are taught phonics and learning how to use context clues and other skills the students will need throughout the road ahead,

Logic teaches us how to think, how to reason analytically, so that we are not misled by fallacious arguments. As Aristotle said, “Some reasoning is genuine, while some seems to be so but is not” despite that there is “a certain likeness between the genuine and the sham.” The study of logic enables us to distinguish between the two. Logic, is the stage at which not only, do classical students continue to expand upon the facts and skills they acquired during the grammar stage, but this is the stage at which they begin to see connections and cause and effect relationships between facts and between subjects.

Rhetoric teaches us how to express ourselves, to convey information accurately and, most especially, to be persuasive in discussions. Aristotle put it in the following words: “Rhetoric may be defined as the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion.” And so, the Trivium arms the student with a thoroughgoing understanding of his language, the ability to reason critically, and the ability to express thoughts convincingly. Rhetoric is essentially the art of writing and speaking eloquently, of forming, presenting, understanding, and responding to arguments.

Net neutrality

The concept of Net Neutrality has been brought up by Obama and the FCC.
I am a techie- I am a webpage developer and a software development student at ITT.
These are my concerns with FCC mandated net neutrality
The idea behind Net Neutrality is that all internet traffic should be treated the same.
First with net neutrality- an ISP can not filter out content.
The problem here is the fact that some customers might want to have adult content filtered out and will net neutrality laws prevent this?
I know there are products like net Nanny that offer filtering on the client side but server side solutions can give users benifits like filtering out viri and possibly a faster internet connection sine you could be down loading a page from a proxy server located in your town instead of some web server located farther away that needs more hops.
Next an ISP can not give a specific sight a speed boost under net neutrality.
If a site like accounts for a large percent of internet traffic with out net neutrality an ISP could sell them a dedicated line could benefit consumers by speeding up the network over all as a netflix movie won't have to compete with cat photos on Icanhazcheezeburger.com
Then there is the fear that an ISP might try to throttle Netflix down so they can offer their own competing media service.
There are only two ways this scheme could work- first the ISP would have to be the only one in town in order to prevent people from seeing their friends get a faster Netflix connection and second Netflix would have to be kept in the dark.
There a few ways Netflix could counter- they could start their own ISP, change their business model and provide content and not a server.Also unless the company was clear on their network policies they could be sued since the average customer was expecting unfiltered internet.
If a neutral internet is what the public desires- then we should be asking- what are the hurdles to starting an ISP and will rules prevent people from getting a filtered internet if they wanted?
Is it simply it will cost tons of money- or are there any regulations that are hurdles. There is indication from Google Fiber that in some cities regulations are still a major issue-
http://www.broadbandforamerica.com/blog/regulatory-concessions-paved-way-google-fiber
Google isn't their name but also the size of their bank account so it only shows problems when you have the cash not how much cash is needed.
If some one wanted a filtered internet- and one that is clearly not neutral the issue that matters is how well the ISP communicates how they manage their network the option should not be removed.

Comparative Religious Education

First as an Orthodox Christian convert I have encountered quite a few people ignorant of my faith.
First there are the people who hear the word Orthodox even if it is followed by Christian who will think I am Jewish, next there is the occasional Catholic who seems to have no idea about the events of 1054 and call me an ignorant dunce when I call the Catholic church the second oldest in Christianity- because they only understood Christian history in the light of Catholics and Protestants and with out knowledge or consideration that their might be a third option.
Even though I have countered idiocy aimed at myself I support comparative religion classes out of concern for general knowledge and not specific incidents.
When I was in middle and high school- our school did cover a little bit of Islam and other religions when we covered different parts of the world.
This is important-as religion is important in shaping the philosophy, history and even art of the world.
The beliefs of Islam or any given religion is important for those who follow it.
Not covering these things turns school into an institution for propaganda and not education.
There are multiple ways to see the world- and an educated person will understand that fact and they would also understand that means learning that perspective is good in helping you learn empathy for others.

