My Ideas for American Renewal

[vyo476]

I don't see that abolishing public schooling will improve the educational quality of the country. Private schools are good in part because they're able to keep out the rabble. If they're made to accept said rabble (which will presumably be the case if public schooling is abolished), their quality will no doubt decline.

There's something of a dilemma I see in this statement. One of the general precepts of the country is free public education for all - based on the premise that all people are entitled to an education (I'd call it a "right to education" but that'd probably start a whole big thing in and of itself). The dilemma is that ensuring the quality of private institutions by excluding the "rabble," as you put it, also ensures the lack of quality in public institutions. Basically - what's the point of ensuring that everyone gets an education if only the ones who probably aren't going to use it for much of anything are utilizing the public system?

Heavy reform of the system is more likely -- beginning with, as you mentioned, doing away with teachers' unions

I disagree. Teachers have some of the lousiest jobs out there and they need to have a method of protesting poor working conditions. I know little about teachers' unions, but it is possible they've grown excessive - at which point a reexamination of them and a retooling of their structure may well be in order, but I'm still against the idea of abolishing teaching unions altogether.

(and other benefits they don't deserve, like tenure).

Tenure is gross. I'm a college student currently, and one of the things I'm proudest of about my school is that none of our professors are under tenure (the other great thing about this college - no fraternities or sororities).

Mostly I think that tenure is a self-defeating premise. If a professor wants to do something that will piss off the school, s/he ought to have a pretty good reason for it in the first place. If that activity gets said professor fired, they can sing it from the rooftops that Nameless University's fascist administration is limiting the academic freedom of its professors - which will either have no result, at which point the professor's gripe either wasn't important enough or society just wasn't ready for it (either way, no major harm done), or it will result in a change of administration, which (presumably) positively affects Nameless University in more ways than simply allowing this one professor to teach his/her class however s/he wants. Tenure just covers up problems instead of addressing them.

A more rigorous curriculum with a focus on American history

I took two years of American History in high school: an American History Survey class my junior year, and Advanced Placement US History my senior year. US History Survey was a near useless class - the usual "This happened, then this happened, then there was a war, then this happened" drone that turns lots of kids off to history. The teacher tried to spice it up here and there, but if it weren't for my strong, abiding love of history, I'd probably have been bored to tears with the subject matter. AP US was a much better class - infinitely more depth, including analysis of the changing political climate in America, discussion of how social norms affected US policy, and examination of a slew of important laws and acts that get passed over in most survey classes for the sake of simplicity. We read actual texts of speeches and laws rather than abstractions done by textbook writers and were allowed to infer our own opinions from the source material. It was a great experience - and one that was, sadly, only shared by about twenty members of my 140-strong graduating class. The 120 other people in my class took something they called "Political Science" but was actually "US Government," a lecture class in which everyone was made to memorize names, positions, and powers granted by the various branches of the US government. Good? Not really. I think that AP US gave me a much more firm grasp of how the US government works than "Political Science" did for my peers. Plus I didn't feel the need to fall asleep in class like most of them did.

(without the creepy zeal for racial grievance-mongering),

True legal racial equality is barely fifty years old. In order to affect social views on a permanent basis, conscious knowledge of these "racial grievances" must be imparted to each successive generation for quite some time. If we tried to just put the whole thing behind us and move on, right now, within a generation or two the importance of racial equality would be lost and we'd probably wind up in the same kind of situation we were in fifty years ago.

philosophy,

Sure would be nice. Philosophy wasn't even offered at my high school.

and a generally more well-rounded curriculum is desirable.

I would add that requiring a class in basic economics would be desirable.

So are vocational skills for those looking to go into skilled labor fields rather than go on to college.

I've heard of some public high schools that offer vocational training. I haven't heard anything about their successes or failures, but it sounds like an awful good idea. It isn't like high schools with vocational programs would stop producing college students - what they might stop producing is lifetime Walmart and McDonald's employees and start producing mechanics, electricians, and other skilled tradesman who have much better socio-economic prospects.

The only other thing I'd add to your list is a focus on creating an advanced industrial policy. America cannot survive if it continues with this "post-industrial" garbage. Trade deficits will eat her alive.

