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Politics "Under democracy, one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule -and both commonly succeed, and are right." -H.L. Menken

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Old 03-23-2006, 03:38 PM   #1
Betrothed2Death
 
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US Gov't System... ????

So, if I come off as a nitwit, tough. I'm just sincerely curious about what's up with this whole government system in America. I pretty much know jack shit about politics, law, government, etc and was wondering to myself, how exactly does it all work? This thought sprang about after my hearing of money cuts especially towards education and I was thinking, wouldn't it make more sense for the government to just pay for things like toilet paper and printers in schools. I mean, those are the bare necessities and what else are they doing with all that money. We US citizens pay a shitload of taxes and it still doesn't seem to be doing anything for US if there still need to be money cuts in schools and such. I'm so confused about it all. Someone... help? Please?!?!!
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Old 03-23-2006, 09:18 PM   #2
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Well, we could all stand in line with our vouchers for our weekly hand-outs like they used to do in Russia.
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Old 03-23-2006, 10:54 PM   #3
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Or we could ask how they manage to provide a superior education at a lower cost per child in private schools.

Publis schools, like all government entities, are wasteful of the taxpayers money. And they object mightily when anyone suggest they should be more accountable for their spending discretions.

I am not a fan of the public school system as it is now. And it shouldn't cost the taxpayers more money to fix it.
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Old 03-24-2006, 01:27 AM   #4
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I used to love the bumper sticker that said...

'This country will be better when schools have all the funding they need and the army has to have a bake sale to buy new missles'

I just think its suspect that when war breaks out the government can find billions a week to throw at the problem while schools have cut back after cut back and everytime the elected representaives claim there is no money in the budget to fix it, no one questions them.

The fact the 1/3rd of the GDP of America goes to build up stockpiles of weapons and less than 5% goes to schools and even less than that goes to social programs should bother the hell out of people there.

I know I always rave about the Irish government and all, but ours is much like, because it was modelled after, the UK system of government. The Irish is like the Australian government - we took the good parts from the british government and tweaked it. But even the UK has free healthcare and as mentioned in the previous posts in another thread the dole system.
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Old 03-25-2006, 03:29 PM   #5
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Quote:
Originally Posted by CptSternn
The fact the 1/3rd of the GDP of America goes to build up stockpiles of weapons and less than 5% goes to schools and even less than that goes to social programs should bother the hell out of people there.
Yep, I know what you mean. It DOES bother the hell out of me. Everytime I rant about some part of the government and propose to change it, however, people always look at me as though I'm 8 years of again. They tell me, "Yeah, right. You're so naive."
And I think, well, I should study government then. But even when I think I've learned enough to properly rave, people go on looking at me like I'm an idiot again. And I hate it. I'm sorry I'm an idealist, but there must be some people that dream impossible dreams otherwise we'll never progress further than we are now.
I just posted this thread to see if I could learn anymore so that when I go on raving more, people won't call me a loon or stupid and whatnot. I guess there are some people that will always do that, but I just want to be somewhat respected in my efforts. I guess, that's another impossible dream? Or perhaps, a hopeless, silly dream instead.. *huff huff*

~Gaia<3
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Old 03-26-2006, 04:25 AM   #6
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Quote:
Originally Posted by CptSternn
I used to love the bumper sticker that said...

'This country will be better when schools have all the funding they need and the army has to have a bake sale to buy new missles'
hahahahaha! too true, although i doubt the day will ever come where the military would need to hold a bake sale - nor would i want the country's defense to rely on such crude measures as aunt b's chocolate chip cookies.

if schools were allowed to teach history the way history actually occurred though, instead of the watered-down bullshit they spew nowadays in order to NOT OFFEND people, betrothed2death would already have a decent understanding of the how's and why's of america.

good show, laddy.

and betrothed - http://www.house.gov/house/Educate.shtml

browse that page for a while.
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Old 03-26-2006, 01:15 PM   #7
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EE -

Des Bishop LIVE, a new DVD you have to see if you like live stand up. He's a yank that moved to Ireland back when he was halfway through high school and had to adjust. His whole comedy act is about the different of life here and there. One of his bits is very funny about history, along the lines of what you are saying.

He goes off on how in American schools they talk about the revolutionary war, but in Irish history when they talk about their revolutionay war against the brits there are lines in the kids books about 'fuck those fucking bastards' and 'kill all those fucking wankers' and basically 90% of all Irish history boils down to fuck the brits. If you can learn that, you will score high on yer leaving cert under the history category.

