[flacaltenn]

Dave:

"Heck they can make Rhodes scholars out of kids with Crack moms.."

I thought it was YOU that could take any group of inner city kids and turn them into Chemical Engineers?

"And if you believe it's "eminently sensible" to condemn most inner school children to a public education monopoly that has criminally low expectations for them..."

This public education thing is really what set off my latest volcanic eruption. In terms of the "social contract", when I made the offer to turn inner city kids into chemical engineers the agreement was that their parents would VOLUNTARILY (and eagerly) commit them to my care and my rules. (Actually I know for a fact it can be done and it's not by rules that I have developed, but that I'd willingly adopt)

This would be opposed to believing that the same "miracle" could be done without "a contract" or cooperation from the reciepient or the Crack Mom.. Or by more simple Redistribution of wealth (as taken from the "social contract") we just cast checks upon the wound and watch it all heal up...

Don't know why you copied the last phrase.. "emminently sensible" were MerryLander's words describing all the rules of society.. I've got piles of innocent Drug War bodies and mountains of wasted minds in the poverty pits to dispute how "emminently sensible" it all is..

I think success is up to individual drive and ambition. So, in lieu of public education, which worked out pretty good for me and very well for you, apparently, just what do you propose? Are you ready to pay for all of those kids to attend private school? Because their parent(s) can't.

Actually MANY of their parents are TRYING real hard to do that. But they are burdened with paying for school TWICE -- like the "rich parents" do -- except she doesn't have enough hours in the day. She may not pay property taxes, but her landlord has to. Just give her a voucher for 80% of the $12K that's allocated for her student and we'll call it fixed..

Anyhow, the "Social Contract" to which we refer is really very basic and simple.
Like it or not, we are a village. A village that grows more and more interconnected everyday. Each man living as an island may have worked somewhat, a hundred years ago, but it is as gone as the last Mohican now. And it aint comin' back. EVER.

My village is getting cluttered with emails from China and Germany.. Are they now part of my village? Who are the people on this board that want to FENCE the village..

The lefties want to keep jobs and money here by erecting economic and trade fencing, and the righties want to fence and moat the social borders of this country to protect jobs and money (and arguably security).. There's no big diff here.. Got news for you -- THAT "ain't gonna happen" either..

It's a false choice that you offer here with a nebulous concept like a social contract.

That without it -- we're savages- people die..

And if we just sign up today -- we're angels -- and everyone is healthy, wealthy and the kids are all brilliant..

I'm kicking back into society.. Quite alot actually.. But I'm doing it in a measured and focused way. I don't need a "United Way" to show me how to it...