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infrastructure building by govts are govt programs!!!!!!!!! infrastructure spending can be done in the private sector too! this idea that only the govt can build roads is something which needs to be addressed. the only difference with govt roads and private sector roads is that in order for a road to be built in the private sector, their has to adequate demand for it or the potential for enough people to use said road. govts can spend millions building roads that very few people use. in other words, govt will spend the money where the private sector has deemed there not to be enough demand. if those roads were not built the people who use them would have to resort to alternatives.
American history shows this is a false statement. First, the private sector does a poor job paying for infrrastructure especually if it requires a big investment up front and two the private sector cherry picks and provides service only to those areas and customers who pay enough to make it very profitable. That means enough to meet expectations on return on investment. Prividing service to areas that only provide modest profits are shunned because the private sector has other ventures or places to spend its money. In todays world an example would be building broadband or fiber optic systems in China or India in preference to the United States. Every major infrastructure advance has been on the governments nickel whether it be the Erie Canal, National Road, railroads and today US and Interstate Highways. I doubt the US would have become an autonation if Henry Ford, Walter Crystler or Alfred P. Sloane had to have conjured up the billions of dollars to build the paved roads these vehicles needed. Before the automobile Americas paved roads ended at the city limits of a handful of large cities in the East and Midwest. The same was largely true with Mr Edisons and Mr Westinghouses electric power. Bringing the backwoods pkaces of America into the 20th century is what government infrastructure spending did. Without it American business would not have moved into places like the Tennessee Valley, the Arklatex region, Pacific Northwest, or California. Now there were unintended consequenses like Industry no longer had to be on the outskirts of NYC or along the Great Lakes. So the factories left first to the South and West and now across the globe but this is another story.
Location: Currently I physically reside on the 3rd planet from the sun
2,220 posts, read 1,877,888 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mwruckman
I think millions of poor whites and blacks who got a chance to go to a new fangled consolidated unified school district then on to the expanded public colleges and universities many with Pell grants or GI benefits all paid by money thrown at the problem of education by that government would not agree. An ignorant America in the 21st century isn't going to cut it. America needs to be exceptional --but not in its ignorance!
Excuse me?
Our schools are already turning out bad products.
We have failed our children in education.
You just don't get it. This whole debate began as you said with my statement: "According to the scientific community, yet it is."
The fallacy is that my stating this is not an appeal to authority of any kind. Why you don't get it I don't understand. I merely state that the scientific community as a whole deems evolution a worthy topic for a high school curriculum. Whether that is right or wrong is a debate for another thread.
For some reason, you have twisted that into an appeal to authority. I'm done here though. You've obviously twisted the original meaning of my statement in hopes I'd take your evolution bait and when I wouldn't you had nothing to grasp to other than "well you just appeal to authority like all the other sheep". Good luck finding someone else to play along.
*chuckle*
If that was all your point was, you could have stopped when I said that a consensus was not validity. As you are now saying you had no other position, so there is no point in taking up an argument with my statement.
Instead, you kept pointing to that as if it had some relevance to the issue.
The fact of the matter is, you walked into an argument you were unprepared to argue and rather than simply stepping away and remaining neutral, you kept attempting to validate some form of point to your position which lead to numerous fallacious responses.
Finally you are stepping away with yet another fallacious excuse with claims of "not getting it" and petty taunts and accusations of game playing in order to make it appear as if you are the reasonable one.
American history shows this is a false statement. First, the private sector does a poor job paying for infrrastructure especually if it requires a big investment up front and two the private sector cherry picks and provides service only to those areas and customers who pay enough to make it very profitable. That means enough to meet expectations on return on investment. Prividing service to areas that only provide modest profits are shunned because the private sector has other ventures or places to spend its money. In todays world an example would be building broadband or fiber optic systems in China or India in preference to the United States. Every major infrastructure advance has been on the governments nickel whether it be the Erie Canal, National Road, railroads and today US and Interstate Highways. I doubt the US would have become an autonation if Henry Ford, Walter Crystler or Alfred P. Sloane had to have conjured up the billions of dollars to build the paved roads these vehicles needed. Before the automobile Americas paved roads ended at the city limits of a handful of large cities in the East and Midwest. The same was largely true with Mr Edisons and Mr Westinghouses electric power. Bringing the backwoods pkaces of America into the 20th century is what government infrastructure spending did. Without it American business would not have moved into places like the Tennessee Valley, the Arklatex region, Pacific Northwest, or California. Now there were unintended consequenses like Industry no longer had to be on the outskirts of NYC or along the Great Lakes. So the factories left first to the South and West and now across the globe but this is another story.
if the interstates hadn't been built by govt they would've been built by the private sector. would they be as widespread? probably not. would that be such a bad thing ie less urban sprawl. i don't think so. would we be as dependent on automobiles and foreign oil? i don't think so. might we have thought up some yet uninvented way of getting around. if electrical companies didn't expand with govt money might we be further along with off-grid technology?
make no mistake we'd be living in a different country, but i don't see that as such a bad thing.
