slavery and kidnapping

[KenH]

Originally posted by ScottEmerson:
Would you rather have no public schools

I don't believe in government education, it should all be private.

I am actually starting to get scared about some people's attitude toward taxes. They don't seem to care how much people pay in taxes, especially we working people. But I guess those that are financially well off rarely care about those of us who aren't in their income class.

Since we already work until July 11 to pay for all of federal, State, and local spending, just where will these people be satisfied? Until we work until September 1 to pay for government? Or how about November 30? Or why don't we just send our entire paycheck to the government and they can take care of everything just like they used to do in the old Soviet Union?

 

[Pete Richert]

I don't believe in government education, it should all be private.

While I am upset my thread was hijacked, I have to know about this one. Why don't you like public education? I can definitly see the advantages in private education by choice but I would think a great deal of people in very low income families would either being able to aford no education or afford very bad education.

 

[KenH]

Originally posted by Pete Richert:
Why don't you like public education?

1. The federal constitution does not authorize federal tax money being spent on education.

2. State constitutions, such as Arkansas, do authorize State tax money being spent on education.

3. We see what a mess government schools have become in this nation as the federal government has gotten more and more involved in the past 30-40 years. The federal government has a reversed Midas touch.

So, I prefer private education. Private charity(just imagine what we can do much, much, much more efficiently through private means than Leviathan does with its wasteful bureaucracy) can help those who might need it. But remember that education doesn't have to cost $10,000 per year per pupil to be quality.

But if we are going to have government schools, we should keep them under State and local finance and control.

 

[Pete Richert]

Oh, my bad. I thought education was run by the state. I didn't realize the is federal.

 

[KenH]

The federal government spends about $20 billion per year on government schools, which of course entitles the federal government to call the shots.

 

[Major B]

Originally posted by KenH:
The federal government spends about $20 billion per year on government schools, which of course entitles the federal government to call the shots.

Six percent (that is 6%, not sixty) of the funding for public schools comes from the feds. Most of the money comes from the states and from local property taxes. However, since the federal money comes without taxpayer complaints, school boards compete for the federal bucks. A lot of it comes in grants which must be applied for, etc. The $20 billion (I did not check the figure) you mention is a drop in the bucket of total spending on education. The figures vary per year, but the following quote from 2000-2001 is interesting:


"In 2000 the Department of Defense spent $295 billion versus $392 billion spent in 2000-1 on public elementary and secondary education. That doesn't even include the amount spent on higher education or spent in the private sector. If we total up all of these education expenditures, we find that $700 billion was spent on education during the 2000-1 school year, which represents more than 7 percent of our Gross Domestic Product. The Defense Department, by comparison received 3 percent of GDP during 2000. Even with the more recent increases in defense spending as part of the war on terrorism and even with the much-bemoaned cuts in education spending during the current budget crises in many states, we will continue to spend more than twice as much of the wealth our nation produces each year on education than we do on defending ourselves against foreign threats. "

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-greene052203.asp

 

[Major B]

More and better education stats to be found at:

http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2003/digest02/ch_2.asp

 

[KenH]

Originally posted by Major B:
Six percent of the funding for public schools comes from the feds.

But if the federal government gives $1.00 to something they assume control of it or else you get no taxpayer money from Leviathan.

And, as a reading of the U.S. Constitution will show, there is no warrant for Leviathan to take money from me and give it to a government school.

 

[Kent Witcher]

Concerning Taxes:

I'm self-employed so I don't pay any taxes during the year. I pay when I send in my tax returns. However I have not yet had to pay any federal taxes; ever! In fact I got several hundred dollars back this year due to credits I'm eligible for and such. So I don't know anything about working to July 11 to pay taxes.

BTW I have had to pay in very health sums in state and local taxes. Go figure, huh!

Concering public schools:

I agree with KenH to the degree that I believe that if there is any public education at all it should be private. Myself I will teach my children at home. I will not subject them to wordly endoctrination and blatant wickedness that runs rampant through the public school system.