price Deflation- why It is a good thing

There are some ecconomists who believe that falling prices are an inherntly bad thing. They might defend this statement by pointing out some crash and recession or depression that lasted for years and make the claim it stayed that bad because prices remained low and if we just printed more money hen they might say inflation is good as it lowers real wages as seen in articles like this (http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/04/why-high-inflation-good-recession). One of the arguments about deflation being a bad thing is that people will put of purchasing things and this in turn would create a situation where people are "hoarding money" and simply cease to buying anything ever again as they know could get a given product cheaper if they waited.
The problem with the fears of money hoarding is that most people call it savings and view it as a good thing. They might try to say the difference is that money hoarding is putting your money in a coffee can while savings means putting it in the bank- in view where they put the money does not matter A lot of us have change jars and we use the money for gas or getting a soda. Then we get the notion that people will put off buying things for eternity. This is simply mistaken- first there are products we buy out of necessity like food. Next our desire for something- routinely our strips our desire to save money in the future.  An example here is the fact anyone is willing to buy a computer or other electronic device, because if you waited another year you'll be able to buy a better system for less than you are spending now. The computer industry didn't collapse due to constantly falling prices. This is because some times the short term benefits of a product are seen as benifical over the long term benefits of saving. In this case some one will pay $1500 for a computer not because they need that sort of a machine but because they want to play the latest video games.
So they'll use their money horde- or as I like to call it savings to buy a computer, car or what ever other product they want.
The only major difference I would expect to see in a world with falling prices over the one we have now- is people will make larger down payments and try to buy things, and be more apt to pay cash. As they would have the savings and the purchasing power of the payment will increase over time.
Then finally the last problem is that they assume that falling prices are always a bad thing and will point out depressions, recessions and economic panics as proof it must be stopped.
Prices fall because their has been an increase in supply relative to demand and this happens for one of two basic reasons- either there has been an economic crash where a lot of people have lost money making them less likely to go shopping. In this case the falling prices are the market trying to adjust to and recover from the disaster and the problem was the bubble and crash. The second reason is that new technology and good management results in prices dropping over all. This would be  good thing for the over all economy. It is built on the belief that if a company can figure out away to make a product cheaper they will pass the savings to consumers as lower prices lead to more customers and higher profits.
The reason I labeled this post as price deflation instead of just deflation is because there is an older definition of deflation and inflation that relate to the money supply. The old line the more of something there is the less valuable it becomes holds true with money as well as everything else.So if the money supply grew faster than the number of goods being produced prices will increase and inversely if the number of goods being produced increased and the money supply stayed the same prices would decrease.  I want to live in the second ecconomy where companies are making money by cutting prices as it is the world where you see standards of living increasing.

the debt- it reflects the cost of busines

 The reason we have a $17 trillion national debt is because politicians try promise people $4 trillion in government services while charging only $3 trillion in taxes.  The missing $1 trillion comes money printing and loans. Printing money and unless it get's paid back loans increase the money supply which devalues the money in your pockets.  Right the government is paying on loans with new loans. This is what the debt ceiling debate is always about.

There only way this will be solved would be to increase government revenues and decrease government spending.

For to many the notion of increasing government revenue = higher taxes. The simple problem with this formula Economists from the 14th century Arab writter Muqaddimah to the modern Arthur Laffer have pointed out there are plenty of examples where tax cuts that correlated with an increase in tax revenue and tax hikes that correlate to a decrease in tax revenue. 

While correlation =\= causation, the correlation does so there are a lot of variable that can effect economic growth and thus the tax revenue.  

Arthur Laffer accounts for this with something called the Laffer which basically states if taxes are to high you'll see a decrease in revenue and like wise if they are to low you'll see a decrease in revenue.

I'd contend that the goldielocks zone of taxes- is also dynamic as well as it is shaped by the policies of other nations. 

This is easy to explain- if you have two strip malls- the first one at 1776 North American, the other at 1867 North American- and they are nearly identical except for rent- and you are planning to open a business you will naturally go to the one with cheaper rent.

So raising taxes across is to be rejected flat out. Next we have the possibility of tax simplification  two of the examples that people like Art laffer will give to tax cuts leading to an increase in revenue are the JFK and Reagan tax reforms. In both cases eliminated loopholes and deductions and lowered the rates.  I would personally favor tax rates being as low as possible and the code being as easy to figure out as possible and the code to be as simple as possible.  So I believe a simple flat tax of 10% or so would be fair this is less then our current payroll with holdings. A lot of people claim the problem with a flat tax is that the wealthy need to pay their fair share of taxes. How ever the current system results in that- first we have people like Warren buffet who structure their lives to avoid taxes then there are figures showing that the some of the upper tax brackets pay a larger share of the tax burden than their share of the GDP in terms of income.  If we only had one tax bracket lets say 10% the tax system would be a lot more fair. I do not ask for some one else to pay more in taxes than I would want to pay myself- as that is asking someone else to pay my fair share. 

