Is it just me or does she kind of sound like the "this one time in band camp" girl?

Self promoting this video and sending it back into the queue for one more try; last queued Saturday, September 7th, 2013 10:47am PDT - promote requested by original submitter blankfist.

Anyone here have an asshole icon that I can slide it into?

Settle down, muppet baby.

Society... what is it?

I don't understand, this seems very reasonable. She's talking about socializing the burden of public schooling instead of making them private or voucher schools. So for instance I care if the children in my town get a good education, I want them to learned and have a good future. I'm willing to pay taxes to let that happen, especially if that means they get to have some food in the morning and afternoon, when a lot of kids can't afford breakfast.

So even though she words it sort of stupidly, this is basic human caring for one another. You have to work very hard to drive out the instinct to give a crap about people. Unfortunately the public relations industry has been pretty successful at it. You're not supposed to care if kids starve near you, you have your own big screen and your team is doing well, fuck everything else.

@Yogi, sure, I'm all for educating kids and helping people out, but this is collectivist speak. Let's break down what she says [emphasis mine]...

"We've never invested as much in public education as we should have."

I'd argue we've invested a lot, we just don't see the return because of whatever reason. I could cite references all day long that we, as taxpayers, pay more per child in public schools on average than parents pay per child for private schools.

"We've always had kind of a private notion of children."
"We haven't had a very collective notion of 'these are our children'."
"So part of it is we've got to kind of break through our kind of private idea that kids belong to their parents, or kids belong to their families, and recognize that kids belong to whole communities."

That's scary language she's using. I'm all for giving opportunity and resources to kids to help them. And I do think that's what communities should feel compelled to do, but there's a difference between that and what I'm getting from her little soapbox diatribe. I hear, instead, a message of control disguised as opportunity. Words matter. Words have meaning. And this is nothing short of propaganda, in my opinion.

Yes it's semantics really. If she had said the following instead, I don't think this would have been posted here:

We've got to kind of break through the idea that parents and families are only ever responsible for their own kids alone, and recognize that kids will best thrive when the whole community takes greater responsibility for their well-being.

Some people are very sensitive to the implied political meanings of the words "public" vs. "private". But that said... it seems pretty clear to me that the above is what she means.

Of course, regardless of how it's stated, some may still find this idea dangerous and radical .

The ole saying used to be father knows best. Now it Liberals knows best.

@Trout, it's not just "private" vs. "public" that's troublesome, it's words like "collective" and the idea that the children shouldn't "belong" to the family but instead the communities.

This is collectivism vs. individualism. It's a debate as old as society itself. She knew exactly which words she was choosing.

Children absolutely don't belong to their parents and we, less as a 'community' than a species, do have an interest in ensuring that they're properly raised.

We're talking about the future of humanity - they're too important to leave entirely at the mercy of what are generally a pair of confused simpletons. The more we can limit the influence of the parent over their child, the further we can divorce our life outcomes from our circumstances at birth, the healthier our race will be.

Indiscriminately taxpayer funded education isn't a part of that. In an overpopulated environment parents should be expected to cover the cost of their children. Tax them as a group, enough to fund all the relevant social expenses, which of course include universal education with college places for the qualified.

It's this kind of idea which is the reason for things like this happening:

http://www.wnd.com/2013/08/police-storm-homeschool-class-take-children-by-force/

Please, someone take my kids! ;-)

blankfist got no clue and takes that short snippet and makes it into something completely different.

But yeah, you think all the poor children should starve and die in the gutters. Not anyone elses responsibility or moral to help them, teach them, give them any chance in life.

But everyone saying that doesn't think of this single fact:

The society today is not what society was ages ago.

Before it was small clans / tribes. Now it's megafuckingultralarge cities and countries! I know folks on facebook that has fkn 500-800 "friends".
Even my modest 80-90 is fkn huge compared to the friend list of someone in the 1840'ies.

Education is not the same as 200 years ago, Work isn't the same, almost nothing is. So individualism might have been über for the advancement of industrialism, but it's a different world now. Maybe it's the close connection (in ya'll yankie-minds) between communism and the word collective: that's making ya freak out so bad? I don't know.

I wonder if the people who wrote this ad know how tone deaf this ad is, but don't care because the tea party/republican/libertarian crowd have put themselves totally out of reach.

nothing wrong with the video itself, just that it's being used and twisted to fit @blankfist's warped world view, so downvote

blankfist? You didn't build that. But you certainly know how to spin it. You should get a job at Fox news.