Works for me. As if we don't have the ability to teach or OWN kids without the help of a huge beruracracy in Washington run by a bunch of political interests. Kids graduating from schools 100 years ago would run rings around the ones today and thre was no such thing as an NEA 100 years ago.
Yep and this is evident by the level of content required at very low levels during then. Have you looked at some of the early school books during the time of Charles Carrol? The first grade content is on par (or even more advanced in some ways) with freshman college level academics these days in reading, writing, and critical thinking. My grandfather only went up to an 8th grade education and his ability to read, write and do math is far beyond that of early college content (aside from algebra, though his basic math is incredible as he can calculate interest for loans in his head, I even had him tutor me when I was in college on methods of how he simplified mathematics which helped me understand calculus much better).
Excuse me?
Our schools are already turning out bad products.
We have failed our children in education.
We are already a society of ignorance.
Yep, initially it was reading, writing, critical thinking, and "variations" in historical content as well as coverings of it that began to lack.
Now, science, mathematics, and physics are being dumbed down with relativistic principals of evidential process that contradict the basic aspects of the fields (which is why you see many disciplines out there purporting conclusions using extremely poor methods and means of collection).
Yep, initially it was reading, writing, critical thinking, and "variations" in historical content as well as coverings of it that began to lack.
Now, science, mathematics, and physics are being dumbed down with relativistic principals of evidential process that contradict the basic aspects of the fields (which is why you see many disciplines out there purporting conclusions using extremely poor methods and means of collection).
variations of historical content is a good thing. there are normally many sides to one story. i wish it were so the dept encouraged this but unfortunately it often presents only one side. it is for this reason that we have an inability to think and consider differing points of view
If that was all your point was, you could have stopped when I said that a consensus was not validity. As you are now saying you had no other position, so there is no point in taking up an argument with my statement.
Instead, you kept pointing to that as if it had some relevance to the issue.
The fact of the matter is, you walked into an argument you were unprepared to argue and rather than simply stepping away and remaining neutral, you kept attempting to validate some form of point to your position which lead to numerous fallacious responses.
Finally you are stepping away with yet another fallacious excuse with claims of "not getting it" and petty taunts and accusations of game playing in order to make it appear as if you are the reasonable one.
/shrug
Sorry, you tried to press an issue that I never argued in the first place. Sorry you can't admit that and accept you were wrong. Oh well.
Edit: But I will concede one thing to you. I did start to go down the road that was not intended in my first and only point. You are right about that. I don't know why you continue to infer that I was unprepared to argue such and such opinion about evolution however. I told you I'm not a scientist and don't pretend to be one. Just b/c I told you I wasn't going to argue the point doesn't mean I was unprepared to unless by unprepared you mean I wouldn't take up the issue..possibly a matter or symantics.
I still think you need to climb off your high horse. You lace your posts with little snipes that infer the intelligence of those you are debating are not on a level of your own. Statements such as "If you're not capable...", "If you're not prepared..." are what I'm referring to here. Very demeaning and hyprocitical as you accused me of making the same assumptions about yourself serveral times.
so poor whites and blacks never went to college before pell grants and gi benefits? i disagree, those who wanted to, really wanted to, found the money. we also need to consider that before pell grants, gi benefits and govt backed student loans, college was much cheaper than it is today.
college these days is about as relevant as a high school diploma 30 years ago. i don't think that having a college educated street sweeper with $50000 in student debts is ideal or will forward american exceptionalism. an america which has diverted all its resources into educating people in areas we don't need, won't create exceptionalism either.
There probably were some but not as much as there are today. Although, I do agree with you somewhat about how some bachelor's degrees are no better than having a high school diploma nowadays. I use myself as an example, I graduated from the University last December and I still can't find a job (according to a newspaper article written weeks ago 85% of college grads can't find a job). The reason is that they all want experience; the only places willing to train you are those that don't require a degree. However, I didn't go to school 5 years and got myself in debt to end up working at McDonalds or some other customer service type job.
As for college being cheaper; I'm not so sure about that. It may seem cheaper to us if we see the bill but it's likely worth as much as it was today? Keep in mind that 50 years ago $100 were worth more than they are today
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