Question 1: What was the biggest issue facing Ireland in 1600's
Answer: the brits
Questions 2: What was the biggest issue facgin Ireland in the 1700's
Answer: the brits
Question 3: What caused the potato famine?
Answer: the brits
Question 4: What caused the devalutation of the Irish pound in the early 1900's?
Answer: the brits

It's funny cuz it's true.

But seriously, the US history is 'toned down' to avoid hurting many peoples feelings. No one wants to bad mouth the Vietnamese or Russians now that they are all friendly. I understand the logic of forgive and forget, but lets face it - wars happen for a reason and if you don't teach people about it they will forget.
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Old 03-26-2006, 01:50 PM   #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by edible_eye
hahahahaha! too true, although i doubt the day will ever come where the military would need to hold a bake sale - nor would i want the country's defense to rely on such crude measures as aunt b's chocolate chip cookies.

if schools were allowed to teach history the way history actually occurred though, instead of the watered-down bullshit they spew nowadays in order to NOT OFFEND people, betrothed2death would already have a decent understanding of the how's and why's of america.

good show, laddy.

and betrothed - http://www.house.gov/house/Educate.shtml

browse that page for a while.
Thanks, will do.

And I know that they water down history and it really aggravates me. Especially how all the accounts are biased and we spend two years learning American history in schools now. Well, actually more than two years but now it's MANDATORY to have at least two years. At least in NJ. Ugh. I don't see how they can do that anyway. If France can fit the entire French history into a year, we should be able to fit US history into 1/2 a year since this country has only been around for, what, two hundred years?!? I'd much rather learn world history at any rate. More interesting to me.
But, I'd still like to learn a bit more about this government system too since what they teach over two years' worth of American History STILL doesn't cover what I'm wondering.

Btw, really random but have any of you seen American History X? Typing American History over and over made me think of it haha.

Thanks, again.

~Gaia<3
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Old 03-27-2006, 01:05 AM   #9
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Ok, I think almost every American citizen can point at major problems with our government, both at the state and federal levels, in areas ranging from taxation, public education, our bill of rights which somehow doesn't seem to matter any more, what wars are waged and when, etc. What I want to know is honestly what can be done about it all? We are locked within a two party system for election, which basically forces us to choose between the lesser of two evils bought by the highest dollar. I am concerned about this country, greatly, about the quality of life the children of today will have, about our fast diminishing respect for freedom and individuality. Personally, I don't see the stuff on the ballot that concerns me. How do we get it there? How do we overcome the massive amounts of money put forth to sway our opinions and drown out the little guys? I want to know. I want to do something about it. Truth and individuality are being exterminated. How do we prevent that?
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question:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Stormtrooper of Death
(shouts) WHY CAN'T WE ALL JUST GET ALONG??!!?
answer:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Beneath the Shadows
Because some people are dicks. And not everyone else is gay.
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Old 03-27-2006, 06:31 AM   #10
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We need more people from third and fourth parties to run for offices, local and statewide.

Unfortunately, it all boils down to who's got the most money. That's the reigning two parties(republicans/democrats). There's not enough variety. I think that our political parties are stagnating or have already stagnated. When laws are being passed that seem to go hand-in-hand with religious beliefs, it's just scary. Sometimes I wonder when they're going to amend the freedom of reilgion text to mean that 'you're free to practice any christian religion'.

I'd love to see candidates that aren't motivated by their religions! I don't give a shit about people's religious preferences, as long as they're not repressing someone else.


*Sorry, I don't know where that came from.*
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Old 03-27-2006, 09:37 AM   #11
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Wolf -

Wow, I can't add anything to that cuz it was what I was about to say.

I'd say the first thing that needs to happen to fix the problem is to lower the regulations that are in place for people running for president. I mean, either you have to be sponsored by one of the major parties, or get like 10,000 signatures in each state. Correct me if I'm wrong on that, but it's something along those lines.

Either way it keeps any average joe or even a local politician who might make a good president out of the running 99% of the time. Open up the race, thats the first step in change.
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Old 03-29-2006, 03:40 PM   #12
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Ok, how do we do that? How to we sponsor third and fourth party candidates to open the race? How do we get them visible without the massive monetary backing that the major political parties generate? How do we get people to become aware of other choices? I would like to be able to vote for someone who represents the beliefs of me and my family, but their isn't anyone i see that does that. I understand that their are problems with the current system. Everyone can see that. What specifically can we do to change it, short of revolution?
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question:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Stormtrooper of Death
(shouts) WHY CAN'T WE ALL JUST GET ALONG??!!?
answer:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Beneath the Shadows
Because some people are dicks. And not everyone else is gay.
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Old 03-29-2006, 03:59 PM   #13
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Really, if someone could get a real campaign finance reform bill through congress, one that limits both hard and soft money advertising, independent candidates might have a chance. But I'm not hopeful on this count. And when we live in a time where apathy runs so high ... *sigh*

There's a movie coming out now in which more people vote for a fictional "American Idol"-like show than vote for the president. I don't think we're far from that. But I'm not a fan of our government anyway. I love the land, and some of the people ... but the government sucks!

