A Christian republic (POLL)

[zoogs]

I definitely agree with this, JJ.

 

On this point:

 

But we also can't completely ignore the fact of what is the predominate religion in this country. Some of the sentiments from that religion and others are bound to seep into some policy and decisions.

 

 

I think it's an area we all look at a certain way because the context here is that the U.S. is overwhelmingly majority Christian, but in the general case this may not always be true. So I think a somewhat different question I'd pose is, how much of these ideas of freedom and tolerance do we see as intrinsically American, versus a beneficial consequence of Christian predominance seeping into policy? And if the latter, is it important then to fight to preserve that predominance?

[JJ Husker]

I definitely agree with this, JJ.

 

On this point:

 

 

But we also can't completely ignore the fact of what is the predominate religion in this country. Some of the sentiments from that religion and others are bound to seep into some policy and decisions.[/size]

 

I think it's an area we all look at a certain way because the context here is that the U.S. is overwhelmingly majority Christian, but in the general case this may not always be true. So I think a somewhat different question I'd pose is, how much of these ideas of freedom and tolerance do we see as intrinsically American, versus a beneficial consequence of Christian predominance seeping into policy? And if the latter, is it important then to fight to preserve that predominance? [/size]

I'm not sure I totally understand the question but, yes, freedom and tolerance are intrinsically American ideals. I think they are also values of most Christians. However recently, it seems a sort of new breed of Christians (I'll call them CINO's) seem to have hijacked the narrative of the Christian religion, at least politically. IMO, they are kind of a whacky fringe element and don't particularly represent the religion too well. They seem to be rife with intolerance and casting the first stone. I imagine it is this vocal group that has turned so many against the church.

 

I don't think it is important for America in general to fight to maintain the predominance of Christianity in this country. However, as a Christian myself, I sure would like to see it remain the predominate religion. Simply because I believe the majority of Christians tend to represent the correct values for this country. And that doesn't mean that I think some non-Christians don't stand for the right things. I guess I would just like to see the right and left fringe groups diminish and for the silent majority to be the ones shaping people's opinions. Unfortunately right now, way too many believe the militant abortion center protesters and gay rights opponents are what Christianity is about. That just isn't the case from my point of view. I kind of wish those people would just go away.

[zoogs]

I like everything that you've said. Actually, I would be *quite* uneasy at the prospect of Christian predominance in America being supplanted by, say, another religion, because I do think it generally aligns so well and most Christians fully support the American ideal of separation of church and state.

But separation of church and state means Christianity is definitely not assured of predominance, and at least the perception that this is about to decline appears to me to be motivating no small amount of people. I don't know if I would call it fringe, because there are so many different groups of Christians as well, and they have different beliefs. But for example, to take Evangelicals broadly, I think there has been an enormous strain of "take back *our* country" there -- and they've also been aligned strongly with the GOP in pursuit of this.

Through that alliance, we don't even need to consider fringe demonstrators. We have for example, a state legislature that pounces on surprise anti-LGBT legislation when it gets the chance. We get inventive abortion restrictions and efforts to defund care providers on a scale that has really been exploding, and appear to be increasingly, disproportionately punitive. Like, every exception stricken, every center closed, every inch of cost increased or access reduced (which affects people no matter their circumstance), it's a win. It's expressed in other ways like various pushes to teach intelligent design as science, distort the general teaching of biology with faith-based justifications, and so on.

So far none of those have scored entirely sweeping national victories. And I definitely believe they do not represent the bulk of Christianity. It certainly encourages me that we're basically on the same page, despite coming from different perspectives.

[JJ Husker]

Interesting. This discussion spurred me to look up religion demographics. I think this country is a long way away from having Christianity supplanted as the predominate religion.

 

70.6% Christian (inc. 25.4% Evangelical Protestant & 20.8% Catholic)

5.9% Non-Christian (Jewish, Muslim, etc)

22.8% Unaffiliated (including 7.1% atheist/agnostic)

 

I did not realize Evangelical numbers were quite that high. And I sure thought non-Christian and atheist/agnostic numbers would've been much higher.

 

Considering that one of our fastest growing segments is from Mexico and Latin America (who tend towards Catholicism) I don't see where Christianity is under any threat of being marginalized any time soon.