As a christian man I cannot and willnot allow my children to enter the public school domain.

 

[KenH]

Originally posted by Kent Witcher:
I have not yet had to pay any federal taxes; ever!

So I don't know anything about working to July 11 to pay taxes.

How can you not have ever paid federal income tax? You pay other federal taxes - such as the gasoline tax when you fill up your automobile.

By the way, working until July 11 includes all taxes - whether they are excise taxes, income taxes, gasoline taxes, all the hidden taxes in the price of goods, etc., etc., etc., etc. etc. So you are included.

 

[Tazman]

Originally posted by Kiffin:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr /> But is that it? It doesn't occur to them whatsoever that they should not have been kidnapped in the first place!!!! A christian brother should one up that treating them fairly and SEND THEM HOME! I would hope a Christian brother would send me home after buying me from the slave trade after I was kidnapped.

Sending them home would have probably got them executed or killed considering the brutal way of African tribal warfare. In God's providence however just as Joseph benefited from his slavery so the descendants of slaves have ultimately benefited in having a better lifestyle than their fellow Africans in Africa whose ancestors sold them into slavery. </font>[/QUOTE]It's their choice. Maybe they could have made a difference back home. There has been outside influence as well in the development of that country. If this place having the same evil hearts could unify and fight for a better place to live why can't they?

 

[Major B]

Originally posted by Tazman:
Sending them home would have probably got them executed or killed considering the brutal way of African tribal warfare. In God's providence however just as Joseph benefited from his slavery so the descendants of slaves have ultimately benefited in having a better lifestyle than their fellow Africans in Africa whose ancestors sold them into slavery.

It's their choice. Maybe they could have made a difference back home. There has been outside influence as well in the development of that country. If this place having the same evil hearts could unify and fight for a better place to live why can't they? [/QB][/QUOTE]

The reasons that Africa has not developed on a pace with the West.

1. Tribalism--tribal warfare has consumed Africa for millenia. The slave trade was fed by tribal warfare.

2. Western interference. One of the unusal facts of Africa, so rich in natural resources, is that it lacks one vital resource: all the raw materials needed to make gunpowder do not exist in Africa in sufficient quantity to make gunpowder there. Since the advent of firearms, outsiders have manipulated conflict in Africa by deciding who gets the guns and ammo.

3. Lack of democratic traditions. We did not invent democracy; rather, we inherited a fairly highly-developed system from the English and improved on it. (see: English Bill of Rights, 1689, and othe pre-18th-century documents at
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/pre18.htm).

Freed slaves from the US went back to Africa and founded Liberia, which was, for a long time, a democratic example. However, the democracy fell apart in the 1940s and 1950s, and now anarchy reigns there.

 

[Tazman]

Major B

I guess we'll never know, but we can consider Native Americans, huh?

 

[Major B]

Originally posted by Tazman:
Major B

I guess we'll never know, but we can consider Native Americans, huh?

Actually, some native American tribes had a highly developed governmental system. The Iroquois Confederation was so sophisticated that some of its provisions even found their way into the US Constitution. The key things that hurt native Americans in North America were:

1. Their concept of land usage--for them, no one could "own" land, so they did not understand the culture arrayed against them.

2. Their lack of resistance to european diseases. Many tribes were totally wiped out by measles.

3. Their failure to unify against the Europeans.

4. Their low birth rate.

 

[Tazman]

Originally posted by Major B:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Tazman:
Major B

I guess we'll never know, but we can consider Native Americans, huh?

Actually, some native American tribes had a highly developed governmental system. The Iroquois Confederation was so sophisticated that some of its provisions even found their way into the US Constitution. The key things that hurt native Americans in North America were:

1. Their concept of land usage--for them, no one could "own" land, so they did not understand the culture arrayed against them.

2. Their lack of resistance to european diseases. Many tribes were totally wiped out by measles.

3. Their failure to unify against the Europeans.

4. Their low birth rate. </font>[/QUOTE]Wow! You are amazing. It seems that your position is people that were "More" developed had the right to manipulate others of different cultures and conquer them.