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People say they're moving to Canada because of Obamacare

haymarket said:
WOW!!!! earlier you said that both sides were responsible. Suddenly, when painted into a corner, you resort to "you did it you did it you did it".

You very move from this faux above it all viewpoint to that of an extremist right wing shrieking partisan.

Your reply says nothing about what you cite as the problem. Don't you think its about time we STOP sending jobs overseas since you condemn that process and cite it as a cause of what you see as a major problem in America today?
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Hay, I'm a fierce partisan just like you are. But we can still talk with each other. Most of my friends are leftists, and we rarely agree. But we still talk.

I am interested in your opinion from an intellectual standpoint. But I will never cooperate with you under any circumstances because I don't believe your side acts in good faith. There is nothing to negotiate with people who don't act in good faith.

You refuse to acknowledge the international organization called OECD which measure the respective rankings of students in different countries. This is an unreasonable position because even the US Secretary of Education under Obama recognizes the validity of OECD's PISA rankings.

Btw, President Obama is getting ready to attack Iran. Did you see the news today. He's a very foolish man.
 
Albert Di Salvo said:
Hay, I'm a fierce partisan just like you are. But we can still talk with each other. Most of my friends are leftists, and we rarely agree. But we still talk.

I am interested in your opinion from an intellectual standpoint. But I will never cooperate with you under any circumstances because I don't believe your side acts in good faith. There is nothing to negotiate with people who don't act in good faith.

You refuse to acknowledge the international organization called OECD which measure the respective rankings of students in different countries. This is an unreasonable position because even the US Secretary of Education under Obama recognizes the validity of OECD's PISA rankings.

Btw, President Obama is getting ready to attack Iran. Did you see the news today. He's a very foolish man.
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You made a claim: that education in the USA was in a decline. There is only one way you can offer verifiable proof for that and that has been explained to you.

You first must establish a benchmark or measurable level for education in the USA from some previous year or era. Then you must identify a current year in which there is a measurable decline. And if all other variables and constants are the same, you may have a point.

So lets see it please.
 
haymarket said:
You made a claim: that education in the USA was in a decline. There is only one way you can offer verifiable proof for that and that has been explained to you.

You first must establish a benchmark or measurable level for education in the USA from some previous year or era. Then you must identify a current year in which there is a measurable decline. And if all other variables and constants are the same, you may have a point.

So lets see it please.
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I think you have a point. So I am going to rephrase this. US students don't compare well with their foreign peers under the PISA rankings of the OECD. This will have real life consequences in terms of the development of human capital in the US. Thanks.
 
Albert Di Salvo said:
I think you have a point. So I am going to rephrase this. US students don't compare well with their foreign peers under the PISA rankings of the OECD. This will have real life consequences in terms of the development of human capital in the US. Thanks.
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Thank you.

One reason US kids often do not score as well as others is that there is no United States system of education. Japan has one. Germany has one. The USA simply does not have one.

So the question becomes one of if you are really comparing apples to apples.
 
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haymarket said:
Thank you.

One reason US kids often do not score as well as others is that there is no United States system of education. Japan has one. Germany has one. The USA simply does not have one.

So the question becomes one of if you are really comparing apples to apples.
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The US Dept. of Education sets standards and hands out money to state education depts. State depts. of education in turn hand out money to County Offices of Education or Local School Districts. That constitutes some form of school system. Like No Child Left Behind, or the Obama program Race to the Bottom. jk.

The fact is that math and science are universal. American kids don't to well on the PISA rankings, and they don't accumulate sufficient knowledge to compete with kids in Shanghai or the rest of the Sinosphere.

Kids today don't know history. That's been true for two generations now. Who on this board younger than forty knows anything about history. They can't even challenge an old man with short term memory loss. That's really a pathetic state of affairs.

I acknowledge part of this is cultural...but the political culture of this country requires that full blame be laid at the feet of teachers and their unions. That's the way the game is played. Parents are not going to blame themselves. They are going to look for a scapegoat. That's where the teachers and their unions come in. And the teachers bear great responsibility.
 
No it does not. There is no American school system. Never has been one.

We have tens of thousands of different systems. And within many of those individual systems we have different schools that often are very very different than other schools in the same district.

Math might be universal but the curriculum is not. Nor are the tests a true or proper reflection of what is taught or learned.

Kids learn what is taught. I taught many young people who excelled at learning history. I work for one of them today.

Many schools are doing a wonderful job. Many school districts excel. Many students are doing great. Give their teachers credit and give the unions credit.

But the point is that America does not have a school system for you to praise or criticize. It simply does not exist.

Would you support one?
 
I seriously doubt these people would be welcome in Canada, as their social attitudes would be considered extreme.
 
Albert Di Salvo said:
I admit that both leftist and conservative Big Business types sent American jobs to China. For every conservative you show me I can show you a Jeffrey Immelt from General Electric who sent jobs to the wonderful people of China. No one has clean hands. Both sides are at fault. And now at least two full generations of American youth are going to suffer like we haven't seen in more than eighty years.

Did you know that the California liberals had the SF Bay Bridge expansion/retrofit built in China and shipped in pieces to the Bay Area? Liberals did this. Doesn't that demonstrate hypocrisy. Can you see why I have detached my emotions from America. Otherwise my heart would break.
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I didnt specify Conservatives when I said sending jobs to china, I did say conservatives need to admit that they know that has gone along way to murdering us. Corporate interest and corp greed knows no party lines. The defense of everything they do is what draws the party lines...Conservatives defend it to a fault and Liberals may rail against it to a fault....but greed is eating us alive and its driving what we do and what we are...and that lies right in the lap of the far right....right now.
 
