Discrimination

I think I'm with you up until the school curriculum thing.Public schools are just that. It seems they should be supportive of the entire population of the US, and not just the majority type where you live locally.I think you are right saying that schools should not be teaching morals and saying kids must think other races, beliefs are great or acceptable for themselves... but I do think it is critical that they teach TOLERANCE of other races and beliefs. That is how a society works together.Do you have an issue with teaching tolerance in school?I would also have a problem if you start using this to say that local communities get to say what counts as proper science and math and history. That is creating a bad system where pockets of populations taking government money to push specifis brands of theism.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

The idea of public education was to educate the public in fundamental skills that will help improve their chances at living a better life and being productive in the democracy (that is make good choices in elections).For this there is a need for understanding how to read and write, our national history, mathematics, and science. Science is based in materialism, even if it is not an advocate for materialist moral philosophy. Some uneducated people don't seem to get that.While I see your point that outside of the above topics communities should be able to choose their own topics to cover, and that no one should be teaching what is morality, I am not for a free for all topical education system.At that point why don't we simply end public education systems and return to exactly what you are implying, a great diverse bunch of ignorant people teaching ignorance in one community (because that's what they like) and educated people teaching education to another, and moralistic people sometimes teaching education other times ignorance but always moral specifics including to minorities that don't agree?I mean that is what we replaced, and there was a reason for it. People do have the ability to affect how these things are taught. If you mean delete facts and replace them with singular moral views, then you are correct that that cannot happen, but they can have teachers remove moral messages.I think sex-ed should be taught moral free, but then added that in addition to physical safety issues there are moral issues which are important for individuals and cultures and that students need to take this into consideration as well. Then encourage them to find out about their family's views and expectations. This is an interesting point, but you seem to have it a bit backward. What we are not discussing is such a PC school system that the walls are grey, we are discussing such increased tolerance that the multicolored walls are offensive to you. You are arguing that each community should determine the singular paint for the school based on local minority... which does not prepare people to work in the much larger world.While I love diversity and I even understand some isolated community sealing themselves away, I don't think it is wise to use the public education system to aid in this. Encountering diverse view points and learning to accept them is a necessary skill especially as we become more globalized.Do I take it that you are firmly against Bush's education policy?

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Ahem... Uhmmmmmm... The Danish are not Dutch and vice versa. It was Dutch troops that which were guilty of this, though there is a little more to the story as well. I can't say I would have sat and watched, but they were outgunned and the UN refused to give them support as they called in what was happening.So for the record the Dutch come from the Netherlands which is also called Holland and is in the benelux region. The Danish are just Danish and come from Denmark... though they are Scandinavian.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

I just said they came from Denmark! Heheheh...Just make sure you don't say maybe you were hungry, what we call danishes aren't danish. Damn this is one sloppy semantic world.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

You use this a lot and I'm wondering if you could start a thread explaining what a common sense test is, where you learned about it, and how it is applied.In most cases your own commentary appears to fail what I would call a common sense test (for example your commentary on the UN and Oil for Food program which I have started a new thread on for you to answer some questions), and things you have said fail the test I would say have not failed at all.What that makes it look like is that you are simply using an ad hominem attack, and labelling something you don't agree with as having failed a "common sense test" when in fact it has done no such thing. You just don't like it.But just to stay on thread here, there is simply no such thing as an identifiable Islamic Male "type". If you said MidEastern, or arabic, or something that involved appearance alone that would have made more sense. Your comments fail the common sense test.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)