Comment by NoMoreNicksLeft | Hacker News Reader

Comment by NoMoreNicksLeft | Hacker News Reader

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NoMoreNicksLeft

>for inculcating the United States’ fundamental values of

If I am honest, I do not have the same values as those who favor public education. Not only do our values have very little overlap, the values that are extolled by them are quite offensive and disgusting to me. Given that these values are now those of the public education system, I should be desperately worried about my own children and the children of people I care about. However, since the late 1990s a curious thing has happened, and none of those children are in danger. My children do not attend public school and yet aren't being hunted down for truancy as I would have been as a child.

We've already eliminated the danger of public education. This might be confusing to you, because some children still attend. Others are aware, you'll see it expressed in every reddit thread... someone will call for the end of homeschooling on the grounds that they're unable to indoctrinate every child, though they describe if much more charitably than that. None of those children will grow up caring about public education, none of them will ever vote in ways favorable to public education their entire lives. The shift has already begun, and in the coming years it will become ever more obvious.

There was never any danger of public education, so eliminating that danger was quite easy. What we are undermining, though, is the benefit of public education. Witness the last election, where tens of millions were indifferent to democratic governance if it meant cheap gasoline and eggs.

And, yes, the assault on democracy is real. On January 20, Trump signed an order in support of free speech. Within a week he barred the AP over the Gulf of America. Within a month he illegally disbanded USAID. Within 3 months he began suing law firms and defunding university research. Today colleges are receiving letters demanding curriculum in exchange for funding. And we have four years more, at least, to endure.

>There was never any danger of public education,

For those who have changed the world to what it is today, and want that but more, I'm sure public schools have always been something to celebrate. I am not one of those people, however.

>though, is the benefit of public education.

That benefit, even when I treat it with the most generous interpretation, is gone and has been for awhile. People whose children attend public school do not benefit from this, their children are being shut out of the economy in favor of bringing in workers from other countries. The political apparatus benefits, if those children are indoctrinated to vote correctly even as they grow up to only be fit to get a 20-hour part time job at Starbucks. Even now, you're worried about the politics in this very comment, you don't really care that those children won't grow up to earn a viable livelihood.

>Within a month he illegally disbanded USAID.

Oh noes! I too wish that the United States would spend millions and billions on foreigners in foreign countries. Won't anyone think of the CIA soft power we're losing?

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