Albert Di Salvo said:
I'm an athiest. My family is mixed race. I'm the only white in the family. We are your political enemies even if you are a nice guy.
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Sounds to me like you may be your own worst enemy, but not much of a threat to anyone else. People are not required to go through life as dumbed-down and disinformed sociopaths, but some do seem to choose that path anyway.

Do you realize that this China of yours since 1995 has lost more manufacturing jobs than the US presently has? Do you realize that with roughly three times our population, China manages to produce only about one-third of our GDP? Do you understand that without huge trade surpluses with somebody, China simply lacks the funding necessary to support its nascent urban middle-class and that without the political support (more like toleration at this point) of that group, the current government cannot stand?

I don't think you have ever thought about any of that. I think you have a hopelessly narrow, provincial, and simplistic view of the world that will never do you or anyone else any good at all.
 
Albert Di Salvo said:
Did you know that the California liberals had the SF Bay Bridge expansion/retrofit built in China and shipped in pieces to the Bay Area? Liberals did this. Doesn't that demonstrate hypocrisy.
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What have you got against free-market economics all of a sudden? Was a less expensive or higher qulity source available in the US? No? LOL!
 
Dittohead not! said:
Conservatives are sending jobs overseas, while liberals are buying infrastructure from China. Who will save us? I suppose it will be up to the Libertarians.
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Libertarians are principally a bunch of ex-neocon Bush supporters who are now too ashamed to admit it. These are about the last people you want to trust with anything.
 
Albert Di Salvo said:
The fact is that math and science are universal. American kids don't to well on the PISA rankings, and they don't accumulate sufficient knowledge to compete with kids in Shanghai or the rest of the Sinosphere.
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Ah yes, the Sinosphere. Meanwhile, why don't you visit some private fundie Christian schools in the rural south and see how "universal" math and science are. You could start for instance with Liberty University (sic) where school-sponsored displays have implied that humans and dinosaurs coexisted.

Meanwhile, the success of many school systems in OECD countries is obviously something to be welcomed and encouraged. And that success has come in significant part from their importing and applying lessons learned in studying our methods and systems. Further, the differences you cite are actually small and often inconclusive in the statistical sense. Canada for instance has been a consistent Top Ten scorer across the board since the PISA surveys began. Their school systems are structured and administered in much the same ways that ours are. What should we do in order to better emulate Canada?

Albert Di Salvo said:
I acknowledge part of this is cultural...but the political culture of this country requires that full blame be laid at the feet of teachers and their unions. That's the way the game is played.
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No, that's just the way you've chosen to play it. You've made a very poor choice.
 
Moderator's Warning:
Everybody need to Chill, starting about right Now.
 
Cardinal Fang said:
Libertarians are principally a bunch of ex-neocon Bush supporters who are now too ashamed to admit it. These are about the last people you want to trust with anything.
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The Neocons, i.e., PNAC supporters, and GWB are the opposite of libertarianism.
 
Dittohead not! said:
The Neocons, i.e., PNAC supporters, and GWB are the opposite of libertarianism.
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A lot of them claim to be Libertarians, though. Haven't gotten the memo that there's more to it than taxes yet.
 
Dittohead not! said:
The Neocons, i.e., PNAC supporters, and GWB are the opposite of libertarianism.
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LOL! There has been nothing at all to prevent hordes of one-time neocon boosters and Bush supporters from claiming to have been libertarians all along in hapless attempt to avoid the humiliations associated with their prior identifications. Why, you might be one of those yourself for all we know.
 
Cardinal Fang said:
LOL! There has been nothing at all to prevent hordes of one-time neocon boosters and Bush supporters from claiming to have been libertarians all along in hapless attempt to avoid the humiliations associated with their prior identifications. Why, you might be one of those yourself for all we know.
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Yes, why not? Lots of people claim to be what they're not. Self described conservatives are quite often big government authoritarians in reality. There is much confusion caused by the fact that political terms have different meanings to different people, after all. As for me, I get accused of being a flaming liberal more often than being a "neocon", whatever that means, or a conservative. Perhaps my stance on the war on drugs has something to do with that, or perhaps it is my lack of belief that the current president is in reality a Marxist America hating Muslim terrorist.
 
A lot of conservatives are calling themselves libertarians because they don't want to call themselves Republicans after the Bush administration.
 
Deuce said:
A lot of conservatives are calling themselves libertarians because they don't want to call themselves Republicans after the Bush administration.
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Can't blame them for that.
 
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Deuce said:
A lot of conservatives are calling themselves libertarians because they don't want to call themselves Republicans after the Bush administration.
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They shouldn't if they're not libertarian. Libertarian is very different from conservative. There is some overlap, but they're not the same thing.
 
Lakryte said:
Canada has a freer economy than the US, at least according to the freedom index. So I can't blame them.
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Yeah and one of the reasons for that is economic mobility, especially in regards to health care.

I pay for my health care via taxes, because of that whichever province I move to will provide me health care as long as I sign up for their provincial insurance plan, which is free except BC which is $50 a month I believe.

So therefore I don't have to be tied to a particular job because of Health Benefits and therefore can find which section of the economy I can be more productive in, which is exactly what I did.
 
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