 

http://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/

[Enhance]

To tail off of JJ's link, some more interesting numbers this summer from the Pew Research Center.

 

The share of Americans who identify as atheists has roughly doubled in the past several years. Pew Research Center’s 2014 Religious Landscape Study found that 3.1% of American adults say they are atheists when asked about their religious identity, up from 1.6% in a similarly large survey in 2007. An additional 4.0% of Americans call themselves agnostics, up from 2.4% in 2007.

[NM11046]

Super interesting. I will say, I was raised catholic, and stopped practicing. It took me 20 years to admit to others that I'm an atheist though - I've always felt that it opens conversations up to try and "show me the way" so it's easier to just not say it out loud.

 

And although I don't practice, and don't align with the church on many things, I still consider myself catholic (just like I consider myself Scottish). I know it's not right necessarily but it's me!

[BigRedBuster]

 

The federal government should get totally out of it and leave it to the states and local communities. What works in New York city or Washington DC is likely much different than what would work in rural Nebraska etc.

 

 

 

I disagree with this quite strongly. The federal government shouldn't get out of it - they need to build a working model for education based on 21st century thought and abandoning the industrialization/factory line producing style of education that started all of this ages ago.

 

Taking federal oversight out of it results in places like Texas, which not only does it's citizens, particularly those economically disadvantaged, a great and tragic disservice by offering awful education, but also retards the progress of the rest of the country.

 

I wanted to go back to this because I've been thinking about this since I read these posts.

 

The question in my mind is, how involved should the federal government be in managing the educational systems of the US.

 

I guess my short answer is, the more local you can make things, the better.

 

My longer answer is, to some extent, I'm fine with the federal government being involved but it should be proportionate to the amount of money the feds feed into the local systems. Meaning, if they want control, then show us the money. If they aren't willing to show us the money, then they should have much less say in what a local school system does.

 

Also, I'm tired of mandates coming down from like NCLB or the restrictions put on school lunch programs where it's so obvious at the local level these regulations are absurd. Some Bureaucrat or First Lady thinks....Oh, isn't this precious and a good thing.....only to have kids at local levels suffering by them trying to look good.

 

In general, I'm for a federal agency of some kind monitoring our educational system, studying if various systems or ideas work or fail and giving ideas to the local systems on ways to improve.

 

BUT, once you start putting more and more and more federal regulations on local schools from the feds, the system becomes less successful.

[BigRedBuster]

 

At some point people are going to realize that defunding public schools hurts them, too. At that point it'll be too late, as we'll have a generation of undereducated morons running around.

 

But hey, let's continue to think me first, country second. What could possibly go wrong?

Maybe you haven't noticed.....we already have a couple half generations of undereducated morons running around this country and it has nothing to do with defunding public schools, quite the opposite actually. Public funding has been increased and mostly wasted trying to get these underachievers up to some remedial level of almost acceptability so that the schools can "prove" they did their job. Nevermind that the high achievers have to suffer from being forced to share the same classrooms with these losers.

 

Maybe someday people will learn that funding for schools has relatively little impact on the ability to educate kids compared to the parenting they are subjected to and their socioeconomic status. If I had a nickel for every kid that millions of dollars of funding was never going to help anyway.....

 

We should be teaching most of these students how to be good parents because the other stuff isn't going to matter without it if they don't break the cycle of how they are being raised.

 

I also wanted to go back to the bolded.

 

I don't agree with this at all. We don't all of a sudden have "half generations" of people running around the country uneducated that we didn't have before. There were always uneducated people in this country and we always will.

 

That's just part of living amongst a population of 300 million people. Our system is somewhat different than much of the world in that we at least ATTEMPT to educate everyone. But, in reality, that is an impossible task. Some people don't have the mental capacity to be educated. Others have piss poor parents who don't set them up to be educated. Others just flat out don't want to do what it takes to be educated. These facts haven't changed.

 

What I DO think has changed is the world around these people in that a) it's much harder now for an uneducated person to get a decent job and sustain themselves...c) everyone now days is affected much more by forces not geographically around them which magnifies the problems when various groups don't understand one another...and c) with technology now, uneducated people have become a much more vocal and effective group politically and, they can be manipulated much easier. Now, that last statement may send some people off the edge but that doesn't make it any less true.