I couldn't agree more. Someday, probably someday sooner than we'd all anticipate, "post-industrialization" is going to result in our economic ruin. While I'm a fan of international cooperation, international economic reliance is something I'm much more cautious about.

 

[Libsmasher]

I don't see that abolishing public schooling will improve the educational quality of the country. Private schools are good in part because they're able to keep out the rabble.

Once again, a static analysis - the nature of the minimal private schools as they exist in the current situation, with a near-government school monopoly and private school parents having to pay double, has NOTHING to do with the nature of a universal privatized system.

 

[Libsmasher]

Oops... I have private insurance currently. It's not horrendously expensive. My muslim friend needed insurance, I got her a policy for $68 a month. Mine is $130 a month.

What are you - 18 years old and no history of medical problems? For most people, its a LOT more.

There was a time when people had midwives and had births at home. There was a time when there was no neonatal care. If people want that type of service, they must pay for it. Doctors and nurses do not work for free.

What has that got to do with this thread??

 

[Bunz]

Boy Libsmasher,
For claiming to smash liberals, you have the same views as liberals when it comes to one of the most important issues...health care.
You are flirting with the dark side my friend. Come on over.

You do make some interesting points, I disagree about the UN though, it serves us more good than it hurts us. Not to mention NATO. THe mere arms sales to those countries makes for cheaper weapons for us, also lets us offload some of the older inventory.

As for oil consumption, I am for minimizing ME oil, as the trouble that comes with it might not be worth it. At the same time, it is a strategic resource and I would rather the west buy it than China.

Also, even if we generated all of our electricity and every private car was operated on something other than oil, the demand for the product will still be there for other uses. There is no viable alternative in the forseeable future for another energy source to take over for heavy machinery, airliners, and to fill the void that the plastics industries would otherwise use. Oil has many more uses than electricity generation or transportation needs.

 

[Libsmasher]

Carter 70s energy crisis. Didn't happen.

What?? Don't know what you're talking about.

You are betting the future of the US on a possible outcome that is not probable. Further, even if an alternative fuel is found, it will not be cheaper than oil is today, or it would already be found.

Not doing anything, or risking our future on the ol' boondoggle technique which failed spectacu;larly in the 1980s, is not an option. You have given no arguments to support any probabilities. You also are making unsupported assertions about cheaper fuels. What if someone finds a cheap process to turn coal into gasoline? Can you prove they won't? There are exactly three overall approaches:

1. Continue as now, with ever increasing prices ANYWAY, continue being blackmailed by oil producing countries, continue having our wealth drained, our deficts increased.

2. Create government boondogles to find a magic solution, a method that already failed 25 years ago when set up after the 1979 oil crisis.

3. Rely on what has always worked, what has produced all great innovation - the free market, spurred on by the scarcity caused by gradually increasing quotas.

Thus since only the US will use the more expensive fuel, this will give our economic competition a huge advantage. Since only the US will be the only ones stupid enough to a more expensive energy source, our companies and business will have a huge disadvantage in the global market where other nation use cheaper oil energy.

The US would TEMPORARILY have high prices for refined oil products because of artificial scarcity - this would cause innovation that would put us FAR AHEAD of other countries after about 20 years.

I am merely pointing out that all forms of energy are sub-standard to oil. As to electricity, I don't think anyone has a clue what converting to electric cars would do. We don't have a fraction of the power generation, or distribution, or economic support for that.

I already dealt with that - the US is capable of FAR higher electricty production with nuke plants.

Many people don't realize that the average electric car uses more power than the average family household uses daily. And that is for a small car, not an SUV or large truck. If you have two cars, take your electric bill and triple it, and add some extra. Plus if you get a car for your young adult, quadruple it. Not to mention every car would have to be in a garage, since you need a secure place to charge it, or risk having someone else charge their car at your home while your not there. Plus, most homes do not have enough power from the utility poll to charge you car. Many home will need an upgrade from the power company. Then if everyone got electric cars, the current power distribution system is not capable of supplying that. Finely, vastly increased demand would raise cost of electricity regardless of the production method. Nuclear power? No kidding. We would have to start building dozens of them, and start immediately.

Once again, you're using static analysis - assuming the efficiency of electric cars will never improve.

