Any government 'spending' rests on taking money from the private sector. The government's got no money of its own. The question is whether the government or private sector can allocate resources better, calling a bill a 'stimulus bill' would ipso facto stimulate anything, not being in favour of the government doing something (like educating those with special needs) does not mean you are not in favour of those objectives. Falsification of other people values and means is a common democratic tool
None of this directly supports the ED, but I thought it worth addressing because anybody who thinks Americans are less educated now than they were in the 1800s is seriously lacking in historical perspective.
The ED exists to commit money to education and maintain standards; some of its functions could be devolved to the states, but likely only some of the states would successfully pick up the slack. This is a general problem with the decentralization advocated by libertarians and conservatives.
Your comparison is muddled, because HS was roughly the equivalent of today's PHD, with <10% graduating at the turn of the century. And it might be better to compare to the 1970s, since the Department of Education in its current form was established then (though federal education involvement started in the 1800s). Even since then American education has improved steadily, with much more material covered, particularly in science, and with greater participation and steadily declining dropout rates.
There were a lot more uneducated people before the dept. of Education. A lot more illiteracy. A lot fewer college graduates. It wasn't rebutted on the show because it was too dumb a comment to bother rebutting.
@Mystylplx; if you are telling me that high school graduates today, on average, are better educated than the average high school graduate before the Dept. of Ed. was dreamed up I believe you are dead wrong.
Look up some records on salvaged letters from 16 and 17 year old Civil War soldiers to their girlfriends, mothers, etc.
the "illiteracy" you refer to was due more to the hard times; kids quitting school to help support large families, than it was to an ineffective ed. system!
I'm sure there were some well written letters among those that could read or write at all. One of the main jobs of the DOE is to make sure that most everyone can read and write.
@graysonTW The high quality of those letters is the result of survivorship bias. Historians propagate the tiny fraction of material that is worth reading, and the vast majority of dreck lapses into obscurity.
Most 19th century Americans received the equivalent of an elementary education today; google McGuffey Readers, if you don't know them, and bear in mind that most students studied only the first two. Even elite Americans knew less about science than is taught in one high school class now.
"No one's buying it. Might as well try to be a straight man."
If an unbiased conservative or even an independent said this line, in any context, it would have been misconstrued as homophobic. But because Maher said it, everything is apples and carrots. Makes sense?
Sullivan's thinking traditional conservatism...Bill only sees neo-conservatism no matter what (only currently, it's hard to blame him, considering Perry, Bachmann, etc). That's the disconnect here.
@BrotherAtticus If anyone with an established record of being for the gays said this it would be fine. Also the fact that Maher is a comedian first and foremost helps.
I agree about Sullivan's positions though. He's one of the few conservatives I respect. His positions are thoughtful, reasonable and based in fact. While I happen to disagree on many things with him, he's not like the mainstream Republicans who are out of their minds with positions lifted from a fantasy land.
@CullTheLivingFlower Fair enough (depending on what "positions" you're implying) ... though I've never understood how Bill Maher can so adamantly cling to not being a libertarian. People who are empirically-minded enough to be atheists are most often empirically-minded enough to acknowledge that free market capitalism is the very best means of prosperity (when non-coercive regulations and laws are obeyed). Maher is a puzzling exception, in spite of his favorite guests.
@BrotherAtticus There is a huge expanse between libertarianism (which, for me seems dangerously close to anarchy) and what Bill Maher, or someone like myself believes in. While we may accept that capitalism is a very effective, and seemingly without competition as communism has all but been destroyed, we by no means think all industries should be run by the private market. Schooling, education, fire/police/ambulance services, to name a few, should be government-run.
@CullTheLivingFlower Then your fears are for naught. Libertarians acknowledge two appropriate functions of gov't: the protective function, like military defense, and legal defense of private property rights; and the productive function, the production of goods and services that cannot easily be provided through private markets...which is widely understood to include emergency services. Education is a different matter, but it's not like private- and home-schooling don't work. Did I miss anything?
@BrotherAtticus I didn't mean to say schooling and education, the are the same thing obviously, I meant education and healthcare.
I don't think private education is good. Yes it works, but it only works for rich people. I see no reason why your parents having money entitles you to be better educated than other people. Rich people should work to help make the public system better, not lift their children out of that system and let other people worry about it.
@CullTheLivingFlower There are many things that I'm "not a fan of," but I still acknowledge the constitutionality of those things.
I also can't accept the rich privilege argument over schools, because the popular new sense of entitlement will spill into college education as well, and then private colleges will be in an awkward situation. Nothing is solved by lowering everyone's means to the least common denominator.