@VoodooV
dont be too harsh on our boy @blankfist at least he has us talking about some pretty important issues.

if we do not discuss the hard issues and deal with truths and only hold onto our own biased ideology,then nothing gets accomplished.

i do not subscribe to blankies capitalistic unrestricted free market position.
i have been learning much about the free market and it does have some substantial strengths in many regards.

the problems arise,in my opinion,in regards to societal responsibility.
unrestricted capitalism makes everything a commodity.
and some things should NEVER be considered a commodity.

so i am against the privatization of schools and commodifying children.
and for those of you who wish to berate me for my position allow me to point to our current prison system:prisoners=commodity

now by me saying this does NOT automatically mean i am in support of our current education system.
i am not.

the system we have now is a bloated and stagnating beast which does little to educate and everything to indocrinate and create obedient workers.

and who is blamed for all this?
the teachers!
of course!
bind their hands,gag their mouths,stifle their creativity and crush their imagination.

and THEN turn around and say "there...theres your problem.the teachers".

so @ blankfist is not entirely off the mark when he infers or implies that it is government that is at fault.

because they are.

the real question is why?
now i am wading into postulation waters here but this is what i suspect.
1.the american government nor corporations wish to have a truly educated and informed citizenry with critical thinking skills and the ability to consume data and form rational conclusions.
people with those abilities will always challenge power.

they would rather have a docile and submissive public that does not question authority.
best get em while they are young.

so it doesnt matter if the schools are privatized or publicly funded.
they BOTH seek the same results and will BOTH be/are equally corrupt.

and most likely BOTH will blame the teachers for a perceived failure.

because BOTH will ignore,either knowingly or unknowingly,the systematic failure of HOW they teach children.

no longer is art taught.
nor civics (at least not where i live),
nor the humanities.
they are teaching these kids to be systems managers,not free-thinkers.

i believe that education all the way up and through to higher education should be a public responsibility.the investment will pay dividends greater than anything put IN to the system.
i am not going to list them all,just think about what a well educated citizen can bring to table.
see:finland

because at its heart,its essence,is not society a collective practice in community?
there are some things that should never be socialized.
education is not one of them.

money is not the problem.
teachers are not the problem.
its the SYSTEM and how it teaches,that is the problem.

remove the politicians and the special interest from the equation and allow the actual educators to do their jobs.

instead we have turned teachers into baby-sitters and schools into factories of the banal.

what a disgrace.

I hate to point out the obvious @enoch, but I would say that actually...*you're* talking about some pretty important issues, not blankfist.

as I alluded to in my post, this is this equivalent of taking the Obama, "you didn't build that" speech out of context tactic that the Repubs tried to spin a while back. or the "when did you stop beating your children?" equivalent.

this is a troll sift. He has accused this video of being propaganda, but he hasn't met ANY burden of proof by any stretch of the imagination.

you are the one contributing, enoch, not him.

quite honestly, there is absolutely nothing wrong with the words she chose, blankfist is just artificially attaching a negative spin to it all. Cherry-picking words that can be spun into political talking points without any evidence to back his tinfoil hat conspiracy theories.

But hey, that's the world we live in. In a rational person's world, an accusation without proof is no accusation at all, but in the current world we live in now. people drop BS accusations all the time and they stick long after they have been disproven, which is what blankie is counting on.

@VoodooV

Why does your butt hurt so?

My only problem with the words she chose is that they such. They're utterly bland and boring. They turn me off more than anything else, I just want to ignore her.

Nice rebuttal, genius. Your admission of trolling is duly noted.

Good day.

While I vehemently disagree with @blankfists take on this, I'm upvoting for the sake of discussion.

My $0.02

Kids are absolutely not the property of their parents. That kind of thinking leads to things like parents thinking that they can decide not to send a sick child to hospital or that they can homeschool their children simply to lie to them (like telling them the earth is 6000 years old).

So, no. You don't own your kids. You have the privilege of raising them, but only if you treat them right.

Sorry if my response isn't up to your impeccable standards, but A) I don't have to justify my reasons for the videos I Sift because B) I'm not your monkey. And C) you turned the discussion back on me and D) made personal attacks against me instead of the argument.

You want to debate or discuss things like an adult, I'll discuss things with you like one. You want to devolve into a petulant fourth grader on here, you get the butthurt comments.