No I have to disagree. Unless some truly amazing miracle of God occurs... this is a pipe dream. My main issue here is you seem to be hedging your bets on something happening, when there is no evidence that it will. Engines will constantly improve, but not even a fraction as much as would be needed to make a real difference.

It may be a pipe dream, but nobody could conclude that from what you've said, as you have made a number of faulty analyses.

It's a matter of Physics. It takes X amount of energy, to move Y amount of weight, Z amount of distance. This is unavoidable. You can not extract more energy out of a drop of gas, than what is there. You can not move more weight or go farther with that energy, than what it is capable of moving.

You are vastly oversimplifying things, and having an undergrad degree in physics, I don't need to be lectured on it. Things can improve because, among other things:

1. The extraction of energy can be made more efficient.
2. New sources can be developed (ie, gasification of coal)
3. Weight can be reduced by creating new strong lighter weight structural materials.

The only improvement on milage in the last 20 years had been by reducing the weight of the car. Making it cheap and plastic. Which is why when you see a Saturn or Honda hit a tree, it disintegrates. GM made a car in the 80s that got 113 miles per gallon, but it was a one seater, and was all plastic and couldn't pass any government safety regulations, and was never produced

.

Comparisons of technological innovations that have occurred in an era of cheap gas have nothing to with what would result from a market driven by scarcity. The way you look at things reminds me of what I once read about a guy who ran the US Patent Office in th 1890s - he suggested it be closed down, because everything that could be invented already had.

Which is my point. One way we can reduce this problem is by removing the regulations currently in effect that make hiring illegals so economically beneficial. By preventing them from hiring by adding more taxes and fees and regulations, you'll just send more business south.

Sorry - you appear not to understand my position on this.

That's fine. When they find the bank robber, force him to prove he's a legal US citizen and if he isn't deport him. We have far to many non-US citizens in prisons and jails across the country. Deport them first. Then deport illegals with speeding tickets next. By the time we filter all those out, we can worry about the ones not causing problems other problems.

You appear not to understand what happens in practice. Is a police officer going to drive him to the border, or the nearest INS facility 1000 miles away? No. Are they going to put him in the local jail? No, they'd never have enough room for criminals. Will they call up the INS to come get them? The INS will say we don't have the money of manpower to come to Podunk Iowa and get your man. If you analyze this enough, you will see that trying to burden the police or even the INS to run around and deport 20 million illegal aliens and growing is impossible. Instead, take away their employment incentive. If you dropped a piece of candy on the sidewalk, and there were 20,000 ants around it, and you were limited to these two action to get rid of the ants, which would you do?

1. Pick up the piece of candy and get rid of it.
2. Pick up each ant one at a time and get rid of it.

You missed it. Medicare and Medicaid is taxed from you and me... but when someone goes in for care under medicare and medicaid, the government refuses to pay the full cost of treatment. So... Hospitals/Doctors pass that unpaid cost on to those that do pay... namely you and me. We pay for medicare medicaid twice over, once through taxes, and again through inflated insurance premiums due to hospitals and doctors subsidizing their medicare/medicaid patients.

You are correct - it is a combination of the two, but I DID say cost shifting should be illegal in the OP.

Great. Me too. Where does it say Nukes? He only said unconventional weapons, which is true.

What do you think is meant by "unconventional weapons" - sling shots?

 

[Libsmasher]

Boy Libsmasher,
For claiming to smash liberals, you have the same views as liberals when it comes to one of the most important issues...health care.
You are flirting with the dark side my friend. Come on over.

Nonsense - libs want socialized medicine and rationing, I want privatization. Have NO IDEA how you come up with this.

You do make some interesting points, I disagree about the UN though, it serves us more good than it hurts us. Not to mention NATO. THe mere arms sales to those countries makes for cheaper weapons for us, also lets us offload some of the older inventory.

The UN does us ABSOLUTELY no good, and lately NATO has done us no good. We came to their aid in the balkan wars, and they have refused to honor their commitments for military in Afghanistan. They are unreliable and a declining civililzation - no way we need NATO, and arms sales don't require NATO.

Also, even if we generated all of our electricity and every private car was operated on something other than oil, the demand for the product will still be there for other uses. There is no viable alternative in the forseeable future for another energy source to take over for heavy machinery, airliners, and to fill the void that the plastics industries would otherwise use. Oil has many more uses than electricity generation or transportation needs.

