From: johniac@austin.ibm.com (John Iacoletti/100000)
Subject: Re: Football Failures at Bowie Force end of Season
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 92 00:48:00 GMT
Distribution: tx
Organization: IBM Advanced Workstations and Systems, Austin, TX
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]

fred j mccall 575-3539 (mccall@mksol.dseg.ti.com) wrote:
: In <1992Nov10.001336.13963@watson.ibm.com> johniac@austin.ibm.com (John Iacoletti/100000) writes:
: >No I don't, as a matter of fact.  And seeing as how "good citizen" is a value
: >judgement, I'd like to know how YOU define it.  Are you willing to tell me?
: 
: Examine your beliefs on how a libertarian world would work and then
: you tell me, John.

Why should I tell you what YOU think?  You're the one who introduced
the "good citizen" concept.  I'd like for you to define the term, please.

: I don't think extra-curricular football is of sufficient benefit to
: society (who are paying to run the schools and such) to warrant the
: costs,

But you support it anyway for the passing students.  Is that just to provide
behavioral leverage, or do you think there are other benefits to society?

: including the adverse impacts on the academics for all the
: other students.

This is the fatal flaw in your argument.  You have not shown that other
students are adversely impacted.  All you did was issue a stereotypical
assumption.

: If you agree that 'an educated populace is to the benefit of society'
: and that for that reason we can reasonably be expected to have to fund
: it (rather than just educating our own kids),

I remain unconvinced -- particularly at the secondary level.  I see a
diminishing rate of return in any case.

: I'm afraid you're going
: to have to explain to me how paying for someone to play football for
: four years, learn nothing,

Presumably they learn how to play football better at least.  That's not
"nothing".

: and hold back others by their presence at
: the same time fits into that argument.

There's that fatal flaw again.

:                                                       Time after
: school spent in football practice and time spent playing takes up time
: that could be spent working harder on the material they aren't
: getting.

Yes, but will it be?  How are you going to enforce that?

: Silly me.  Obviously if someone is getting good grades they
: are learning SOMETHING, even if it's only how to get over on tests.

Or how to cheat, or how to bribe the teacher, or ...

: >I think that negative reinforcement is counterproductive.
: 
: Then we should do away with prisons and penalties for violating the
: laws as well, right?

I don't think it's productive for the motivation to learn to be based in fear
of punishment.  I don't understand your prison analogy.  Would you beat your
children for getting bad grades?

: I sure hope you don't have any dogs, because you
: will NEVER housebreak them with that attitude.

I don't have dogs, but I don't want to treat other people like dogs.

: >I'm not particularly interested in you foisting your "puritan work ethic" upon
: >the masses.  Weren't you one of the people opposed to teaching ethics in
: >public schools?
: 
: Who's teaching ethics?  Hit the books or hit the road.  Is that an
: ethical position?

You want children in the public schools to be taught the principle of "having 
to do 'work' before you have 'fun'".  That is an ethic.

: And what do you propose when they can't earn a living and decide to
: make it by taking stuff from me?  Let them?  That's supporting them.
: Stop them?  That requires arresting them or shooting them (which
: requires burying them).  If you have another alternative, I'd like to
: hear it.

Why do you have to bury them?  If their families think it's necessary to plant
them in the ground then they can come get the body.  I can think of lots of
alternatives.  Sell the body to the zoo to grind up and feed to the animals,
sell the body to medical schools or organ banks.  I'm sure they would pay the
costs associated with removing the body.

: Please respond to what I actually write and not your preconceptions about
: where I seem to be coming from.

I DO respond to what you write.  You keep invoking this nebulous "libertarian"
set of doctrines, which you never define, and you argue against that instead
of what I'm writing.

: Gee, did all the remedial classes go away?  John, they teach reading
: and basic arithmetic WHERE I WORK.

When did you stop building killing devices and start working in a public high
school.  If you haven't, then what's the relevance?

: They had classes for them in high
: school (for folks who didn't get it earlier), too.

Not in my high school.  Is this pervasive in Texas?  Do they make all failing
football players take remedial reading and arithmetic, or just the ones who
are disrupting all the other classes?  What if they fail that too?  Make them
go to bed without dessert?

: You have some evidence that there is something to be gained by letting
: these kids play football for four years while flunking all their
: classes?

Something to be gained by who?  By the kids themselves?  It's certainly
possible.

: Yes, but in any free market there are costs, risks, and rewards.  You
: want to eliminate that and just let them pick any old thing for four
: years and pass or fail as they please, with no costs, risks, or
: rewards involved until well downstream.

But the downstream risks are the real ones.  You're setting up artificial
risks in order to limit people's choices about their own lives.

--
John Iacoletti       IBM AWS Austin       Internet: johniac@austin.ibm.com
        My opinions do not reflect the views of the IBM Corporation
    "Egad, a base tone denotes a bad age" -- TMBG   "I Palindrome I"
Newsgroups: tx.politics