Rachel Maddow, Republicans and Tea Bags (NSFW)

[Darth Wong]

"Find examples of industrialized states which became successful without strong public education systems."

How about Victorian England? Sure, it had public education - but it was NOT run by the government. And it was fairly successful, I think you will agree.

Wrong. Victorian England is a primitive nation in the process of industrializing, not anything remotely resembling a modern industrialized nation. You're talking about an era in which you were considered "educated" if you knew how to read, moron. Any nation with Victorian levels of education across the board would be a miserable failure today.

You don't seem to have any comprehension of the enormous increase in the importance of formal standardized education over the last 200 years.

Now answer that point, as well as all of the others you've ignored. Your habit of simply ignoring 95% of points and producing half-baked answers for the other 5% is growing rather tiresome.

[Patrick Degan]

"Find examples of industrialized states which became successful without strong public education systems."

How about Victorian England? Sure, it had public education - but it was NOT run by the government. And it was fairly successful, I think you will agree.

Victorian England also featured extreme class stratification defined by those who could afford to go to "public" school and those who were literally left out in the cold and had only an illiterate life in the mines or the docks to look forward to as part of it's social reality. The fact that the United States, with it's public education system, caught up so fast to it in industrialisation and began to surpass England in industrial output, shows the superiority of a truly general-access educational system.

As of the date of that article, there were 41 admirals in the RN and 40 ships. Both numbers are matters of public record. I can't find any more recent data.

Your Google-Fu is pathetic, Grasshopper. I managed to find a far more recent link to the Royal Navy's own website in less than five minutes.

So, back to you, Mr. Degan. Apart from administering the money supply, the justice system, law enforcement and defence of the realm, what are those "essential services" that only government can be trusted with; and in any case, why for most of them does it have to be people directly employed by the State that actually provide them at the point of use?

Just off the top of my head —large-scale flood control engineering projects, river navigation projects, highway construction projects (more state level than Federal in many cases), rural electrification projects, public health and disease control services, the space programme (public and private effort), universal healthcare, social security (old age/disabled pension), food and drug safety inspection, workplace safety inspection, disaster relief, weather monitoring, seismic activity monitoring, firefighting services (state and local). Shall I go on? And the reason why most of these fuctions must be done under the aegis of the State is due to a) the fact that private industry either can't or won't involve itself, or would do so for much higher market rates for as little service as they can get away with providing; that b) due to a, it is necessary to ensure that functions which bear upon the general interest and benefit of the commonwealth are carried out on a regular schedule or as immediate necessity demand. Also that in the case of the large-scale engineering projects, the Federal government is far more likely to have the resources available and the budget to carry them out.

[Count Chocula]

The Federal Reserve is one reason why there haven't been more frequent and deeper depressions than what this country's experienced since it's creation by helping to guarantee bank liquidity. So yeah, it actually has worked out great, along with other innovations such as the FDIC and taking the currency off the gold standard. Try actually studying a subject you're going to blow your fool mouth off on sometime.

Hey here's a factual rebuttal for you, courtesy of the Minneapolis Fed: it takes $22.06 in 2009 dollars to purchase what could be had for $1.00 in 1913, the year before the Federal Reserve began operations. Here's a review of the purpose of the Federal Reserve, from their overview. Here's the first point:

Today, the Federal Reserve’s duties fall into four general areas:
• conducting the nation’s monetary policy by influencing the monetary and credit conditions in the economy in pursuit of maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates

The pursuit of stable prices and moderate long-term interest are listed as the first area of the Fed's duties. Perhaps you could explain to me how a 95% decrease in the purchasing power of our currency lends stability to prices.

[Patrick Degan]

The pursuit of stable prices and moderate long-term interest are listed as the first area of the Fed's duties. Perhaps you could explain to me how a 95% decrease in the purchasing power of our currency lends stability to prices.

Congratulations, moron, you've discovered the concept of long-term inflation. Which, no matter how much you like to think you've done so, demonstrates nothing. Or have you failed to notice how the whole wage/price structure has adjusted along with that rate of inflation over the course of a century?