Nice strawman, I never said you had to justify your reasons. I could care less about your reasons. But you do have to back up any claims or accusations you make, which you're still dodging by the way Lastly, you haven't MADE any credible argument, so all I can do is call you out on your repeated attempts to distract

That's pretty funny that you want to talk like an adult. I'm not the one who has been banned from the sift for doing very un-adult like things You're the one with a demonstrable history of not being very adult. So I hope you'll forgive me if I disregard your hypocritical attempt to claim the high road when you have none.

Try again genius.

@ChaosEngine, believe it or not, I actually agree with you. I don't think kids are the property of their parents. I also don't think people are the property of the community or any other group of people, parents or otherwise.

The hard fact, however, is that only parents can choose to have a child, not a community. The child is solely the parents' responsibility, I believe, because it was solely their choice. And I do believe they should have some fundamental rights to their children, such as making decisions for their family that the majority of people may or may not agree with.

I'm an atheist, and I'm, too, bothered when people use God as a reason to not treat their children for an illness, but that's the fringe minority, isn't it? But when you write "You have the privilege of raising them, but only if you treat them right." Who is the judge of what is the right treatment? You? Me? The majority? I believe the majority thought slavery was pretty groovy here in the States at one point.

Moving this video to blankfist's personal queue. It failed to receive enough votes to get sifted up to the front page within 2 days.

"Who is the judge of what is the right treatment?"

You're going to love this answer It is, of course.... the state, or more specifically the law.

I assume you believe that children are entitled to some protection under the law, regardless of what their parents believe? So really, we're not arguing over the principle... simply the extent.

Yes, at one point people thought slavery was fine and dandy, but eventually that was changed through legislation (it was kind of sad that some people were so ok with slavery they thought it was worth going to war for, but some people are idiots).

Now, there are issues today that I personally disagree with that may or may not be legal. Not providing your kids with medical treatment is a pretty easy one. Most people don't believe your rights as a parent extend to letting your child die because you thought Santa Claus would save them.

More difficult would be education. I am uncomfortable with the idea that parents can withhold information or outright lie to their children, but a lot of people seem fine with this.

On the more controversial end of the scale, I personally find it abhorrent that society tolerates the genital mutilation of infants in a weird combination of religion and misguided puritanism (btw this is not a slight on anyone circumcised, if you want to make that decision for yourself as an adult, go nuts).

Some of these things may change, some not. Some will come about through majority pressure, some through principled individuals making a moral argument that supercedes the tyranny of the majority.

But ultimately, yes, the community is the judge of what is acceptable practice when raising a child. It's not perfect, but it's a whole lot better than the alternative.

@ChaosEngine, again, I don't entirely disagree with you. I think allowing the law to protect the rights of the individual makes total sense. Whether that individual is a minor or adult.

Where we definitely will have our disagreement is, as you mentioned, to the extent of the laws' reach.

I think laws should protect the minority, not impose the majority's will. I also believe children should have a voice in their personal choices that supersedes the will of the parents or the will of society.

I understand a seven-year-old child who was homeschooled that God will cure his cancer may not be the most qualified mind to make complex medical decisions, but, in the end, we either give people control over their lives or we pretend to know best.

Just because you and I don't believe God will cure little Jimmy's cancer doesn't mean we should have a right to tell little Jimmy he has to go to the hospital and receive care. Otherwise we end up with these kinds of stories.

The war on drugs is a perfect example of the majority, or community, knowing best how we should all run our lives. So was prohibition in the States. So are seatbelt laws, soda bans, sin taxes, prostitution bans, Tennessee's baggy pants law, bans on rain collection, fines for muddy tires, gambling laws, private establishment smoking bans, and even NJ going as far as to ban hugs in a middle school.

People know best how to run their own lives. Families at least have an interest in the well-being of their members. But the community doesn't always make the best legislative decisions when trying to do good.

@blankfist, your post is a perfect example of how things in real life are complex.

The point is people really DON'T know best how to run their own lives. People are stupid, short-sighted and often willfully ignorant.

Most of the time, I'm good with that. Freedom to fuck up and all that.

Yes, adults of sound mind should be able to choose their own medical treatment. No, they shouldn't be allowed use prayer to treat their kids.

War on drugs? Pointless and ultimately immoral.
Seat belt laws? Bloody good idea that has saved thousands of lives.

Ultimately, I'm not willing to condemn little Jimmy to a slow agonising death just because his parents were fucking morons.