The US gets about half it's supply domestically. The issue is not to do away with oil, but rather to do away with imported oil.

 

[vyo476]

Nonsense - libs want socialized medicine and rationing, I want privatization. Have NO IDEA how you come up with this.

Hello, generalization.

Okay, I'm a liberal. You probably know that by now. What you might not know is that my mother suffers from Multiple Sclerosis. She hasn't been able to stand on her own now in about four years, and the last time she walked more than a few feet was ten years before that. It's a horrible disease, and it's been eating away at her ability to function as a human being since before I was born.

I haven't weighed in much on the universal health care vs. privatized health care debate because it's way too personal for me. It's the only thing I can safely and totally say I have no political agenda on. I just want to know what would be the best way to help my mother. If full privatization is the way to go, fine, please sell me on it.

The US gets about half it's supply domestically. The issue is not to do away with oil, but rather to do away with imported oil.

Part of the issue is to do away with oil. Putting aside the Global Warming debate, oil is a nonrenewable resource - eventually it's going to be gone. I've heard (from Invest07, one of our posters) of theories that oil may in fact be renewable, but I've been able to find little scientific literature on the subject, so I'm going to have to stick with the accepted fact that there is a finite amount of oil on this planet and once it's gone, it's gone.

Renewable sources, like wind, solar, and geothermal energy, if not abused, will always be there. In the long run, developing alternative energy sources will benefit the US.

 

[Andy]

One of the general precepts of the country is free public education for all - based on the premise that all people are entitled to an education (I'd call it a "right to education" but that'd probably start a whole big thing in and of itself). The dilemma is that ensuring the quality of private institutions by excluding the "rabble," as you put it, also ensures the lack of quality in public institutions. Basically - what's the point of ensuring that everyone gets an education if only the ones who probably aren't going to use it for much of anything are utilizing the public system?

There is no right to education, nor is anyone entitled to an education. The Constitution is clear that you have the right to pursue an education by your own work and effort. It's amazing how quickly everyone drums up non-existent rights.

I disagree. Teachers have some of the lousiest jobs out there and they need to have a method of protesting poor working conditions. I know little about teachers' unions, but it is possible they've grown excessive - at which point a reexamination of them and a retooling of their structure may well be in order, but I'm still against the idea of abolishing teaching unions altogether.

So do Wendy's employees, and cashiers at Wal-mart. That means nothing. You do not have a right to a job, nor a right to the pay rate you want, nor a right to keep your job when you are a horrible teacher. This line of thinking has gotten us where we are today with people getting out of high school with a 5th grade reading level.

 

[Andy]

Okay, I'm a liberal. You probably know that by now. What you might not know is that my mother suffers from Multiple Sclerosis. She hasn't been able to stand on her own now in about four years, and the last time she walked more than a few feet was ten years before that. It's a horrible disease, and it's been eating away at her ability to function as a human being since before I was born.

I haven't weighed in much on the universal health care vs. privatized health care debate because it's way too personal for me. It's the only thing I can safely and totally say I have no political agenda on. I just want to know what would be the best way to help my mother. If full privatization is the way to go, fine, please sell me on it.

The hard answer is, the best way is to make money and purchase the best health care you can. Public health care fails like every socialist program fails. Go read about the problems experienced in every nation that has publicly funded health care. We all talk about how politicians lie, and how lawyers are crooks, yet you want to trust them with your health? You see how well they did with the USPS, and Social Security.. I'm sure they can screw up health care too.

Part of the issue is to do away with oil. Putting aside the Global Warming debate, oil is a nonrenewable resource - eventually it's going to be gone. I've heard (from Invest07, one of our posters) of theories that oil may in fact be renewable, but I've been able to find little scientific literature on the subject, so I'm going to have to stick with the accepted fact that there is a finite amount of oil on this planet and once it's gone, it's gone.

Renewable sources, like wind, solar, and geothermal energy, if not abused, will always be there. In the long run, developing alternative energy sources will benefit the US.

All those are jokes. Not to sound trite, but they are failures in everything but making rich people richer. Wind power is horrible. It can not replace any form of energy generation at all. It's just a really expensive way to create a few watts of temporary power so rich people can collect on Renewable Energy credits. Who pays for that? We do.