ADDENDUM: Oh, and BTW, moron, part of monetary policy IS maintaining bank liquidity through reserve requirements:

.pdf link to the Federal Reserve Board's online guidebook

Reserve requirements have long been a part of our nation’s banking history. Depository institutions maintain a fraction of certain liabilities in reserve in specified assets. The Federal Reserve can adjust reserve requirements by changing required reserve ratios, the liabilities to which the ratios apply, or both. Changes in reserve requirements can have profound effects on the money stock and on the cost to banks of extending credit and are also costly to administer; therefore, reserve requirements are not adjusted frequently. Nonetheless, reserve requirements play a useful role in the conduct of open market operations by helping to ensure a predictable demand for Federal Reserve balances and thus enhancing the Federal Reserve’s control over the federal funds rate.

Requiring depository institutions to hold a certain fraction of their deposits in reserve, either as cash in their vaults or as non-interest-bearing balances at the Federal Reserve, does impose a cost on the private sector. The cost is equal to the amount of forgone interest on these funds—or at least on the portion of these funds that depository institutions hold only because of legal requirements and not to meet their customers’ needs.

[J]

As an aside, the Federal Reserve was created on Wilson's watch, a clear delegation of Congressional powers to a private entity (though responsible to Congress, in theory). Yeah, that's worked out great...not.

It worked quite well until "Easy Al" Greenspan & other key members of the board was co-opted by the Goldman-Sachs mafia in the early 90's. Which led to all rules of prudent lending & banking practices being thrown out the window in the pursuit of profits along with turning a casual blind eye to widespread fraud and Enron accounting.

[Surlethe]

Who gives a shit about long-run inflation? Chocula, the Fed's duty is not simply to long-run price stability, but also to keeping unemployment at its natural rate in the short-run. 2% annual inflation is not a particularly big deal over a person's decision-making horizon unless they're particularly anal-retentive - the problem with inflation is when people have to take its effects into account when they're making one- or two-year decisions, and low-level long-run inflation's effect is not significant.

[Darth Wong]

Chocula thinks the Federal Reserve is a failure if it cannot achieve ZERO PERCENT INFLATION every year? Is he for real, or is he a parody of right-wingers?

[Patrick Degan]

Is he for real, or is he a parody of right-wingers?

In recent years, it's sort of been hard to tell the difference.

[Surlethe]

Well, the Fed could achieve an average of 0% inflation; I don't know why anyone (aside from Austrians and hardcore monetarists) would want that, though. Sticking to 0% inflation has a load of consequences, like the total inability to alleviate the business cycle and less investment spending.

[kinnison]

"Find examples of industrialized states which became successful without strong public education systems."

How about Victorian England? Sure, it had public education - but it was NOT run by the government. And it was fairly successful, I think you will agree.

Wrong. Victorian England is a primitive nation in the process of industrializing, not anything remotely resembling a modern industrialized nation. You're talking about an era in which you were considered "educated" if you knew how to read, moron. Any nation with Victorian levels of education across the board would be a miserable failure today.

You don't seem to have any comprehension of the enormous increase in the importance of formal standardized education over the last 200 years.

Now answer that point, as well as all of the others you've ignored. Your habit of simply ignoring 95% of points and producing half-baked answers for the other 5% is growing rather tiresome.

Yes, formal education is now extremely important - which still doesn't answer the question of why it has to be the government doing it.

An increasing problem, in the UK and the US alike, is the increasing number of people who come through 11 years of formal schooling unable to read and do basic arithmetic, never mind anything more complex. This may have something to do with such wonderful ideas as making it against the rules to mark pupils down for basic errors in spelling and grammar - in ENGLISH tests and exams - as long as "he/she has made his/her point". It may have something to do with the elimination of times tables from the curriculum, and it may have something to do with the virtual impossibility of doing anything about disruptive pupils in class. In other words, it may well have something to do with PC.

Listen up, kids. Take any activity you care to name, and there is someone else better than you at doing it. That's life. 50% of people are below average by any standard you care to set. That's life. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. That's life, and stop whining about it.

The refusal to acknowledge such obvious basics as the above is part of the reason why state schools in the UK almost always lose in the exam success league tables to Christian faith schools, and why parents who actually care about their kids' education lie and cheat to get them into such schools - for example, parents who attend church regularly until their kids are in the local C of E school and then are never seen again in church are a well-known phenomenon.