"Government doesn't work. It doesn't keep our streets safe and it doesn't educate our children. Government is good at only one thing: It breaks your legs, hands you a pair of crutches, and says, 'See, without us you wouldn't be able to walk." -- Harry Browne, Libertarian Canadate for President

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasure. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's great civilizations has been two hundred years. These nations have progressed through the following sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith, from spiritual faith to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependency, from dependency back to bondage." -- Alexander Tyler
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Old 03-29-2006, 04:07 PM   #14
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Money won't ever go to schools because America will always be at war with another country. The government thinks we need it to survive.

Seriously, when's the last time we weren't fighting a war? That's partially why I (not wholly) believe the conspiracy theory about 9/11, and our government bringing down those towers. So we had a reason to go to war. There are a few DVD's out going into detail. It all makes plenty of sense. I hope some of you have seen it. The presentation from what I hear sucks, but the facts given add up.

The only thing I find hard to believe is that our government would actually do something like this that ended in the death of our own citizens. I know there are monsterous people in power, but this is unheard of.

War has caused drastic advances in technology since the dawn of time. So naturally, some idiots think we've become dependant on it. They try to keep people supporting the country by going to war, and advertising patriotism.
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Old 03-29-2006, 04:36 PM   #15
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Guys, I seriously disagree with the thinking that the problem with the public school system is a lack of money. Institutions all over the world eductate children to much higher standards with much less money.

IT'S NOT ABOUT THE MONEY, GUYS!

It's about the fact that puclic education is a government program.

Government programs are extremely wasteful of money and highly inefficient!

You can't fix this shit by throwing more money at it.
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Old 03-29-2006, 04:59 PM   #16
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Xng, good point. I just happen to believe that they have enough money. It's the system that's broken.
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As the poets have mournfully sung,
death takes the innocent young,
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and those who are very well hung.


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Old 03-29-2006, 05:57 PM   #17
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If they 'have' enough money, why have they asked to raise the debt ceiling yet again? Disgusting. More is spent paying the interest on the national debt than on education.
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Old 03-29-2006, 07:19 PM   #18
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Ooh, that actually makes sense.

My shitty second high school built a new baseball field, batting cages, and a huge stadium. And they tell us they don't have money for our computer classes?! I've wished terrible things upon that school to which I'm not going to disclose. It's no damn wonder I paid $1 for a cup of shitty fries every day at lunch. I eventually just started bringing my own.
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Old 03-30-2006, 03:24 AM   #19
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I have worked for like a dozen different US government agencies. One thing I learned is they know how to waste money.

We had meetings on Wednesday AND Friday EVER week. The Wednesday meeting was to see how projects we were working on were going, and the Friday meeting we met with all the other departments to discuss with them what we discussed within our own departments on Wednesday. Most meetings were 2 hours. Also, getting ready to go to the meetings in another building and returning takes another hour as people stop for coffee, restroom breaks, etc. before and after the meetings, and after you do get back to yer desk, you check yer email and see what you missed and then as anyone knows have to pick up where ye were, which also takes a few minutes.

So basically half the day, the whole after noon after lunch on Wednesdays and Fridays in most government offices is pissed away on worthless meetings. That was one of my biggest pet peeves. I felt like out of the 5 days we worked, a full day was wasted on worthless meetings, and even more time was wasted on 'reviewing' projects on a personal basis with our superiors. I mean, I had like a immediate boss, then the boss had a boss, and then there was the comptroller. Once a week I had to talk to my boss for about an hour, which turned out to be an hour or two, to discuss personally what I was planning to discuss at the meetings. Also, about once a week or every two weeks I had to meet with the boss's boss for the same reason. I'd say working any US government job you spend at least 1/3rd of the tim discussing what yer doing, the same discussion, over, and over, and over.

God forbid you mention this, like I did, then they claim yer trying to hide something. You not meeting deadlines? What were you doing this week? Did you not do anything? Yeah, now yer meeting is double long as they look over all kindsa stuff yer doing.

BTW - I was project manager on programming and server security. I ran a team of 10 people. It sucked goat balls (but did pay well).