I think there's a lot to be said for the Constitution.
okay, that representative is an idiot....As a progressive/liberal, you are idiotic to think that if unemployment falls back down to 5 percent that our debt problem goes away. What the hell does that even mean? We are still spending billions on medicare/medicaid and those will skyrocket until we have to pay a trillion a year in INTEREST alone. Reducing debt is a progressive priority for the simple reason that if we want govt to invest in education/future research we need to have money
And does he mention Johnson above Huntsman? Johnson balanced the NM budget by standing strong, and without raising taxes. Sullivan is a weak mind, if he believes government growth is a "given" that must be compromised with. Apparently, he's never read any Harry Browne or Nathaniel Branden. Too busy with political masturbation to get to the meat of any deep philosophical comprehension. ...But he did nail Newt Gingrich accurately, and for that, I salute him.
(Hayek, the hero of Reagan and Thatcher called himself a "classical liberal" or a "libertarian," although he didn't like the word libertarian for reasons of style.) Sullivan makes a joke of himself when he calls Huntsman a quality candidate who is getting ignored. LOL ...Too dumb to embrace Ron Paul as the only legitimate option. ...Very intellectually lazy!
Sullivan is a stupid and inconsistent libertarian, and is not much of a conservative. Conservative, by the way, is always what Marvin Minsky called a "suitcase word" that always needs to be unpacked, because it is a word that takes its meaning from the relative historical status quo. ie: What is left to "conserve" is forever shifting. Hayek explained this in his essay "Why I am Not A Conservative" where he talks about the historical meaning of conservative and liberal.
watch funny + truthful video:
Ron Paul questions Obama on Letterman
firstonethrough 2 hours ago
This has been flagged as spam show
You may like my video that makes fun of both Newt and then Santorum in the end.
Put, "watch?v=AQSsMRe6BJE" in the youtube search bar.
SFHarry 3 days ago
Maher's show is reliable in it's lineup of idiots, both left wing and right wing.
Thelookoutslookout 3 days ago
Any government 'spending' rests on taking money from the private sector. The government's got no money of its own. The question is whether the government or private sector can allocate resources better, calling a bill a 'stimulus bill' would ipso facto stimulate anything, not being in favour of the government doing something (like educating those with special needs) does not mean you are not in favour of those objectives. Falsification of other people values and means is a common democratic tool
spader49 5 days ago
This has been flagged as spam show
None of this directly supports the ED, but I thought it worth addressing because anybody who thinks Americans are less educated now than they were in the 1800s is seriously lacking in historical perspective.
The ED exists to commit money to education and maintain standards; some of its functions could be devolved to the states, but likely only some of the states would successfully pick up the slack. This is a general problem with the decentralization advocated by libertarians and conservatives.
lookielouE1705 1 week ago
This has been flagged as spam show
Your comparison is muddled, because HS was roughly the equivalent of today's PHD, with <10% graduating at the turn of the century. And it might be better to compare to the 1970s, since the Department of Education in its current form was established then (though federal education involvement started in the 1800s). Even since then American education has improved steadily, with much more material covered, particularly in science, and with greater participation and steadily declining dropout rates.
lookielouE1705 1 week ago
"infrastructure"........is this chump serious?
"infrastructure" wasn't real important when compared to CORPORATE BAIL-OUTS!
graysonTW 3 weeks ago
"walking around ignorant and unemployable"
how are they walkin' around now, bill?........that would be "ignorant and unemployable'!
"people got educated in this country BEFORE the Dept. of Education existed"
did anyone notice there wasn't one word of rebuttal to this comment?......must then be TRUE!
graysonTW 3 weeks ago
@graysonTW
There were a lot more uneducated people before the dept. of Education. A lot more illiteracy. A lot fewer college graduates. It wasn't rebutted on the show because it was too dumb a comment to bother rebutting.
Mystylplx 2 weeks ago
@Mystylplx; if you are telling me that high school graduates today, on average, are better educated than the average high school graduate before the Dept. of Ed. was dreamed up I believe you are dead wrong.
Look up some records on salvaged letters from 16 and 17 year old Civil War soldiers to their girlfriends, mothers, etc.
the "illiteracy" you refer to was due more to the hard times; kids quitting school to help support large families, than it was to an ineffective ed. system!
graysonTW 2 weeks ago
@graysonTW
I'm sure there were some well written letters among those that could read or write at all. One of the main jobs of the DOE is to make sure that most everyone can read and write.
Mystylplx 2 weeks ago
This has been flagged as spam show
@graysonTW The high quality of those letters is the result of survivorship bias. Historians propagate the tiny fraction of material that is worth reading, and the vast majority of dreck lapses into obscurity.
Most 19th century Americans received the equivalent of an elementary education today; google McGuffey Readers, if you don't know them, and bear in mind that most students studied only the first two. Even elite Americans knew less about science than is taught in one high school class now.
lookielouE1705 1 week ago
He is right though, just cant keep borrowing money from China or creating it out of thin air to solve all your problems.
doodoohead39 3 weeks ago
Lol at Ellison pulling a word he happened to remember from economics class out of his ass.
eric2dea 1 month ago
"No one's buying it. Might as well try to be a straight man."