The problem is schools run under a system in which left-wing "educationalist" dogma is more important than actually educating the kids. And it is overwhelmingly more of a problem in state-run schools. At least in the UK.

Grade inflation and far too many people going to university, with the associated dilution of standards, are related problems, but this post is already long enough.

[Surlethe]

Yes, formal education is now extremely important - which still doesn't answer the question of why it has to be the government doing it.

If you entirely privatise education, then success in life will be directly and strongly correlated to the wealth of the parents, which corresponds to quality of education. To alleviate this inequality and provide everyone with an equal starting point is the purpose of public education.

[Akhlut]

So, Kinnison, you want old pensioners to be disenfranchised and the bank execs who ruined the world economy to still vote, right?

What would you do if as soon as your poll tax is hypothetically enacted, the remaining voters decided to eliminate it and give the franchise back to everyone who could get it prior to the poll tax?

Further, if the people vote in socialism, what would you do about it?


As for privatized education: without extreme government regulation, it would soon get to be retarded, as corporations would probably mostly use their schools to train people to work solely for them and brainwash them completely into becoming their serfs as best as possible.

Plus, I'd really, really, really like some numbers showing how widespread the problem you speak of have become and how much they have increased in the past, oh, 30 years, say.

[Styphon]

It's hilarious, but it's really not surprising that most people wouldn't know what teabagging is. It's only Internet-savvy types who know the term. My wife wouldn't have the slightest idea what "teabagging" is, even though she's partially performed it (I don't know how you're supposed to get your entire scrotum into someone's mouth).

I hate to mention it, but the movie Soul Plane rather explicitly mentions tea-bagging, so we can add the morons who liked it to the list of people who would understand the term.

And I've seen a man fit his entire scrotum into a girl's asshole, so I imagine the mouth can't be all that hard by comparison.

[Terralthra]

Yes, formal education is now extremely important - which still doesn't answer the question of why it has to be the government doing it.

An increasing problem, in the UK and the US alike, is the increasing number of people who come through 11 years of formal schooling unable to read and do basic arithmetic, never mind anything more complex. This may have something to do with such wonderful ideas as making it against the rules to mark pupils down for basic errors in spelling and grammar - in ENGLISH tests and exams - as long as "he/she has made his/her point". It may have something to do with the elimination of times tables from the curriculum, and it may have something to do with the virtual impossibility of doing anything about disruptive pupils in class. In other words, it may well have something to do with PC.

Listen up, kids. Take any activity you care to name, and there is someone else better than you at doing it. That's life. 50% of people are below average by any standard you care to set. That's life. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. That's life, and stop whining about it.

The refusal to acknowledge such obvious basics as the above is part of the reason why state schools in the UK almost always lose in the exam success league tables to Christian faith schools, and why parents who actually care about their kids' education lie and cheat to get them into such schools - for example, parents who attend church regularly until their kids are in the local C of E school and then are never seen again in church are a well-known phenomenon.

The problem is schools run under a system in which left-wing "educationalist" dogma is more important than actually educating the kids. And it is overwhelmingly more of a problem in state-run schools. At least in the UK.

Grade inflation and far too many people going to university, with the associated dilution of standards, are related problems, but this post is already long enough.

Add "red herring" on to the list of logical fallacies you've committed. Pointing out a particular problem with one particular public education system does not indict the overall concept.

[Darth Wong]

Yes, formal education is now extremely important - which still doesn't answer the question of why it has to be the government doing it.

It fits the criteria I laid out earlier, and which you ignored (as usual, for any point you can't answer).

Listen up, kids. Take any activity you care to name, and there is someone else better than you at doing it. That's life. 50% of people are below average by any standard you care to set. That's life. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. That's life, and stop whining about it.

Who the fuck said I or anyone else here is whining about the difficulty of school, you stupid asshole? Why do you even bring up such a complete red-herring? I'm in the top two percentile of academic performance. I graduated from the best engineering school in the country. I'm sure I could wipe the floor with you, academically speaking.

This is not grade envy speaking; it is an understanding of what society needs, not just what I personally need. I know it's hard for a pathologically selfish person such as yourself to think that way because you've probably never done it before in your life, but please make the effort.