[VectorVictor]

1) What is wrong with the public school system?

2) Why are private schools better than public schools?

3) What have Unions done to make the public school situation worse?

4) What happens to students when the private school they attend fails?

5) How will people feel if, in a generation, secular private schools poach enough students from non-secular schools that non-secular schools collapse around the country?

 

As for point three, you can't just simply throw the term 'unions' around and expect it to mean the same thing in all states. Where teachers have more rights in the Northeast via their Unions, Teachers Unions don't have the ability to strike or for collective bargaining in Texass, and it exists more as a trade organization with legal backing for lobbying the legislature, protecting teachers legally in the classroom (e.g. kid falsely accuses a teacher of abuse--use this example because I've seen it happen), and as a watchdog to complain when the legislature takes money out of the Teacher Retirement System (TRS) and doesn't put any back, and then promptly complains that TRS isn't doing their job and the funds should be vested on Wall Street instead and handled directly by the state w/o legislative approval. :|

 

The last one is a big reason it's getting hard to find teachers in Texass--they don't pay into or get Social Security benefits like the rest of us in Texass (that pay in), even if the teacher had a job prior that paid into the Social Security system prior. All because Texass is f*****g awesome like that.

 

As for Nebraska, my understanding is that Unions are present and allowed to collectively bargain, but aren't allowed to strike, per se. But I only have exposure to a couple of school districts, so I'm not 100% if it's the same across the state?

[zoogs]

Interesting. This discussion spurred me to look up religion demographics. I think this country is a long way away from having Christianity supplanted as the predominate religion.

 

70.6% Christian (inc. 25.4% Evangelical Protestant & 20.8% Catholic)

5.9% Non-Christian (Jewish, Muslim, etc)

22.8% Unaffiliated (including 7.1% atheist/agnostic)

 

I did not realize Evangelical numbers were quite that high. And I sure thought non-Christian and atheist/agnostic numbers would've been much higher.

 

Considering that one of our fastest growing segments is from Mexico and Latin America (who tend towards Catholicism) I don't see where Christianity is under any threat of being marginalized any time soon.

 

http://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/

 

I agree. I don't think the threat is actually there. The perception of it -- for example, the idea that Obama has been proposing to flood us with Muslim immigrants who will overrun the country and something about Detroit -- far outstrips the reality. The threat response is quite unwarranted.

[JJ Husker]

 

 

At some point people are going to realize that defunding public schools hurts them, too. At that point it'll be too late, as we'll have a generation of undereducated morons running around.

 

But hey, let's continue to think me first, country second. What could possibly go wrong?

 

Maybe you haven't noticed.....we already have a couple half generations of undereducated morons running around this country and it has nothing to do with defunding public schools, quite the opposite actually. Public funding has been increased and mostly wasted trying to get these underachievers up to some remedial level of almost acceptability so that the schools can "prove" they did their job. Nevermind that the high achievers have to suffer from being forced to share the same classrooms with these losers.

Maybe someday people will learn that funding for schools has relatively little impact on the ability to educate kids compared to the parenting they are subjected to and their socioeconomic status. If I had a nickel for every kid that millions of dollars of funding was never going to help anyway.....

We should be teaching most of these students how to be good parents because the other stuff isn't going to matter without it if they don't break the cycle of how they are being raised.

I also wanted to go back to the bolded.

 

I don't agree with this at all. We don't all of a sudden have "half generations" of people running around the country uneducated that we didn't have before. There were always uneducated people in this country and we always will.

 

That's just part of living amongst a population of 300 million people. Our system is somewhat different than much of the world in that we at least ATTEMPT to educate everyone. But, in reality, that is an impossible task. Some people don't have the mental capacity to be educated. Others have piss poor parents who don't set them up to be educated. Others just flat out don't want to do what it takes to be educated. These facts haven't changed.

 

What I DO think has changed is the world around these people in that a) it's much harder now for an uneducated person to get a decent job and sustain themselves...c) everyone now days is affected much more by forces not geographically around them which magnifies the problems when various groups don't understand one another...and c) with technology now, uneducated people have become a much more vocal and effective group politically and, they can be manipulated much easier. Now, that last statement may send some people off the edge but that doesn't make it any less true.

