Libertarian ping.To be added or removed from my ping list freepmail me or post a message here
Posted on 08/05/2006 5:11:22 PM PDT by Graybeard58
Coming to every school in Connecticut: a state-mandated swimming pool? The idea is not that far-fetched if you follow the thinking of people alarmed by the recent spate of drownings in Connecticut.
Here's the road map: Several young people, mostly minorities who were non-swimmers, drowned this summer. In Connecticut, this constitutes a moral crisis requiring -- what else? -- a government solution.
An analysis of selectively culled and tortured data from the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control reveals America has a "swimming gap," with racist origins, of course. Minority children 10 to 14 are more than four times as likely to drown than their white peers because, according to The Hartford Courant, Southern plantation owners prevented slaves from learning to swim so they would be less likely to escape. "(M)inority groups have historically been underrepresented in swimming lessons for a variety of reasons, including economics. Pools are sparse in the urban areas where so many minority families live."
This apparently compels the state to go off the deep end. One solution being bandied about would add to public-school curriculums a requirement that students get five hours of swimming lessons per year beginning in kindergarten. Of course, that would require the construction (with union labor) of hundreds of new school pools at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars, plus the hiring of many more (unionized) gym teachers/swimming instructors. It's a state mandate waiting to happen. Opponents will be condemned as racists, and if that fails, there's always the old saw: "If it saves one life, it would be worth it."
No one would argue children should be taught to swim, but no drowning crisis exists. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 782 American children 14 or under drowned in 2003, the last year for which statistics are available, but drowning rates have been declining steadily in recent decades. Each drowning is a tragedy, but the National Safety Council says the average American child is more likely to die in a plane crash than drown accidentally.
Just about every municipality, as well as YMCAs and other nonprofit groups, offer swimming lessons at reasonable prices; most provide discounted or free lessons to low-income families.
The responsibility for teaching children to swim belongs to their parents, not the state. It's saner, simpler and far less expensive than another massive government debacle.
Just a hope, really.
But everyone should know how to swim -- teaching it in physical education class is not, IMO, at all far-fetched.
People of African origin have bones that are more dense and a lower percentage of body fat. People of Irish descent, ditto.
Nanny State PING.........
Personally, I do think everyone should learn to swim, and at a young age............however, I'm not the government.
Libertarian ping.To be added or removed from my ping list freepmail me or post a message here
Some seem to be.
You GOTTA BE KIDDING ME
Foundation funding provided by Healthy People 2010
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My 8yo has no fear of the water.........thus making me terrified everytime she is in it. But she has had swimming lessons.
Our friends' summer places are right on Chincoteague channel, she wears a life jacket whenever we are over there.
Here we go again...........
OR
Thread, after thread, after thread, after thread....
Everyone keeps speculating as to WHEN we will get hit again.
We are getting hit. Without a shot being fired.
I was swimming with my kids and some of my grand babies under water before they were a year old. They naturally hold their breath and have no fear. Fear is a learned reaction.
>>>http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1678494/posts?page=32#32
Visualize me typing that with me smacking my shoe into the podium.
It's totally getting out of hand.............and I can't believe the number of members here with no problem with so much of it.
Even if this were true, it passes my understanding as to how it has any relevance to people today.
FR has enemies within also.
Take a gander at the posts here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1678447/posts
Another nanny state thread.
Not sure if FR is a conservative site anymore. Seems much closer to an LCR flavor.
>>>Southern plantation owners prevented slaves from learning to swim so they would be less likely to escape.
One of the themes of Healthy People 2010 is to overcome Health 'diversities'.
Not sure if the pool is meant to force people to swim or drown them if they can't.
Not sure if I'm being sarcastic either.
There are far more kids who go swimming than who fly.
Boy, you plan for your trips!
Healthy People 2010
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