Yet the article ended with some quips about how gun control will be impossible because of these differing regional cultures. I call bullshit on that part of the article for the reason that gun control won’t fly anywhere in the US - there’s an assload of guns in Yankeedom, too.
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It’s not something I can even relate to as I have led a very privileged life. I should be the kind of person who is all about bootstraps and small gov (certainly it seems my peers all are) but all I can think about when I hear this stuff is how big a difference to people’s lives something like a true universal basic income would make.
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I was a part of the working poor - heck, I still am, lol (only it’s “semi-working” in my case, and probably that of others) - when my son was born, and when he was about eight months old I quit drinking. So keeping myself in a state to help guarantee continued sobriety was very important for me and my son (and everyone else, lol). I was lucky because, during his early years, I was able to stay home with my folks (price: groceries from my food stamps, and emotional rollercoaster rides) and spend lots of time with him.
As much as I don’t think of myself as “lucky” - this was one time that I was and it counted. Especially now, as I look back almost thirty years (son will be 29 this October).
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I think that’s great. Plenty of people only thing in terms of themselves and could care less about society as a whole. It’s pretty clear that the services that governments can provide can be a huge boost to people’s ability to move up the class ladder. A robust education is one of them. Public education benefits all of us, I think.
You know… I’m not sure I’m sold on the UBI. There are a couple of places where this is being rolled out as sort of test cases and we’ll see how it goes. But I wonder if it lets corporations off the hook for being good corporate citizens? I’m still mulling it over as a solution to our current set of social problems.
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Yeah, I do think luck plays a larger role than some people will admit to. The set of choices we’re able to make often comes down to the luck of the draw with regards to where we were born and who we were born too.
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Most of them don’t have the same types of opportunities than the rest of us did, or even that they themselves would have had 30 years ago. But some of them don’t care either. I’ve known people from extremely dysfunctional families. Fortunately my family was okay. One of the main reasons why I’ve had the opportunities I’ve had in life was because I could read from an extremely early age.
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Sure. But I doubt that’s even the majority by any stretch. We can’t necessarily fix individual bad parents, but we can fix the structural problems of racism and poverty. By focusing on the individual “bad” parents, we ignore the very real structural problems that it actually would be within our power to fix and make it an individuals problem that we have nothing to do with. Keep in mind that plenty of people come from bad homes and still managed to flourish as adults in the past precisely because they were lucky enough to have decent public schools. This is becoming increasingly less true and the people who really need robust public schools because they have shitty parents at home who actually don’t care are the ones losing out.
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I used to volunteer with the Burbank, CA library’s literacy tutoring program – we never had a shortage of students. They weren’t drop-outs either – most had put in their 12 years and graduated high school. Interesting thing with respect to Trump was that they were often very good at the con…
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Indeed it seems like the idea of UBI is coming back. You don’t have to wait to see how it will turn out though as it has been tried very successfully a large number of times before as a test program in various jurisdictions.
I have heard it mentioned a couple of times but I was listening to this program a few weeks ago where some of the history of UBI was discussed and found it very compelling. The guest is a bit over the top but many of the ideas are fascinating, as are the results of past tests.
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There might be some truth to that statement. According to the article, Yankees are very supportive of social safety nets and the greater good, but Midlanders and Greater Appalachians are more skeptical of governmental intrusion. This seems spot on, from what I’ve seen so far. I was born in that little stretch of Midlands in Illinois, and have lived in the northern part of Greater Appalachia since my teens. Even though I’m pretty far left, belief in social safety nets was never really part of my culture growing up. Libertarianism was appealing to me for a while until I wised up.
So, even though there are a lot of guns in Yankeedom, people there are more supportive of governmental regulation. In other parts of the country, we’re more hostile.
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I think we’re in agreement. Good public schools are important, because we can’t count on everybody having a good home life.
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I’ll have to listen to that later on. But just reading the overview, I’m not convinced, I’m afraid. Who makes our stuff? Where does it come from? Who grows our food? At this point, lots of that kind of work has shifted to countries that can pay incredibly low wages for that kind of human sustaining work. Is he suggesting full automation as the solution?
But anyway, this is derailing, so let’s set it aside and get back to illiteracy in detroit!
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Seems so!
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Was going to answer “Siri”, then remembered Dave’s sentiment analysis and will settle for Dragon Dictator. DICTATE.
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[quote=“LearnedCoward, post:17, topic:97553, full:true”] Our education system is set on cram and forget, so few retain what they learned in school and even fewer know why it matters.
[/quote]
This is very under reported, though a phenomenon at higher level than basic literacy. Teaching for short term and long term retention are very different things. I had a hard time in certain subjects because I don’t learn by cramming, I integrate facts into a cohesive picture that has high retention. I remember what I learn a long time while most people I know who got excellent educations don’t remember a thing. I know far more history than my wife, who has a degree in history from an elite university. Fortunately she get paid for having other skills I lack utterly!
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I grew up where everything was a co-op – even the telephone company. Not sure if that made folks more independent with respect to safety-nets or not (I think that somebody getting to the point where they had to rely on a govt net was somewhat seen as a failure of the community), but I don’t recall any kvetching about stuff like property taxes for schools/etc because they saw that as an investment.
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I definitely remember a lot of bitching and moaning about property tax, even when it supported public education. We were definitely not Yankees.
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This sounds like a job for Betsie de Vos!
Soon all these kids will be able to read and know how Jesus rode a raptor into Jerusalem.
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Can someone explain how education is paid for in places where the property tax is less than $1000?
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I cannot. The region I said I was from has a property tax of over $2000 according to this. I don’t know what it was when I was growing up, but that entire I-55 corridor through Illinois has disproportionately high property tax It’s about as high as it is in the Northeast, but we seemed to complain about it a lot more than they do.
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