You may be right. My bolded comment was based on my purely anecdotal experiences, particularly those I've seen associated with my kids schools and what they've told me about the students that attend their schools. In our area there seems to be a scarily large amount of students and parents who don't seem to really give a rip if their kids get educated or not. The school system seems to be no more than a big, free daycare for them. They don't attend teacher conferences, don't seem to encourage their kids to do their homework, don't attend their school activities, and seem to be the first in line to blame the teachers and schools for their own failures. Relatively few of these kids seem to overcome the bad parenting they have been dealt. For the longest time I thought it was an income/wealth issue but it isn't. The poorer kids who have engaged parents seem to do much better. And I know it isn't the teachers or quality of education they are receiving because our kids and many others do extremely well. Sure it's tougher when money is tight but the biggest influence I see that affects their education outcomes is how their parents help or hinder the process.

 

So anyway, me saying a couple half generations of undereducated morons was more bluster than fact. It's just what it seems like to me.

[Making Chimichangas]

 

As someone who is a member of the LBGTQIA community, to read stuff like this...it terrifies me.

 

It terrifies me that there are large numbers of "christians" who want to install their own version of christian sharia law and literally FORCE everyone into adhering to their beliefs.

 

It terrifies me that there seems to be an ever growing portion of the population who are perfectly fine with this kind of discrimination, bigotry, and hatred.

 

It terrifies me that I will soon have nowhere to go for any kind of legal protections.

 

It terrifies me that this kind of bigotry, intolerance, and hatred, is so "normalized" and accepted.

 

It makes me incredibly angry that christian bigots are given free reign to spread such hate in the name of a "god" that doesn't even exist.

 

The Founding Fathers saw the corruption in the Church of England and founded our country with a Constitution and as a Democratic Republic, where religion was purposefully excluded from the public sector.

 

And here we are, in 2016 and the forces of evil, hate, and corruption (most christians) are busy trying to create the type of society they think they want, saying to hell with the Constitution, all because they think it's the LBGTQIA people who are ruining America.

 

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/louisiana-governors-lgbt-rights-order-thrown-judge-44191156

 

This link is about one state, and a Democratic Governor, who tried to protect his state's most vunerable residents and a bigot republican who blocked it.

 

Stuff like this is happening all across this nation.

 

I'm tired of this. I'm tired of dealing with these christian bigots who use one damn line in their book of lies, fairy tales, and fables, to justify the demonization of one small subset of the population.

 

I'm tired of their hypocrisy, I'm tired of their holier-than-thou attitudes, and I'm really tired at constantly having to explain and justify my existence to a group of morons who conveniently ignore their own sin while using their utterly bullcrap beliefs to bully, threaten, discriminate, and hate on me and people are like me.

 

You know what else is considered an abomination according to "god?"

 

• eating pork, shrimp, crab, mussels, clams, lobsters, rabbit (and the list goes on)
• wearing mixed fabric clothing
• shaving your face
• getting re-married if you're not a true widow

 

Do know what's NOT an abomination according to "god?"

 

• slavery (god even gives prices for slaves based on age and gender)
• murder (god kills so many people in the bible and instructs others to kill in "his" name)
• rape (several passages say for men to just take a woman for themselves)
• incest (several instances this is condoned)
• genocide (god routinely wipes out large numbers of people, for example, Noah and the flood)

I just want the same freedom, rights, and protections under the law (both state and federal) that a cis, heterosexual, white male takes for granted.

 

I have no idea why my wanting to treated fairly, to be allowed to be present in society, and not be bullied, threatened, harassed, and/or discriminated against is considered such a "radical" concept.

 

So ... you don't want school vouchers then?

 

Vouchers are fine, as long as they are not for attending any religious based schools.

[funhusker]

 

 

 

At some point people are going to realize that defunding public schools hurts them, too. At that point it'll be too late, as we'll have a generation of undereducated morons running around.

 

But hey, let's continue to think me first, country second. What could possibly go wrong?

Maybe you haven't noticed.....we already have a couple half generations of undereducated morons running around this country and it has nothing to do with defunding public schools, quite the opposite actually. Public funding has been increased and mostly wasted trying to get these underachievers up to some remedial level of almost acceptability so that the schools can "prove" they did their job. Nevermind that the high achievers have to suffer from being forced to share the same classrooms with these losers.