The Next issue that could result in more revenue by expanding business is regulation. The typical arguments for our current regulatory code come accross like they believe the code was handed down by God and that with out it- all the food in the local grocery store would contain arsenic and if we even consider repealing a single regulation society would break down and we'd live in a world like mad max.  There might be some good arguments for some regulations- but that does not mean all regulations are good ideas.
A few things to remember- first business don't stay in business if they poison their customers.  next the current regulatory code at least at the national level is written by the agencies tasked with enforcing the rules and thus have a vested interest in expanding the code and third regulations only apply to the jurisdiction for which they are written. So if it is to expensive to comply with a regulation a company will simply locate over seas which means a reduction in tax revenue.
The bare minimum I would like to see done with the regulations would start with the CBO to figure out the cost of business in terms of taxes and regulations in 1975- the last year we had a trade surplus and today. Then congress should go segment by segment voting on what should remain law and repealing the most expensive regulations. Our current process is unconstitutional and written with an inherent conflict of interest.
Also state and cities should be doing the same with their codes as well- there might be a good argument for a regulation against dumping toxic waste in the water as it clearly hurts people but does their really need to be a state cosmetology board regulating hair cuts?
I would also target regulations that only kick into effect once you get X number of employees- as they tend to strike me as being the type of regulations that were designed to stop companies from growing.
So combine regulatory and tax reform you will see more business open up and lower prices.
then we look as spending cuts.
I support cutting government foriegn aide it might be 1% of the total budget but it is  at least 4% of the budget deficit- and since it does not effect US tax payers that is 4% that should be easy to cut.
Next we have our overseas bases there may have been an argument for bases in Europe in the early years of the cold war but now there is not.
Then finally we have welfare- corporate and individual welfare, between the two I would like to see corporate welfare cut first. One of the programs I want to see cut the most are farm subsidies and price supports which are designed to increase the price of food and thus starve people.
As we see from this video from an ethanol lobbyist https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyNRl-YzX4Q arguing for the RFS because it increased corn prices.  Bio fuel might some day be a goo fuel source and I'll admit I do find the idea of growing fuel to be appealing but the only way it would happen would be if the market demanded it because it was cheaper than petroleum and not because it  was mandated by the government to appease the farm lobby. I've heard some claims running a car on hemp biofuel would cost about the same as using petroleum with a much lower carbon foot print. I don't know if these claims are true but even if they are not ending subsidies and allowing farmers to grow hemp would still help the average American. Even if corn prices remained the same their will be some use for the hemp which will lower other prices.
Then once these programs get cut you can look at reforming and cutting welfare and food stamps.
Cutting individual welfare programs flat out might be political suicide but they can also be the easiest thing to cut in the budget as long as you start with the question- how are government policies increasing the cost of living? I answer some of the ways above. We might be losing the midle class because of jobs disappearing. Some scream the whole reason is the cost of labor- Americans had a history of being the most well paid workers in the 20th century and we normally had a trade surplus until 1976.  So we have to look at the difficulty in starting up and running a business and how to reduce these costs. Once they are done the deficit and the debt will slide into place

13 Reasons Why: I have Lost Faith in Public Education

Personally (If I can avoid it) I don’t plan on putting any future children I may have in the public system. There are a number of reasons for this, which can be summed up in a very, simple statement: They’re failing. Then from that statement, we branch out into the various reasons, as far as I can tell, that they are failing.

1.      Public Schools in the United States today, miss the very point of education. Public schools, by and large, spoon feed children facts, formulas, and rhetoric, they tell they what to think, what to say, and how to act, but don’t teach them how to think, and commonly discourage them from using critical thinking skills to reason out for themselves what they think, how they should act, and what is truth and not, and how that is and/or should be determined. The point of education, historically never was, and should never have become to smelt identical gears for the proverbial economic and political machine. Rather the purpose of education, is to open up a child’s eyes and mind to the world beyond what they have themselves seen and experienced, to aid them in becoming thinking and productive global citizens, capable of not just living and surviving in this world, but capable of changing and shaping it for the better. Public schools in the United States actually have come to discourage that in modern times.

2.      The United States education system is WAY too assessment oriented. A child can fill in correct answers to questions on a bubble test based on the isolated and disjointed facts a school has filled his or her head with, and still not have a clue what any of it means or how it applies to the real world. Likewise, a child wise beyond their years, who sees and understands the connections and applications of what he or she has learned, may, for various reasons, not be able to show that on a bubble test. Bubble tests are only meant to measure parroting of memorized facts, not actual understanding, and yet this is what the government uses to measure how schools are doing.

