From: mccall@mksol.dseg.ti.com (fred j mccall 575-3539)
Newsgroups: tx.politics
Subject: Re: Football Failures at Bowie Force end of Season
Date: 7 Nov 92 12:52:30 GMT
Distribution: tx
Organization: Texas Instruments Inc

In <1992Nov07.000322.33553@watson.ibm.com> johniac@austin.ibm.com (John Iacoletti/100000) writes:

>fred j mccall 575-3539 (mccall@mksol.dseg.ti.com) wrote:
>: You've made the claim that "no pass - no play" is bad.  You haven't
>: yet shown that it is.

>I'm not saying it's bad.  I'm saying it's irrelevant.

Well, according to what the commission that recommended it found, you
would be wrong.  Or do you think they just said, "Hey, I've got an
idea.  Let's not let 'em play sports if they're failing.  Well, no, it
doesn't seem to bear any relationship to anything, but it's fun to
make up arbitrary rules."?

>: Horseshit.  There's no reason a football player can't be a good
>: citizen.  There is EVERY reason to believe that someone who ONLY knows
>: how to play football probably will be a bad and unproductive citizen.
>: What is the logic of everyone paying for education if it doesn't make
>: them better citizens, John?

>I get a little worried about this "good citizen" standard of yours.  Sounds
>a little 1984-ish to me.  Just because Fred McCall doesn't like football, 
>it doesn't mean that football players don't contribute to society.  And anyway,
>if someone isn't "productive" (whatever that means -- presumably someone who
>builds devices that kill people is "productive"), that's his business.  He
>doesn't owe his "productivity" to anyone else.  I'm curious.  In your opinion,
>what is your definition of a "good citizen"? 

Worry away.  Don't YOU know the difference between a good citizen and
a bad one, John?  You must not, since you seem to be dragging things
out of what I say that make absolutely no sense at all.  Where, for
example, do you get the idea that I "don't like football", for
example?  

The difference between our outlooks, John, is that you want to let
that kid go through school learning nothing, and then later say "fuck
him" when he can't make it because he never learned either any of the
academic material or any of those principles like having to do 'work'
before you have 'fun'.  He is somehow immaculately going to become
'not a problem'.  Under your view, we should simply go back to
privately funded schools where everybody pays for their own child, and
screw anyone who can't afford it.  Social Darwinism at its best.

>: >Are you saying that the purpose of the educational system in this country 
>: >should be to act as farm clubs for ANY public or private employer?

>: No.

>Then why is it relevant what somebody's "odds" are at getting a job in his
>chosen field?

Because, John, if they can't make a living I'm faced with the choice
of having to either support them, arrest them, or bury them (or
perhaps some combination of those).  This isn't true in that little
libertarian dream world you seem to be coming from, but people who
didn't learn how to DO anything don't simply go away.  They become
problems for the rest of us, even under that social Darwinism that you
favor. 

>: More horseshit.  John, those people serving meals in restaurants can
>: generally do basic arithmetic and read, believe it or not.  So can the
>: typical mechanic.

>Believe it or not, people learn how to read and do basic arithmetic in 
>elementary school.  If they don't, then "no pass-no play" in high school isn't 
>going to make a damn bit of difference.  It's too little and too
>late.

Well, John, it seems that a lot of them DON'T learn those things in
elementary school.  And I thought you were insisting that education
isn't a window that slams shut, so why is it too late for them to
learn it later on?

>But it's a lot easier to blame football for all of the world's problems than
>to think.

No, it's easier to NOT think and just let things continue on as they
were, including letting people who ara failing CURRICULUM to continue
to participate in EXTRA-CURRICULAR activities.  This flies in the face
of all that 'free market forces' jazz that you espouse, since it tells
them they can have the 'good' part (the rewards) without doing the
part that they're supposed to be doing (the curriculum).  Hey, just
consider No Pass - No Play as the first warning step toward No Pass -
No School (and hence no chance to start passing so you can play).  Or
do you also housebreak dogs by shooting them?

-- 
"Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to live
 in the real world."   -- Mary Shafer, NASA Ames Dryden
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Fred.McCall@dseg.ti.com - I don't speak for others and they don't speak for me.