The refusal to acknowledge such obvious basics as the above is part of the reason why state schools in the UK almost always lose in the exam success league tables to Christian faith schools, and why parents who actually care about their kids' education lie and cheat to get them into such schools - for example, parents who attend church regularly until their kids are in the local C of E school and then are never seen again in church are a well-known phenomenon.

Yeah, I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that the state schools are obligated to take everyone, including the kids of new immigrants and welfare bums who don't even give a damn about education and transmit that attitude to their kids, right? I would point out that you're ignoring uncontrolled variables in your idiotically simple cause-and-effect correlation, but I'm afraid those words would fly over your head.

The problem is schools run under a system in which left-wing "educationalist" dogma is more important than actually educating the kids. And it is overwhelmingly more of a problem in state-run schools. At least in the UK.

See above, moron.

Grade inflation and far too many people going to university, with the associated dilution of standards, are related problems, but this post is already long enough.

Funny thing; the same grade inflation trend occurs in universities, which people pay their own money to attend. Care to explain that? Of course not; it doesn't fit into your dogma so you ignore it. Just as you ignore everything you can't handle, like the proper method for supporting an argument.

[Thanas]

That's life. 50% of people are below average by any standard you care to set. That's life. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. That's life, and stop whining about it.

I dismiss your entirely arbitrary set of standards and judgement and demand that you argue the point at hand.

Oh, and either put up your evidence that backs up your interpretation of history, or concede the point. I am getting quite tired of reminding you.

[Darth Wong]

Plus, I'd really, really, really like some numbers showing how widespread the problem you speak of have become and how much they have increased in the past, oh, 30 years, say.

The grade inflation trend appears to be real. I read a Maclean's article about it a few months ago. The ironic thing is that it actually proves the exact OPPOSITE of what Kinnison thinks it proves, because grade inflation is customer-driven, not caused by "left-wing educationalist dogma" as he so absurdly puts it. Parents become angry when their students get poor grades, and schools try to give the parents what they want. That's why private schools have the same grade inflation problem as public schools; you don't see private school students coming out of school with brutally low grades. They generally score better on academic performance, but that's because of other reasons, not because they are somehow immune to the grade inflation trend. Kinnison, as is typical for someone who clearly has zero scientific background or aptitude, is obviously mixing and matching different trends and facts together into a kind of trend soup, with no real concern for variable control or establishment of cause and effect.

In fact, in order to enforce a much harsher regime on school grades, I suspect you would need to go the other way from what Kinnison thinks, and have a more autocratic system in place which is less responsive to parental input. Indeed, if we look at the school system 30 years ago, that is precisely what we see: the system was more authoritarian, and less responsive to parents' wishes.

[Rye]

Faith schools get much more lax rules in regards to who they have to take on and who they keep on, as well as having the obvious ritual means of population control. I went to a faith school and a state school (which, it should be noted, have an act of christian worship every week anyway) and saw it first hand. Disobedience is a lot easier to punish and discipline is in general of a higher standard in faith schools. There's no reason this couldn't be applied in state schools, it just needs pretty much what Mike said and a better means of dealing with the little bastards in the classes, which were easily the biggest problem when I was there.

[Stark]

In AU private schools often have entrance exams, which handlily makes the idea of comparing the two student bodies utterly ridiculous.

[kinnison]

"I'm in the top two percentile of academic performance. I graduated from the best engineering school in the country. I'm sure I could wipe the floor with you, academically speaking."

Maybe. Perhaps you ought to bear in mind, however, that I'm a Cambridge graduate and a member of MENSA; although my debating skills are a little rusty through disuse. Incidentally, as it ought to have been easy to recognise, the little speech was not aimed at you or indeed at anyone in particular; it was a summary of the way I (and many others) think children ought to be taught. A child will not benefit by continually being told how wonderful he is, especially if he is objectively not. Instilling a sense of realism in a child at an early age is a very good idea. You don't have to be brutal about it.

Also note that this is on a case-by-case (or subject by subject) basis. I know many people who are utterly useless at one thing and brilliant at another, and children ought to be told if that is the case, and taught accordingly, and given career advice accordingly. Speaking personally, I can't draw a straight line but can follow scientific arguments with the best of them, as an example.

