Out of Pod Experience

I grew up in South Africa were parents still beat the hell out of their kids until compliance is reached

And this was in the land of unregistered weapons of war that you could buy for the equivalent price of a happy meal

Amen, and God Bless You, Sir.

I'v often thought about that too, but here in the USA that would be very expensive and would probably violate the constitution.

Probably not, actually. First, Conscription *is* the law of the land, albeit it's in very deep stand-by and would require a lot of work to dust it off and get it running again. And there are other precidents - Civilian Conservation Corps, Work Progress Administration, and other depression-era work-fare programs.


Actual military conscription is a non-starter for a number of reasons. Yes, it's possible, but it's a really bad idea; less than one quarter of teh military-age populace in this country is mentally, morally, and/or physically suitable for duty. I was a Recruiter, and this hard, sad fact was THE bane of our existance.

We have a modern, technologically-sophisticated force, and that requires service members who can cope with it. We can't afford to spend time re-educating mommy and daddy's little failures. We want smart, motivated self-starters. 'Cause we don't have the budget or the time to fix broken people. The schools system needs a certain flow-through, at a certain pace - It can't cope with more than the very bare minimum of illiterates. Hell, we have a hard enough time making sure the current force is well-fed and paid. Trying to use the military to fix the nation's youth would break the bank in a most spectacular fashion, as well as wrecking decades of effort towards building premiere professional military services.

That doesn't mean that I'd reject a lesser form of intervention - A CCC or WPA intervention program for at-risk youth; basically, first-time offenders. Hit them hard and shocking at the very first sign of screwing up, put them in a structured environment, and put them to some hard physical labor. About three months worth - Or roughly the length of summer break - Or boot camp. It *has* been tried, but only half-assed, and with much handwringing and whining by the very same fuzzy-thinking wrong-headed 'do gooders' who have fuct the system up so badly already.

Expensive, but useful, IMO.

I can't speak for America, but I think its worth it regardless. The costs of not fixing this mess could be colossal in the long run. We have business's run by people who do not have a vested interest in their own nation, we have a systematic lack of discipline as shown in classrooms where teachers are beaten and are considered the perpetrators if they defend themselves. We have similar crime issues here as in the US, but replace knives with guns.

There was no immediate benefit to going to the Moon other than the results of lessons on the journey. I suspect that there are too many people who would be embarrassed by a return to the old education styles, and I might be in the minority of my own preferred education style. I do not like learning things by hypothetical's, give me stuff to work with. Show me an issue and then a new mathematical trick or 5 and let me crack it out the hard way, that's how to build understanding.

Bascialy I think the education system needs to be rethought. If you don't learn from the way thats prescribed, you fail. If you fail, you go into depressions, and from there everything can compound and you snap like that.

You're making a gigantic tradeoff there. You're creating a mechanism for someone, not you, to interfere with how you raise your children. All mechanisms of authority are eventually abused. It is generally better not to create new mechanisms. They may be used as intended initially (which is more often not the case in the lately), but eventually, that law that says the schools should provide healthy lunches in the cafeteria will be twisted to mean that the schools will open the lunch you packed for your child and throw it out if it doesn't use the same brands that are on the approved list.

Crying out that "there ought to be a law" is an emotional response. The rational response is "there ought to be better parents."

I'm not advocating the absence of law and governmental authority, only cautioning that it should never be the first tool we reach for to solve these kinds of problems.

If you believe that positive reinforcement, being friendly towards, and generally wanting to have a good relationship with your child /ren is wrong, then you should not have children just as much as those that refuse to punish their children and want to be nothing but a friend towards them.

Being a parent takes a balance of all aspects of the emotional and social spectrums. People in general, in the States in my experience, have lost all sense of balance and it shows in their personal physiques and society as a whole.


Slade

The only thing that stops a bad school kid with a gun is a good school kid with a gun.

Didn't know Mrs Plunderbunny was expecting, congratulations

If the kid played EvE, he would have gotten some friends together and then smacktalked his mother from the yard, and they would have all jumped on her when she walked out of the house.

Or he would have taken the family credit cards and bank account and all assets and run away.


I think this is the more creative game.