Maybe someday people will learn that funding for schools has relatively little impact on the ability to educate kids compared to the parenting they are subjected to and their socioeconomic status. If I had a nickel for every kid that millions of dollars of funding was never going to help anyway.....

We should be teaching most of these students how to be good parents because the other stuff isn't going to matter without it if they don't break the cycle of how they are being raised.

I also wanted to go back to the bolded.

 

I don't agree with this at all. We don't all of a sudden have "half generations" of people running around the country uneducated that we didn't have before. There were always uneducated people in this country and we always will.

 

That's just part of living amongst a population of 300 million people. Our system is somewhat different than much of the world in that we at least ATTEMPT to educate everyone. But, in reality, that is an impossible task. Some people don't have the mental capacity to be educated. Others have piss poor parents who don't set them up to be educated. Others just flat out don't want to do what it takes to be educated. These facts haven't changed.

 

What I DO think has changed is the world around these people in that a) it's much harder now for an uneducated person to get a decent job and sustain themselves...c) everyone now days is affected much more by forces not geographically around them which magnifies the problems when various groups don't understand one another...and c) with technology now, uneducated people have become a much more vocal and effective group politically and, they can be manipulated much easier. Now, that last statement may send some people off the edge but that doesn't make it any less true.

You may be right. My bolded comment was based on my purely anecdotal experiences, particularly those I've seen associated with my kids schools and what they've told me about the students that attend their schools. In our area there seems to be a scarily large amount of students and parents who don't seem to really give a rip if their kids get educated or not. The school system seems to be no more than a big, free daycare for them. They don't attend teacher conferences, don't seem to encourage their kids to do their homework, don't attend their school activities, and seem to be the first in line to blame the teachers and schools for their own failures. Relatively few of these kids seem to overcome the bad parenting they have been dealt. For the longest time I thought it was an income/wealth issue but it isn't. The poorer kids who have engaged parents seem to do much better. And I know it isn't the teachers or quality of education they are receiving because our kids and many others do extremely well. Sure it's tougher when money is tight but the biggest influence I see that affects their education outcomes is how their parents help or hinder the process.

 

So anyway, me saying a couple half generations of undereducated morons was more bluster than fact. It's just what it seems like to me.

 

Amen. Hallelujah!

 

This is why I don't necessarily agree with vouchers. If you and your child "really" want to do well, you will. If you OR your child don't care, a voucher to a private school won't change it. Since we are going anecdotal, I currently have a student in my class that went to public school K-7. His mom put him in a private school in Omaha because he was getting in trouble and not doing his work. Two years later, he is back in public high school because his mom felt she was wasting money paying tuition for him to not do his homework and get in trouble. This information was from his mother at a parent-teacher conference.

 

Would private schools be able to deny the acceptance of students under a voucher system? If so, I guess the above situation could be avoided and the school could only let in the best and brightest. But I'm not sure what the repercussions of that would be to the kids "left behind".

[JJ Husker]

 

 

 

 

At some point people are going to realize that defunding public schools hurts them, too. At that point it'll be too late, as we'll have a generation of undereducated morons running around.

 

But hey, let's continue to think me first, country second. What could possibly go wrong?

 

Maybe you haven't noticed.....we already have a couple half generations of undereducated morons running around this country and it has nothing to do with defunding public schools, quite the opposite actually. Public funding has been increased and mostly wasted trying to get these underachievers up to some remedial level of almost acceptability so that the schools can "prove" they did their job. Nevermind that the high achievers have to suffer from being forced to share the same classrooms with these losers.

Maybe someday people will learn that funding for schools has relatively little impact on the ability to educate kids compared to the parenting they are subjected to and their socioeconomic status. If I had a nickel for every kid that millions of dollars of funding was never going to help anyway.....

We should be teaching most of these students how to be good parents because the other stuff isn't going to matter without it if they don't break the cycle of how they are being raised.

I also wanted to go back to the bolded.

 

I don't agree with this at all. We don't all of a sudden have "half generations" of people running around the country uneducated that we didn't have before. There were always uneducated people in this country and we always will.