Solar is a failure. A Solar panel will take thousands of dollars to save a few hundred in electricity over it's life time, and then it will need replaced. Who pays for that? We do.

Geothermal is a nice bonus, but not a solution to anything. The amount of power produced is too little. The number of locations it can be done are too few. And as we speak, environmentalist claim it has negative impacts in too many ways.

Renewable energy is a scam by rich people to get money. We should pursue the energy we have in oil coal and nuclear power until a real alternative is available.

 

[Andy]

What are you - 18 years old and no history of medical problems? For most people, its a LOT more.

What has that got to do with this thread??

I'm 30, and have been in the hospital twice in the past 2 years. Been to the doctor a few more times for various issues.

I was responding to Coyote. I'm allowed to do that right?

 

[Coyote]

Oops... I have private insurance currently. It's not horrendously expensive. My muslim friend needed insurance, I got her a policy for $68 a month. Mine is $130 a month.

There was a time when people had midwives and had births at home. There was a time when there was no neonatal care. If people want that type of service, they must pay for it. Doctors and nurses do not work for free.

Oops....about 6 years ago, I looked into it for myself and my disabled husband, and the cost was somewhere between 450 - 700 a month. Now it may depend on what sort of policy you need, and what level of coverage you need. A young healthy person needs very minimal. Someone with a family or an older person with chronic illness' may need more.

Yes, there was a time when there was no prenatal care. What was the infant mortality rate? What was the maternal mortality rate? Hint: look at that of developing countries for a comparison.

I'm all for midwives and home births - but hey, they cost too.

I guess what it comes down to is....what kind of country do you want us to be?

One where only the rich matter?

 

[Coyote]

Well I totally am against forced schooling. A student that is disruptive should be removed permanently. Not come back in a week/month/year to be disruptive again.removed from the issue completely.

And then what....what do you propose for educating them? Or nothing? What will the impact be on the public? Bigger prison population?

I support home schooling, more than anything. I think each state should provide cheap accessible grade school level curriculum. Not only so that children can be taught, but I think it would help parents too. Too many dumb adults. Maybe they could learn along with their children.

That's pretty unrealistic. Homeschooling is time consuming and intensive and not everyone has the level of education or ability.

 

[Andy]

What?? Don't know what you're talking about.

Carter in the 70s caused a massive energy crisis. You claimed when people seriously have to find an alternative, they will. Well they didn't. Oil was and is the best thing going for cheap energy. Energy companies have invented millions, even billions into developing new energy sources, aside from very minor improvements, and some major scams like Ethanol and Solar power, they have found nothing. Oil is the best thing going. Until it runs out, we are just shooting our foot off trying to force us to find something else.

Not doing anything, or risking our future on the ol' boondoggle technique which failed spectacu;larly in the 1980s, is not an option. You have given no arguments to support any probabilities. You also are making unsupported assertions about cheaper fuels. What if someone finds a cheap process to turn coal into gasoline? Can you prove they won't? There are exactly three overall approaches:

1. Continue as now, with ever increasing prices ANYWAY, continue being blackmailed by oil producing countries, continue having our wealth drained, our deficts increased.

2. Create government boondogles to find a magic solution, a method that already failed 25 years ago when set up after the 1979 oil crisis.

3. Rely on what has always worked, what has produced all great innovation - the free market, spurred on by the scarcity caused by gradually increasing quotas.

Prices will continue to increase, but by our own choice. We the public have brought this stupidity on ourselves. We refuse to let oil companies drill and explore for oil, forcing ourselves to import, forcing ourselves to pay higher prices. We have prevented oil companies from building more refineries, resulting in limited locations to process oil, forcing ourselves to pay more for gasoline shipped across the country. We have forced gasoline companies to use more expensive alternative additives, like Ethanol, forcing ourselves to pay high prices. Finely, we have allowed our government to tax fuel, which causes us to pay more. Remember that at $3/per gallon, $1 is just tax.

Option 2 is what I think your system will do. Undoubtedly the economy will bust, people will scream at government, government will subsidize some crappy alternative like ethanol, and a boondoggle will happen.

The US would TEMPORARILY have high prices for refined oil products because of artificial scarcity - this would cause innovation that would put us FAR AHEAD of other countries after about 20 years.