A much better example is someone who has recently and very suddenly become famous - Susan Boyle. Apparently she is hardly academic; in fact she has learning difficulties, having been starved of oxygen at birth. However, she has been looking after her mother 24/7 for two decades or more, and of course has an utterly transcendent talent - and it is a great pity, for her and the rest of us, that it wasn't discovered many years ago.

There is the huge difference in emphasis in the educational system in the UK between academic and practical skills. Training in the building-related trades, plumbing and car maintenance, for example, takes a back seat to academic pursuits - and within academic pursuits between the "hard" subjects like physical sciences and engineering on the one hand (backseat), and "soft" subjects like media studies and sociology on the other. The result is predictable; a shortage of scientists, engineers, mechanics, plumbers and plasterers and a glut of media studies "graduates".

One can speculate as to the causes of this, but perhaps one reason is that in the soft subjects waffle and bullshit can get you a long way, whereas it can't in engineering for example. Build a bridge without knowing what you're doing and it falls down - write literary criticism in the same circumstances and who the hell is going to know?

Finally, the 50% thing. Perhaps I put it badly. Let's try again. Take any randomly chosen measure of ability in any sphere - strength, running speed, IQ, drawing ability (measuring this might be difficult), reaction time, hand-eye coordination, it really doesn't matter which. For any one of these measurable abilities, 50% will be below average. That's just the way it is.

[RedImperator]

The problems with the US educational system are undeniable; I've posted many times about the systemic problems within the US system. Going to an all-private model, however, won't solve any of them. We had an all-private model in this country before public education became universal, and the result was exactly what you'd expect: education as a privilege for the children of the rich. Not to mention, people identify flaws in the US system by comparing standardized test performance with other countries, where we typically do quite poorly. Fair enough, but since none of those countries have an all-private system either, I don't see how adopting one in the US is supposed to make us competitive with them.

[kinnison]

Destructionator, want me to post scans of my degree certificate and membership card?

You're right. Sort of right, anyway; there are three commonly-used averages (arithmetic mean, median and mode) and I could have meant any of them. If using the median, the 50% figure is by definition. Whether the 50% figure applies to the other two averages depends on the distribution you are looking at - and most measurable human base abilities (those not heavily dependent on training) fall roughly into a normal distribution, for which the same applies to the mean as the distribution is symmetrical. Whether the 50% figure applies to the mode is a moot point, but for a normal distribution the mode is very close to the mean as a rule.

For human base abilities, there is a subtle distortion in the figures (I suspect). I haven't actually seen, recently, a real-world graph of any given country's citizens' IQ plotted against numbers, for example; but I suspect that for most countries there is an excess of people at the lower end of the scale, given the presence of congenitally handicapped people in the population (for example, those with various genetic abnormalities and those damaged by the prenatal environment). If this is the case then more than 50% will be below the mean.

A rather trivial example of the distorting power of statistics is this: Considerably more than 90% of the population have more than the average number of legs. Think about it, assuming that the mean is what is meant.

Skewed distributions are an interesting and important subject. Take your example of income, which is well made. Politicians tend to use the statistics that suit them. For example, a politician trying to show that Americans have a high income will use the arithmetic mean, which is massively distorted by the presence of billionaires. The median is much more appropriate here.

This rather esoteric statistical point is one of the small reasons why education is important; after all, if you don't teach someone statistics he can't follow this discussion.

My take on education; pay for it if you can, get vouchers to be used where you want to if you can't. Bureaucracy and PC eliminated.

[Darth Wong]

"I'm in the top two percentile of academic performance. I graduated from the best engineering school in the country. I'm sure I could wipe the floor with you, academically speaking."

Maybe. Perhaps you ought to bear in mind, however, that I'm a Cambridge graduate and a member of MENSA; although my debating skills are a little rusty through disuse. Incidentally, as it ought to have been easy to recognise, the little speech was not aimed at you or indeed at anyone in particular; it was a summary of the way I (and many others) think children ought to be taught. A child will not benefit by continually being told how wonderful he is, especially if he is objectively not. Instilling a sense of realism in a child at an early age is a very good idea. You don't have to be brutal about it.