Also, it took us weeks to do simple tasks. Why? Half the people in my team knew jack shit about programming. They had a week long class at some learning center on how to build web pages. They had no other prior computer experience. They had problems even logging onto Windows. I'm not making this up. So hwo did they make it into the programming team? Anther great government policy - the US government hires internally first due to union and contract polices. Thats right - before they can post a job in the paper or on monster, they have to advertise for a month internally on the bulletin boards around the offices. So, on my team of 10, I had 3 real programmers, 2 guys who used to work in the telecom department doing PBX stuff who at least had some knowledge of computers, and 5 people that from the mail room, secretary pool, and a new guy straight out of college whos daddy was a big wig somewhere in the chain.

Yeah, thats right, I had 3 mail room people who had never seen a computer, one was almost 50, that wanted to be computer porgrammers because of the pay rise, took an intro to HTML class and they were on my team. Oh joy.

Needless to say even simple things like trying to get them to code a page to pull a few fields from the Oracle database was like trying to teach a friggin' english as a second language class. I felt like the miracle worker most of the time.

But I digress. My point is the US government is so built up in its own bueracracy that it can't be fixed - mainly because fixing it means sacking some people who make alot of money and have been there for years and they have rights under the polices and laws that govern, so its a broken system that can't be fixed without some collateral damage that no one is willing to take.

Also note my other biggest pet peeve when working there. The quarterly comptroller meetings. For those who don't know, comptrollers are the lads who handle the money and distribute it to the agencies in the US government. We HAD to stay OVER budget to make sure we USE all of the money allocated. They forced us to take overtime and stay around a few extra hours a week even if we sat on our arse as long as we looked busy so they could raise the budget.

See, if the department doesn't use it's funding, it goes back to the comptroller who reports back to his boss and the money is taken and next year the budget is SMALLER. Yeah, that never happens. So we were forced to keep over budget so next year they HAD to increas the budget, and for this we got overtime for nothing and yearly raises above the normal cost of living increases. Nice, eh? Welcome to the US government.

Much like the roads and construction. That was a big one in Virginia/DC. The last governor (Warner) tried to fix it, but failed. Why? Lobbyists and big business. Like our buget, if other agencies don't use their money its taken and their budget doesn't increase. Tis why near the end of the year you see road crews busting up or re-paving perfectly good parts of the highway for no reason. If they start it, they have to have (more) money to finish it. So they start a dozen projects, let them sit around, wait for budget increases, then finish them and start new ones they don't need to once again raise the budget.

And that my friends is the inside working of the US government and state agencies. Tis why there is never money for schools, as schools don't have sub-contractors who lobby congressmen and representatives and give them big trips, vacations, dinners, and what not to get buildnig contracts working on the highway or building new prisons.

Schools once built only have contracts for food. Maybe a couple o' janitors, but thats it. Ye can't really make any money off that, so no one is lobbying to build on to the schools because once in place they are there for decades and don't need any influx of money, where as prisons are always needed because of all the new strict sentencing guidelines and roads are always needed as agencies in charge of sub-contracting out that work are always upping their budgets.

Wow, sorry about that diatribe, but thats the problem with the US government in a nutshell. Take it from a guy who worked with gilmore/gw bush on various projects.

-S
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Old 03-30-2006, 03:54 AM   #20
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Now, before anyone asks me how it should be done, let me tell you how we do it here in Ireland.

As mentioned, I am a member of a political party and also currently hold an elected position in the party, so I can tell you about this first hand how we do things.

For example, I'll use the healthcare system fund allocation as my example.

This year, the national buget for healthcare was X amount of money. Based on the population in each country, the money is split up and sent to each county to cover basic costs. Then, percentagewise, more momre is given equally to each county for various projects which the local reps asked for. In this case, for hospital improvements.

So we in Clare got X amount of monies for improving our hospitals. How should that be divided? Well, the government asks all politcal parties in Clare to form a committee comprised of all political parties in the county. Now, some parties have elected officials in office, some don't. Some have hundreds or thousands of registered voters, some only have 5 (you need to have five registered voters in your area to form a common which is a group that can put members on a committee). So the federal government asks all the commons of the local politcal groups to form a committee and each send one representative.

For example Fine Gael has hundreds in the local common here and they send one rep. Fianna Fáil has about the same amount, and they send one, but some groups like Progressive Democrats aren't present at all in this county, so they don't send anyone as there are no Progressive Democrat voters here or not enough (under 5) to form a common. All commons send one rep to the committee.

So no matter if the group you reperesent is 1000 or 5, you get one rep at the table.