The Carter energy crisis was an artificial scarcity. It didn't cause innovation. Maybe I'm not saying it right, or maybe you don't get it, or possibly you get it but refuse to believe it.... If there was an economic alternative to oil, we would have found it. If you believe it's out there, and we just need to look for it, well truth is we are looking for it. Energy companies spend millions looking for it. So there is no need to artificially inflate the price as is.

What happens if this assumed innovation doesn't happen? The US economy collapses. Why? Because you would instantly put the entire US market at a disadvantage to the global economy. At the same time oil prices would skyrocket here, they would drop like a rock for everyone else. Their companies would be able to produce and build products and ship products for a fraction of what our companies would. Millions of jobs would be lost, and even more companies would relocate to Asian countries. The bottom line is a massive country wide depression.

I already dealt with that - the US is capable of FAR higher electricty production with nuke plants.

That's true, but I don't think you realize just how much power would be required. We're talking dozens of plants. Not 12, but 50 to 100 plants across the country. Then we're talking about upgrading the power distribution system country wide. Then the cost of upgrading personal home which are not equipped to handle it.

Then what do you do with the billions of products that use oil in their production? What do you do with the millions of industrial machines that can't use electricity? Like Big Rigs, dump trucks, even city public busses? Aircraft? Replacing oil with electricity is not going to happen... at least not without starting a another great depression.

Once again, you're using static analysis - assuming the efficiency of electric cars will never improve.

The average electric car is already has 96 to 98% efficiency. At that level, the car is already costing twice as much as a regular car (which is why the auto companies canned their electric cars). In order to improve efficiency more, it would cost thousands using ultra-caps, and even then 1-2% increase is not nearly enough to make a real difference.

It may be a pipe dream, but nobody could conclude that from what you've said, as you have made a number of faulty analyses.

I wager not. I work in the auto industry. Specifically in power generation.

You are vastly oversimplifying things, and having an undergrad degree in physics, I don't need to be lectured on it. Things can improve because, among other things:

1. The extraction of energy can be made more efficient.
2. New sources can be developed (ie, gasification of coal)
3. Weight can be reduced by creating new strong lighter weight structural materials.

Great, then you should know the counter issues to these. Namely cost. Extraction of energy isn't likely. The auto industries have all invested billion in extracting more usable power from energy. No break through has occurred. Even the hybrid system is barely marketable given that you will spend more on the cost of the car than you ever save in gas. Weight reduction is the only area that has improved, but at the cost of a weaker car. Which is why body and damager repair has skyrocketed in price, and car insurance is so expensive.

Of course you can make a car that is super strong, super light, super fast and extremely efficient. As soon as you pony up the $150K we can do it. In fact, I myself can do it. I know the people, and the material sources to do this. If you really want, I know people who can make you a car out of carbon fiber, with a decent hybrid system, that will get you good gas milage, and be safe. You got the $150K? No? No one else does either, which is why they are not produced.

Not going to happen, sorry.

Comparisons of technological innovations that have occurred in an era of cheap gas have nothing to with what would result from a market driven by scarcity. The way you look at things reminds me of what I once read about a guy who ran the US Patent Office in th 1890s - he suggested it be closed down, because everything that could be invented already had.

Then you misunderstand everything I have said. Innovation and progress will continue as long as people are able to invent things. My issue has nothing to do with 'will things improve', or 'will new things be invented'. Rather, my point is that you system is dangerous by betting the entire US economy on something that hasn't happened in the 20 years we've been perusing it. You remind me of the people who said by 2000 we would have teleports and StarTrek ships. The difference is, you are placing the entire economy of the US at risk for your bet.

You appear not to understand what happens in practice. Is a police officer going to drive him to the border, or the nearest INS facility 1000 miles away? No. Are they going to put him in the local jail? No, they'd never have enough room for criminals. Will they call up the INS to come get them? The INS will say we don't have the money of manpower to come to Podunk Iowa and get your man. If you analyze this enough, you will see that trying to burden the police or even the INS to run around and deport 20 million illegal aliens and growing is impossible. Instead, take away their employment incentive. If you dropped a piece of candy on the sidewalk, and there were 20,000 ants around it, and you were limited to these two action to get rid of the ants, which would you do?