 

That's just part of living amongst a population of 300 million people. Our system is somewhat different than much of the world in that we at least ATTEMPT to educate everyone. But, in reality, that is an impossible task. Some people don't have the mental capacity to be educated. Others have piss poor parents who don't set them up to be educated. Others just flat out don't want to do what it takes to be educated. These facts haven't changed.

 

What I DO think has changed is the world around these people in that a) it's much harder now for an uneducated person to get a decent job and sustain themselves...c) everyone now days is affected much more by forces not geographically around them which magnifies the problems when various groups don't understand one another...and c) with technology now, uneducated people have become a much more vocal and effective group politically and, they can be manipulated much easier. Now, that last statement may send some people off the edge but that doesn't make it any less true.

You may be right. My bolded comment was based on my purely anecdotal experiences, particularly those I've seen associated with my kids schools and what they've told me about the students that attend their schools. In our area there seems to be a scarily large amount of students and parents who don't seem to really give a rip if their kids get educated or not. The school system seems to be no more than a big, free daycare for them. They don't attend teacher conferences, don't seem to encourage their kids to do their homework, don't attend their school activities, and seem to be the first in line to blame the teachers and schools for their own failures. Relatively few of these kids seem to overcome the bad parenting they have been dealt. For the longest time I thought it was an income/wealth issue but it isn't. The poorer kids who have engaged parents seem to do much better. And I know it isn't the teachers or quality of education they are receiving because our kids and many others do extremely well. Sure it's tougher when money is tight but the biggest influence I see that affects their education outcomes is how their parents help or hinder the process.

So anyway, me saying a couple half generations of undereducated morons was more bluster than fact. It's just what it seems like to me.

Amen. Hallelujah!

 

This is why I don't necessarily agree with vouchers. If you and your child "really" want to do well, you will. If you OR your child don't care, a voucher to a private school won't change it. Since we are going anecdotal, I currently have a student in my class that went to public school K-7. His mom put him in a private school in Omaha because he was getting in trouble and not doing his work. Two years later, he is back in public high school because his mom felt she was wasting money paying tuition for him to not do his homework and get in trouble. This information was from his mother at a parent-teacher conference.

 

Would private schools be able to deny the acceptance of students under a voucher system? If so, I guess the above situation could be avoided and the school could only let in the best and brightest. But I'm not sure what the repercussions of that would be to the kids "left behind".

In favor of vouchers, I would have to say that there are underperforming schools. There are many situations where the parents are engaged but the schools are not doing the job or providing the appropriate opportunities. I see no reason to prevent students and parents from being able to select the best choice for their particular situation. Vouchers would especially help lower income people escape bad schools. Rich people can pretty much afford to go wherever they wish. I think it would help put everyone on a more level playing field.

[knapplc]

 

1) What is wrong with the public school system?

2) Why are private schools better than public schools?

3) What have Unions done to make the public school situation worse?

4) What happens to students when the private school they attend fails?

5) How will people feel if, in a generation, secular private schools poach enough students from non-secular schools that non-secular schools collapse around the country?

 

As for point three, you can't just simply throw the term 'unions' around and expect it to mean the same thing in all states. Where teachers have more rights in the Northeast via their Unions, Teachers Unions don't have the ability to strike or for collective bargaining in Texass, and it exists more as a trade organization with legal backing for lobbying the legislature, protecting teachers legally in the classroom (e.g. kid falsely accuses a teacher of abuse--use this example because I've seen it happen), and as a watchdog to complain when the legislature takes money out of the Teacher Retirement System (TRS) and doesn't put any back, and then promptly complains that TRS isn't doing their job and the funds should be vested on Wall Street instead and handled directly by the state w/o legislative approval. :|

 

The last one is a big reason it's getting hard to find teachers in Texass--they don't pay into or get Social Security benefits like the rest of us in Texass (that pay in), even if the teacher had a job prior that paid into the Social Security system prior. All because Texass is f*****g awesome like that.

 

As for Nebraska, my understanding is that Unions are present and allowed to collectively bargain, but aren't allowed to strike, per se. But I only have exposure to a couple of school districts, so I'm not 100% if it's the same across the state?

 

 

 

This is good information. It's important to note that my question about Unions was directed specifically at BigRedBuster, who first mentioned them. I was asking in the context of how he brought them up, hence the wording of that question.