3.      Public Schools are run by people who know nothing about education. Curriculum and school policy is determined by teachers unions, the leadership of which often make counter-productive anti-student policies, community elected school boards whose membership rarely have any knowledge or experience in education or psychology, and government entities who also tend to not know what they’re doing in education. None of these groups typically listen to input from actual educators and psychologists before making or changing policy.

4.      Also on that note: the current state of teacher tenure is such that even if he or she has outlived their usefulness to the students and the school, even if a teacher is downright terrible and utterly ineffective, if they have tenure it is next to impossible to fire them. While those without tenure, even if they are the best teacher in the world, can and will be the first to face the chopping block at the end of the year.

5.      Public schools teach and utilize an over-abundance of political correctness. They white-wash everything they can so as not to “offend” anyone. Contrary to popular rhetoric, they do not do this in order to build a “more inclusive community” or “prevent discrimination” it’s because they are deathly afraid of being sued by disgruntled parents and community members. This is also why, unless it is an Advanced Placement class, where the curriculum is determined, not by the school or the state but by the College Board, history is only ever taught through one slanted lens or another. The truth is that public schools discourage diversity because this fear of being sued, causes them to disallow the students, much less the staff, to exist on school property and be who they are. They send the subliminal message to children that it’s wrong to be an individual, to have a distinct identity beyond what society currently sees as desirable, and that the cultural, religious, and family backgrounds that make them who they are, are things to be ashamed of, things that should be hidden in the public space. All because they are too scared of being accused of violating the first amendment by encouraging REAL diversity, and being Truly inclusive, which I find both disturbing and incredibly ironic because it’s the same rights that are guaranteed by the first amendment that schools tend to strip away.

6.      Public schools neglect life skills that should be started much earlier until it is almost too late. It has been scientifically proven that it’s much easier for a child to learn a second or even third language when they are little and learning it (or them) alongside their native one. Likewise, it is much easier to teach keyboarding before a child has spent their first 15 years typing by the hunting and pecking method. The idea that these skills shouldn’t start being taught until middle or high school is just insane. The same is true for learning HOW to study, when children are taught metacognitive skills, (the ability to reflect upon what they did and how it worked out, then change their method for the next time if needed) is something that should be introduced before a child even reaches 1^st grade. If they are trained in this way the first several years of their educational lives, they will be much better off in secondary school and college.

7.      Public schools are ineffective, partially because many are simply too large and too crowded. Children get lost in the machine, teachers don’t have time to get to know them, or factor the skills and needs of their students into their delivery.

8.      Because public schools are subject to government oversight and funding, they are also subject to government budget cuts. What do they cut most often? Arts, Music, Foreign languages, and PE, they have proven this over and over again.

9.      Public Schools use tracking, in other words, a student whose test scores are high, whose grades are high, gets placed in a higher track, probably with AP and honors programs. A student with lower grades and lower test scores will be placed in a low track, which will not afford them the courses needed to get into a four-year university upon graduation. A student with low test scores, who excels in some classes, and struggles in others, may not be allowed to challenge themselves in the subjects they are good at, or if they can, will have to fight for the opportunity to take higher level courses in that area. It is time we stopping punishing the children for the system failing them, and held all our students to a high academic standard that will have them prepared for college by the time they leave high school.

10.  I touched on this somewhat with points 1 and 5, but it really needs to be said more directly. As much as some people in America would like to hide from this fact, we are NOT a monolithic, monoculture, mono-religious nation, and to be honest we never have been. To exist in functional harmony, to be able to live in a world where I can be me, you can be you, and the kind lady down the block can be herself, and yet we can still see each other as fellow human beings and fellow Americans, we need to understand each other. We need to have some level of understanding of who each other is, how each other sees the world, and why we are who we are. That comes with learning about what the doctrines, practices, and histories are of the various religions that have a significant presence in US, but public schools, by and large are reluctant to teach this, and I understand why, it’s because those brave schools who do quite often get a lot of backlash for doing that, both from anti-theist atheists and from religious fundamentalists, but honestly, stuffing the diversity that exists into a back closet and pretending, as a societally normalized pretense that we are all the same just doesn’t work. It doesn’t create a better, safer, more understanding, more cohesive society. Until we open our minds to look at one another and not see either an idiot or an enemy, we aren’t truly going to build ourselves back to greatness.

11.  When schools fail to produce “adequate test scores” for a few years, a number of incredibly stupid and counterproductive consequences follow, first of all, the school district in question gets a bad reputation that makes it that much more difficult to attract the really good, dedicated, qualified teachers that a school in that situation desperately needs. Second, the state starts to take control of the school and impose all kinds of new and arbitrary policies on it, knowing little or nothing about the school itself, the community, or the background and home lives the students are coming from; it’s basically a “let’s throw a wrench at it and see what works” kind of situation. Often what happens, is that art, music, and even more academic-based electives, along with everything else that school once did to make school interesting or at least bearable, get cut or squeezed out of most students’ course schedules in favor of beating the basics to death in class after class, all this really does is wear kids down and out.