1. Pick up the piece of candy and get rid of it.
2. Pick up each ant one at a time and get rid of it.

Well, the bank robber is not going to be released, so they have to do something with him. Deporting is what should happen. Yes the INS says they don't have money... well that is the issue. The one single important duty outside of national defense, is enforcing the law. We need to enforce this law. If they do not enforce the law, the one duty they are supposed to do... how do you trust them with ANYTHING else you claim you want them to do? You can say they should do this and that, but if they abrogate their main perogative, everything else is just something else they will fail at.

You are correct - it is a combination of the two, but I DID say cost shifting should be illegal in the OP.

Ah ok. Well as long as Medicare and Medicaid exist, they will have no choice but to pass along uncovered cost to non-medicare/caid patients.

What do you think is meant by "unconventional weapons" - sling shots?

Cyclosarin, VX, Ricin and Aflatoxin. That and mortar and scud missles designed to hold more than just an explosive payload. Chemical and Biological weapons are 'unconventional weapons'. They also found a centrifuge with enriched uranium, no maybe we didn't find a large round bomb with a sticker "WMD Nuke here" but, the evidence is there.

 

[vyo476]

There is no right to education, nor is anyone entitled to an education. The Constitution is clear that you have the right to pursue an education by your own work and effort. It's amazing how quickly everyone drums up non-existent rights.

There might not be a "right to education," it might not be in the Constitution, but free public education exists in every state in this country. By federal design? No. By accident? No.

So do Wendy's employees, and cashiers at Wal-mart. That means nothing.

Working in retail is the pits. It isn't nearly as stressful as being a teacher.

You do not have a right to a job,

But I do believe that everyone has a right to at least recieve a decent reason for being fired. This needn't be viewed as a legally-enforced right; here in the Information Age, if an employer is firing people for poor reasons, letting consumers know ought to be pretty easy.

nor a right to the pay rate you want,

Ah, but what about the pay rate you deserve?

nor a right to keep your job when you are a horrible teacher.

Do not assume that only horrible teachers are part of teachers' unions. The good teachers often have the same low salaries and unfortunate working conditions that the bad teachers do.

When unions speak out against underpaying teachers, I support unions. When unions speak out against allowing poor working conditions for teachers to persist, I support unions. When unions protect bad teachers from getting fired, I don't support unions. I've witnessed more of the first two than the last.

 

[vyo476]

Wind power is horrible. It can not replace any form of energy generation at all. It's just a really expensive way to create a few watts of temporary power so rich people can collect on Renewable Energy credits. Who pays for that? We do.

Wind power isn't the expensive. Generating costs in a wind-driven turbine are about 4-5 cents per kilowatt-hour, about the same as the generating costs in coal and natural gas plants. Only geothermal energy, at 3-8 cents per kilowatt-hour, is potentially cheaper.

Advances in wind energy have been quite remarkable over the last thirty years or so. In 1980, yeah, wind power was ridiculously expensive - however, larger, more efficient turbines and a greater understanding of where and how to place wind farms has made wind power much more financially feasible.

Solar is a failure. A Solar panel will take thousands of dollars to save a few hundred in electricity over it's life time, and then it will need replaced. Who pays for that? We do.

Direct solar energy is expensive (especially photovoltaic cells), but I'm given to understand that research into solar thermal electric generation has been promising.

Geothermal is a nice bonus, but not a solution to anything. The amount of power produced is too little. The number of locations it can be done are too few. And as we speak, environmentalist claim it has negative impacts in too many ways.

The amount of electricity produced by current techniques is small, yes. However, scientists estimate that 1% of the heat contained in the uppermost ten kilometeres of the Earth's crust is equivalent to 500 times the energy contained in all of Earth's oil and natural gas resources. That's a massive amount of energy, yet geothermal energy accounts for less than 1% of the world's energy generation. Clearly the problem doesn't lie in whether or not the energy is there - it lies in our ability to effectively harvest it. We rely on geysers and other underground water sources to produce electricity using geothermal energy. The discovery/development of a way to extract energy from dry, hot rocks in the crust would revolutionize geothermal energy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot-Dry-Rock#Enhanced_geothermal_systems

Personally, it's my pick for the energy of the future. At least, the forseeable future.