Now the committee meets, discusses, and figures out where to allocate the money. Everyone gets one vote, everyone has to work together, and everyone has to agree on where the monies go. The voters in each party have meetings with their rep and the reps go back and meet multiple times until its worked out where the money goes. In this case, which hospitals get the money, which hospitals get new CAT scan machines, new ambulances, etc. The committee reviews requests from the hospital staff, the number of 999 (like 911) calls, the number of patients treated, etc. and decide where to allocate the monies.

With 8-12 parties all participating together, it makes everyone work together to some extent, plus deals made are within parties, for example if we agrees to allow more money for a certain area that FG wants, FF might agree that in the roads committe that they will allow a certain amount of money to go to an FG sponsored area for their constituants. No one ever gets exactly what they want, but everyone comes away with a little bit of something.

And thats how it works in Ireland. Same goes for road work and all other money allocations. National government gives it to the counties, counties pass it to a unity committee, then the committee works together to agree, and they all must agree, on where it goes.

It works well, local people can talk to committee members face to face about just one issue as most committee members are just on the one committee, and if you are upset, you know exactly who to go to. The person on the committee might not be an elected official. He might just be some lad who is in the party who the party nominated to go be on the committee while another committee member from another party might actually be and elected official in the Dáil (like congress). So even the common man has a say so, and every party has equal power, even if yer party only has 5 voters in an area.

No lobbyists, no big business, no bribes/trips/etc. as once the money is allocated by the committee and is finalised by the national government, local businesses in the county are selected to do the work needed keeping the funds within the local community. If the business say does have ties to one party or committee member, by having 8+ advasaries its easy to keep that group from getting the contract and keep the bidding system fair.

Works for us.
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Old 03-30-2006, 04:29 AM   #21
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You're all making great points, but I'm maintaining that throwing more money at the public school system isn't the answer. You can correctly assert that the government is wasting money on the military efforts around the globe, as well as other boondoggles like farm subsidies and porkbarrel spening. If you can figure out a way to curtail that kind of spending, put the money into deficit reduction and propping up a replacement program for social security.

Now, I was looking for a good statistical proof that the U.S. educational system underperforms foreign schools while spending more money per capita, and of all the articles I found one that cleared my misunderstanding like no other. This article illucidates that if you remove the immigrant population from our testing results, the United States native population tests very well comparitively:

* At the time of the international literacy survey (1994) immigrants accounted for about 13 percent of U.S. adults, fifth highest proportion among the countries surveyed. Only in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and Switzerland did immigrants account for a larger population share.

* U.S. natives scored 8 points above the average native of the 17 high income countries

* U.S. immigrants scored 16 points below the average immigrant in the 17 countries


The Article is here:

National Data, By Edwin S. Rubenstein - The Stupid American? Look again.

It's fascinating reading, and you should all look at it. But allow me to post Mr. Rubenstein's conclusion here:

The wide dispersion of capabilities forces the ETS Bureaucracy to state the politically incorrect, albeit obvious:


“If we adjust the mean NALS scores for U.S. adults under age 65 to exclude all foreign-born adults as well as native-born Blacks and Hispanics, then the mean prose and quantitative scores of the remaining U.S. adults (Asian and White, native-born) would rise to 288, ranking the U.S. second highest—tied with Finland and Norway—on the prose scale and fifth highest on the quantitative scale…. The findings clearly suggest that future gains in the comparative, international literacy standing U.S. adults will require substantial improvements in the literacy proficiencies of Blacks, Hispanics, and the foreign born from all racial/ethnic groups.” [ETS Report, P.22]

Or we could settle for immigration reform.
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Old 04-01-2006, 08:58 AM   #22
CptSternn
 
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Although those figures may be correct, they come off as quite racist. If we agree that the minorities are bringing down national test score averages in the states, then we need to look at WHY.

For example, ever see Dangerous Minds or any of those other inner-city high school movies? I agree that in inner cities where there are more minorities the test scores do bring down the national average, but if you look at funding in those districts as well as unemployment, crime rates, and the other mitigating factors, you can see why those groups preform at such low levels. It has nothing to do with the people or their ethnicity as much as it has to do with their culture and where they are in society.

People who have to decide whether to turn on the heat, or eat dinner could care less about when Columbus landed in America. They see it as a distraction, as in their neighborhood, staying alive, not getting killed by gangs, and finding enough money to eat takes precedence over studying for school, because they know - even if they pass, they will never get into, or be able to afford, college - so why try?

Fix the poor people, which will fix the problem. As mentioned previously, most countries have vastly superior social welfare systems to combat the poor and homelessness issues. America doesn't. And the issue with the schools is a direct reflection for this issue, not a reflection of minorties and their test scores.

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