12.  In many public school classrooms, teachers, who have themselves been taught to employ such methods, micro-manage the students too much. It doesn’t matter how a student solves a math problem as long as they answer it correctly and can understand and explain how they arrived at that answer, nor should a student for whom one section of the test was a breeze, be forced to wait to work on the next section until everyone else in the class catches up.

13.  Finally, public schools these days are way to politicalized, history is taught according to the lens of the current political flavor of the times, there are valid, academic questions that students are being told they can’t ask, most likely because either the answer is politically incorrect, or the simple act of answering that question in a public, government-run school, is considered politically incorrect. When it gets to the point that it’s directly affecting education on an individual student-teacher level…that’s a problem.

I’m not saying that public school can’t work, I’m not saying it’s a terrible idea, but the system we have is broken and corrupt and the problems are systemic. Throwing money at the problems that exist isn’t going to solve very much. We as a nation need to take an honest, and hard look at our current educational system… and rethink it down to its very core. Until we are willing to do that, have come up with and implemented real solutions, and real education is happening in these schools, I can’t help but see it as a train wreck, and not something I would ever, ever trust my children to. 

Why I am a Libertarian and What that Means

For those who don’t know, libertarianism is one of the four major schools of political thought, (Conservative, Liberal, Populist, Libertarianism)

Conservatism seeks to regulate human behavior but not regulate the economy.

Liberalism seeks to regulate the economy but not human behavior

Populism seeks to regulate everything

Libertarianism seeks to regulate as little as possible in general.

Libertarianism operates on two basic principles:

Non-Intervention: Unless someone is harming someone other than themselves with their actions, right or wrong, they should have the freedom to live and act as they choose without government pressure or interference. The government has no place making financial, medical, spiritual, educational, or relationship decisions for individual persons or regulating what a person wears, says, publishes, celebrates, or does as long as it is not causing harm to other people around them.

Non-aggression: If it’s not your problem, don’t try to solve it, the government should worry primarily about the well-being of its own people, and only get involved militarily when whatever is going on in another country is somehow a threat to our own national security.

Examples of Non-Intervention:

People can use birth-control, insurance can cover birth-control, but businesses shouldn’t be forced to offer plans that cover forms of birth-control that they don’t agree with.

Same-sex couples can live together, adopt children together, receive any and all legal rights, benefits and responsibilities that come with marriage, but it should be left up to the individual religious organization whether or not to accept and/or perform the marriage.

Examples of Non-Aggression:

It’s no concern of the American government what goes on in the conflicts between Russia and Ukraine because it has nothing to do with us.

It’s no concern of the American Government what happens in the disputes between Hong Kong and China, because it has nothing to do with us.

It IS the concern of the US government, along with others around the world, to help crush Isis because it, and other terrorist organizations DO pose a threat to national security.

It IS a concern of the US government, along with others around the world, to help combat the Ebola outbreak in West Africa because that IS a threat to National Security and the lives and health of American Citizens.

TO BE ABSOLUTELY CLEAR I am NOT saying that we, as American Citizens, and as World Citizens shouldn’t care that essential liberties are being stripped of people in certain countries around the world, or that a truly sad number of countries have significant populations living in absolute poverty and/or still lack basic infrastructure and sanitation. Just that those aren’t things the government should be the one trying to fix, rather it is us, us as citizens who should care about those things and working to help fix them through various kinds of activism and charity.  

Intro & Voting

For the sake of this and all future posts to this blog, you (my much appreciated readers) may call me Ana. Earlier this evening, I voted in my second election. This of course, got me thinking about politics and in general the many diverse and multifaceted issues that I, and many other young adults do actually care about. Thus, this is mainly the purpose of this blog, a place where I, will write and post articles on various issues that matter to me, and where, hopefully... they will serve as the catalyst for genuine, thoughtful, and productive discussions on the issues presented. 

Since I'm thinking about voting this evening, let's talk for a few minutes about why young people should register to vote, vote, and/or participate in political activities of some kind. The simple reason is, we need to be heard. No matter what your political beliefs are, if you don't participate in some form, whether by voting, running for office, protesting, or signing petitions for in favor of things you agree with, or to stop things that are being debated that you think are a bad idea, no one will hear your voice.