Almost Everything We're Taught Is Wrong

Townhall.com ^ | August 24 2011 | John Stossel

[marktwain]

Thanks for the article. It has some good points. Child labor was legal for most of the history of the U.S. Children were expected to work. They learned valuable lessons with that.

[red tie]

"Also, since gossip is free speech, blackmail is simply selling the service of not engaging in free speech. Why should that be outlawed?"

Because it allows wealthy people to pay to cover up their illegal crimes.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

I have long maintained that the majority of American kids would be better off working in cotton mills than sentenced to the custody of incompetent pedagogues, who will send truant officers to arrest their charges if they attempt to escape.

I include myself, my daughter and grandchildren in that population. Most of my high school teachers were grossly incompetent and crashing bores. Almost anything I ever learned worth knowing I taught myself.

[bmwcyle]

[Vaquero]

why is forced education for all Americans the law of the land.

Is there a constitutional imperative somewhere that calls for it???

My kids, once they could walk, were crawling under my car with me, or helping me put up sheet rock, painting and fixing the plumbing...

now one is an engineer who is called upon before other engineers because he can physically do things...along with the theory.

[Theodore R.]

The American people believe in paying pedagogues with tax money even if they don’t know what one is.

[Wpin]

The problem with Libertarianism is that the neglect to take morality into consideration. It is a fatal flaw in their “logic”.

[LearsFool]

That's why I like economics.

Economics - even sound economics - is not what makes for a good society.

But to the man with a hammer, the world looks like a nail. So Mr. Stossel will be hard to convince.

[occamrzr06]

"If we say that the United States should abolish child labor in very poor countries,"

Why is this our business and what gives us the authority to do this?

[Kaslin]

The kids here are way to much pampered. Take for instance if a juvenile commits a crime his or her name should be released. A juvenile from the age of 8 should know right from wrong. If not then parents and schools are failing to teach it

[Louis Foxwell]

Because it allows wealthy people to pay to cover up their illegal crimes.

Not necessarily. If the blackmailer has any marketing skills he will charge according to the target's ability to pay. A wealthy person will be hurt by inflating the cost of silence. Qny good used car salesman knows that discerning the customer's income is the first step in determining price.

[BfloGuy]

The problem with Libertarianism is that the neglect to take morality into consideration.

No, Libertarians don't neglect morality. They believe that the state should neither define nor enforce it.

[HiTech RedNeck]

It’s certainly a US prerogative to choose not to patronize such operations. Whether US should attempt to exercise political influence abroad to have such operations literally banned, is another question.

[Graybeard58]

I include myself, my daughter and grandchildren in that population. Most of my high school teachers were grossly incompetent and crashing bores. Almost anything I ever learned worth knowing I taught myself.

I may be older than you, I graduated from high school in small town Missouri in 1963, while my teachers weren't perfect, I would not have rated a single one of them, "grossly incompetent". Some were certainly better than others but they all knew the subjects they taught.

[bigheadfred]

Part of the problem is that punishment or the right to kick butt has been greatly diminished or abolished. Getting up in front of the class and having the Board of Education laid across your rear had in many cases, the desired effect. Same thing at home.

[conejo99]

Another way to look at child labor is to view it as servitude. As an adult I can make my own choice between spending my time preparing for the future (as in going to school) and exploiting my present talents (working). It’s my choice and I get the reward of either choice. But with children it is someone else who either gets the present rewards or chooses to allow the child to prepare himself for the future.
So long as the parent has the best interest of the child at heart, they have a fair chance of making a good decision (which might be to choose work in some cases). If the parent does not have the child’s best interest at heart then the child is an involuntary laborer working on the behalf of others.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Who guards the guardians? Shall there be societies of meta-blackmailers, who blackmail the blackmailers? And meta-meta-blackmailers and so on, until all public discourse is well chilled and tinged in fear? God, who made the creation, surely cannot be denigrated as a fool when making statements about how to run it, such as calling for well defined systems of justice that can’t be bribed.

[HiTech RedNeck]

There has yet to be any law, any principle applying to kings, which was not based in some “ought to” type of proposition.

[BobL]

Hmmm, so if we allow bullying (or really teasing) in grade school, perhaps less kids will grow up gay. It’s probably not a bad trade - some stress during the early years, in exchange for a chance at a happy, normal life.