From: scottj@magic.dml.georgetown.edu (John L. Scott)
Subject: Re: Education and the Environment by Gregory A. Smith
Followup-To: rec.arts.books
Organization: J. Random Misconfigured Site
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 20:35:24 GMT
X-Posted-From: iamac-1.dml.georgetown.edu
NNTP-Posting-Host: sol.ctr.columbia.edu

In article <1993Jan8.192643.6165@cheshire.oxy.edu>, athena@cheshire.oxy.edu
(Staci Ann Waldroop) wrote:

> Yes, I can ask for more. I can ask that people take responsibility for others.
> In my own opinion, we are all in some sense tied together and the success of 
> our society depends upon a heathy relationship.  When you concern yourself 
> solely with yourself and your family, then I do call it "burying their heads
> in the sand."

I take full responsibility for my own actions and none for anybody else. 
That is only right, since my actions are the only that I have any control
over.  For me to take responsibility for the actions of others, I would
need some control over those actions, and to have that, I would need to be
able to initiate (or threaten the initiation) of force.  That, to me, is
immoral.

> The policies you say you support are fine, but how do you 
> support them?  My arguments extend not just to education, and I do not mean to
> attack you personally. The entire society needs to look in upon itself and try
> to discover why, as so many tell us, we are falling apart at the seams.  One 
> can easily say "I support educational reform" or "I support the movement to 
> save the rainforests." I simply want to know if that is as far as it goes...so
> what? you support it--WHAT ARE YOU DOING????  Do you get my meaning?  

Perfectly.  I have no need to justify myself to you.  If you want to assume
that I am doing nothing for the causes I believe in, that is your
privilege.  If you want to assume that I am a full-time activist for the
causes I believe in, that too is your privilege.

> I go to a very small, very private college that is trying to change itself and 
> the people who go here by exporing Multiculturalism.  Perhaps this is where my
> anger lies...seeing loads of rhetoric, but few (peers) who actually seek to 
> use multiculturalism as a tool to strengthen the college community.  If asked,
> probably 9 of 10 students here will say they support just about every PC 
> cause you could think of, but when pressed will admit that they arent involved
> in any way in the process of change. This is what, IMOHO, needs to be changed.

If people want to have pride in their ethnic heritage, thats fine with me.
 I, however, refuse to deal with people as anything other than individual
human beings.  I judge people solely on the contents of their characters
and not by who their ancestors were and what their ancestors did or had
done to them.  My children will know that is how their father deals with
people, and I hope they will choose to do the same.

Furthermore, I feel no pride in being a WASP or in any of my heritage. 
Neither do I feel any shame.  It simply has no bearing.  I hope my children
will also judge themselves solely on the contents of their characters and
not by who I or their mother are, nor by what we do.

> If you are [not] doing something besides just withdrawing your students from
> traditional educational environment, then, though it may be the best for your
> kids, *I* say that you *are* ignoring your responsibilities to your fellow
> human beings.  

"[T]hough it may be the best for [my] kids," I should forgo homeschooling
in favor of satisfying my "responsibilities to [my] fellow human beings." 
What you are suggesting is that I sacrifice my children for the good of
society.  I do not think that is moral.

From your earlier posts, I gather that you believe homeschooling should not
be allowed, because we should all stay in the school system and work to
make it better for everybody.  Please correct me if I am wrong about that.

Whether or not it is the one you take, I think that stand is immoral
because it is based on the initiation (or the threat of initiation) of
force.  You (presumably) want to *force* me to leave my kids in the
government schools in order to *coerce* me to work to change those schools.
 In effect, my children would be hostages to the system, with my labor as
the ransom.  Actually, prisoners would be the more accurate term, since no
amount of "ransom" would release them.  The best I could hope for is to
marginally improve the prison conditions until their sentences were up. 
I've put it strongly, but I think this is the moral character of this
proposal.

Since almost all parents do send their kids to public school, and since the
schools are currently in a sorry state, your plan doesn't work anyway.

--John L. Scott
From: daq@hpfcso.FC.HP.COM (Doug Quarnstrom)
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 21:45:12 GMT
Subject: Re: Re: Computers not a substitute for books
Organization: Hewlett-Packard, Fort Collins, CO, USA