Even assuming your claims are true (something I'm frankly not inclined to do), it's plainly obvious that you have zero scientific skill or aptitude, since you have been repeatedly challenged to back up your claims and you never do so except to repeat yourself. You would have gotten your ass flunked hard in any reputable school for pulling that shit on an assignment, unless you took some kind of idiot course like "Communication".

Also note that this is on a case-by-case (or subject by subject) basis. I know many people who are utterly useless at one thing and brilliant at another, and children ought to be told if that is the case, and taught accordingly, and given career advice accordingly. Speaking personally, I can't draw a straight line but can follow scientific arguments with the best of them, as an example.

Bullshit. You have failed to demonstrate that you even understand the concept of a controlled comparison.

A much better example is someone who has recently and very suddenly become famous - Susan Boyle. Apparently she is hardly academic; in fact she has learning difficulties, having been starved of oxygen at birth. However, she has been looking after her mother 24/7 for two decades or more, and of course has an utterly transcendent talent - and it is a great pity, for her and the rest of us, that it wasn't discovered many years ago.

Totally irrelevant to scientific aptitude, which requires abstract thinking skills that you have not demonstrated.

There is the huge difference in emphasis in the educational system in the UK between academic and practical skills. Training in the building-related trades, plumbing and car maintenance, for example, takes a back seat to academic pursuits - and within academic pursuits between the "hard" subjects like physical sciences and engineering on the one hand (backseat), and "soft" subjects like media studies and sociology on the other. The result is predictable; a shortage of scientists, engineers, mechanics, plumbers and plasterers and a glut of media studies "graduates".

One can speculate as to the causes of this, but perhaps one reason is that in the soft subjects waffle and bullshit can get you a long way, whereas it can't in engineering for example. Build a bridge without knowing what you're doing and it falls down - write literary criticism in the same circumstances and who the hell is going to know?

And what does any of this have to do with the stupidity of your behaviour in which you repeatedly state social mechanisms as fact without providing a shred of evidence?

Finally, the 50% thing. Perhaps I put it badly. Let's try again. Take any randomly chosen measure of ability in any sphere - strength, running speed, IQ, drawing ability (measuring this might be difficult), reaction time, hand-eye coordination, it really doesn't matter which. For any one of these measurable abilities, 50% will be below average. That's just the way it is.

And how does this justify your idiotic notion that a private school system makes public schools unnecessary?

The fact is that you do not argue like a person who understands the scientific method. You can tell us you are well-educated, you can tell us you're a MENSA member, you can claim that you can "follow scientific arguments", but you do not justify your claims the way a scientifically inclined person would. You actually flat-out ignore rebuttals where people point out uncontrolled variables in the comparisons you use as proof of your position. You stink to high heaven like a bluffer and a liar.

[Patrick Degan]

Yes, formal education is now extremely important - which still doesn't answer the question of why it has to be the government doing it.

You're an idiot. The goverment, unlike private entities, is the one agency which would guarantee universal access to education instead of allowing it only to those who can afford to pay for whatever the market will bear. As it is in the direct interest of any nation to have a literate, educated workforce, this makes education a utility, not a commodity or a privilege to be doled out only to those with money. That is the reason for a public (re: social) educational system, so that everybody's child has a shot and not only those with wealth.

[kinnison]

Mr Wong: I could take several hours picking apart your responses to what I've said, but I have a better idea. Before I express it, I might say that I have spent the better part ot three decades picking apart poorly controlled studies, and I am rather good at comprehending the concept and operation of a controlled study. Unfortunately, it is a fact that "controlled" studies are in a large proportion of cases either counterproductive, or unethical, or both. Many medical trials, for example, have holes that (to use an old-fashioned simile) one could drive a coach and horses through, the usual sticking point being sampling bias.

Add this to the fact that you have made personal attacks on me; on my personal integrity, intelligence and honesty at the very least, and have made arguments that have little or no (mostly no) relevance to what I've said in the post to which you are supposed to be replying at any given time.

Having due consideration to your status as a board moderator on this site, nevertheless I'll give the Terminator response - FUCK YOU ASSHOLE! I'm done with this thread. I'd like to remind you that it's usually a good idea, before threatening someone with a gun, to make sure it's loaded.