If an unbiased conservative or even an independent said this line, in any context, it would have been misconstrued as homophobic. But because Maher said it, everything is apples and carrots. Makes sense?
Sullivan's thinking traditional conservatism...Bill only sees neo-conservatism no matter what (only currently, it's hard to blame him, considering Perry, Bachmann, etc). That's the disconnect here.
BrotherAtticus 1 month ago
@BrotherAtticus If anyone with an established record of being for the gays said this it would be fine. Also the fact that Maher is a comedian first and foremost helps.
I agree about Sullivan's positions though. He's one of the few conservatives I respect. His positions are thoughtful, reasonable and based in fact. While I happen to disagree on many things with him, he's not like the mainstream Republicans who are out of their minds with positions lifted from a fantasy land.
CullTheLivingFlower 3 weeks ago
@CullTheLivingFlower Fair enough (depending on what "positions" you're implying) ... though I've never understood how Bill Maher can so adamantly cling to not being a libertarian. People who are empirically-minded enough to be atheists are most often empirically-minded enough to acknowledge that free market capitalism is the very best means of prosperity (when non-coercive regulations and laws are obeyed). Maher is a puzzling exception, in spite of his favorite guests.
BrotherAtticus 3 weeks ago
@BrotherAtticus There is a huge expanse between libertarianism (which, for me seems dangerously close to anarchy) and what Bill Maher, or someone like myself believes in. While we may accept that capitalism is a very effective, and seemingly without competition as communism has all but been destroyed, we by no means think all industries should be run by the private market. Schooling, education, fire/police/ambulance services, to name a few, should be government-run.
CullTheLivingFlower 3 weeks ago
@CullTheLivingFlower Then your fears are for naught. Libertarians acknowledge two appropriate functions of gov't: the protective function, like military defense, and legal defense of private property rights; and the productive function, the production of goods and services that cannot easily be provided through private markets...which is widely understood to include emergency services. Education is a different matter, but it's not like private- and home-schooling don't work. Did I miss anything?
BrotherAtticus 3 weeks ago
@BrotherAtticus I didn't mean to say schooling and education, the are the same thing obviously, I meant education and healthcare.
I don't think private education is good. Yes it works, but it only works for rich people. I see no reason why your parents having money entitles you to be better educated than other people. Rich people should work to help make the public system better, not lift their children out of that system and let other people worry about it.
And home schooling I'm not a fan of
CullTheLivingFlower 3 weeks ago
@CullTheLivingFlower There are many things that I'm "not a fan of," but I still acknowledge the constitutionality of those things.
I also can't accept the rich privilege argument over schools, because the popular new sense of entitlement will spill into college education as well, and then private colleges will be in an awkward situation. Nothing is solved by lowering everyone's means to the least common denominator.
I think there's a lot to be said for the Constitution.
BrotherAtticus 3 weeks ago
Gay people can budget better ...fact
MrMuhamar 1 month ago
EDUCATION.
INNOVATION.
RENOVATION.
C'mon people! We are all on the same Conveyor-belt.
PapiWithPuppy 1 month ago
okay, that representative is an idiot....As a progressive/liberal, you are idiotic to think that if unemployment falls back down to 5 percent that our debt problem goes away. What the hell does that even mean? We are still spending billions on medicare/medicaid and those will skyrocket until we have to pay a trillion a year in INTEREST alone. Reducing debt is a progressive priority for the simple reason that if we want govt to invest in education/future research we need to have money
ihofaerefa 1 month ago
And does he mention Johnson above Huntsman? Johnson balanced the NM budget by standing strong, and without raising taxes. Sullivan is a weak mind, if he believes government growth is a "given" that must be compromised with. Apparently, he's never read any Harry Browne or Nathaniel Branden. Too busy with political masturbation to get to the meat of any deep philosophical comprehension. ...But he did nail Newt Gingrich accurately, and for that, I salute him.
libertarianjury 3 months ago
(Hayek, the hero of Reagan and Thatcher called himself a "classical liberal" or a "libertarian," although he didn't like the word libertarian for reasons of style.) Sullivan makes a joke of himself when he calls Huntsman a quality candidate who is getting ignored. LOL ...Too dumb to embrace Ron Paul as the only legitimate option. ...Very intellectually lazy!
libertarianjury 3 months ago
Sullivan is a stupid and inconsistent libertarian, and is not much of a conservative. Conservative, by the way, is always what Marvin Minsky called a "suitcase word" that always needs to be unpacked, because it is a word that takes its meaning from the relative historical status quo. ie: What is left to "conserve" is forever shifting. Hayek explained this in his essay "Why I am Not A Conservative" where he talks about the historical meaning of conservative and liberal.
libertarianjury 3 months ago