Society's Obligations

[Choboman]

Two items:
Postal Service: I've heard a lot of complaints about USPS as fiscally bankrupt that I think miss the point. USPS has it's hands tied in many ways because of the way it's set up. They have to maintain local branches in all counties, even ones that don't carry much traffic. They have to visit every mailbox, no matter how remote,multiple times a week, even if they have no mail to deliver to that location, in case the address has mail they want to send. Some remote locations can only be reached via helecopter or pack mule! If it was being run as a for-profit business they could just choose to deny service to those locations, but USPS doesn't have that option.

Minorities in Prison: Correlation <> Causation. A high percentage of minorities are poor. A high percentage of minorities are incarcerated. A high percentage of poor people are also incarcerated. What evidence do you have that people's incarceration is [indirectly] related to their race instead of their poverty? If some white supremicist joined the discussion and used the prison statistics to suggest that minorities were inherently more violent we'd be jumping all over him for his flawed logic. Using this data to 'prove' that the system is racist is similarly bad logic.

[Spambot5546]

It was posted earlier that for every 12 poor white people 1 is in prison, where for every 5 poor black people one is in prison. Thus even if we control for just poor people, black people are still more likely to be in prison.

[Izawwlgood]

The USPS also doesn't pay dues on having post boxes in incredibly high traffic areas, like other companies do, and thus, I would say, the burden of delivering to remote locations is a wash. I would wager the cost of delivering an occasional letter to some remote county is less expensive than the cost of paying dues on setting up a drop box on Wallstreet.

[Dark567]

Two items:
Postal Service: I've heard a lot of complaints about USPS as fiscally bankrupt that I think miss the point. USPS has it's hands tied in many ways because of the way it's set up. They have to maintain local branches in all counties, even ones that don't carry much traffic. They have to visit every mailbox, no matter how remote,multiple times a week, even if they have no mail to deliver to that location, in case the address has mail they want to send. Some remote locations can only be reached via helecopter or pack mule! If it was being run as a for-profit business they could just choose to deny service to those locations, but USPS doesn't have that option.

Hence, why USPS should be privatized..... The reality is that FedEx and UPS basically deliver where ever USPS does. If you live where only a pack mule can reach you, USPS is gonna tell you to bring your mail to them. Your right that the private companies don't visit every mailbox everyday, but if you want a package picked up, you call them and they will pick it up for you. That sounds a lot more efficient and less of a waste of time then checking every single mailbox.

Minorities in Prison: Correlation <> Causation. A high percentage of minorities are poor. A high percentage of minorities are incarcerated. A high percentage of poor people are also incarcerated. What evidence do you have that people's incarceration is [indirectly] related to their race instead of their poverty?

The numbers posted above show that blacks in poverty are more likely to commit crime than whites in poverty. Poverty is already controlled for.

[Deep_Thought]

Hence, why USPS should be privatized..... The reality is that FedEx and UPS basically deliver where ever USPS does. If you live where only a pack mule can reach you, USPS is gonna tell you to bring your mail to them. Your right that the private companies don't visit every mailbox everyday, but if you want a package picked up, you call them and they will pick it up for you. That sounds a lot more efficient and less of a waste of time then checking every single mailbox.

Why does that lead you to think that USPS should be privatized? How about the reverse - changing the legislation covering them so that they can compete on an even playing field? Please note I'm from the UK so don't know the details of USPS obligations but we are in the process of similar arguments about our own Royal Mail.

The USPS also doesn't pay dues on having post boxes in incredibly high traffic areas, like other companies do, and thus, I would say, the burden of delivering to remote locations is a wash. I would wager the cost of delivering an occasional letter to some remote county is less expensive than the cost of paying dues on setting up a drop box on Wallstreet.

I highly doubt it comes out as a wash - demonstrated by FedEx etc. making a profit. The trouble is that the cost of delivering letters to remote places is pretty fixed - it's mostly the postman's pay and fuel, whereas the 'income' is determined by the number of letters in his van/truck/pack mule. Once that falls below a certain density you're making a continuous loss on that route. Yes, the cost to deliver one letter to one remote location is lower than dues on Wall Street, but USPS has to pay that cost to across the whole of the US and even when there are no letters. In the UK the Royal Mail used to subsidise those routes by making a profit on parcel deliveries, but now that private firms are allowed to compete for that they are facing a black hole. Reduce the legislative burden on USPS/Royal Mail and you'd see their losses reduced substantially.

[Thesh]

Minorities in Prison: Correlation <> Causation. A high percentage of minorities are poor. A high percentage of minorities are incarcerated. A high percentage of poor people are also incarcerated. What evidence do you have that people's incarceration is [indirectly] related to their race instead of their poverty? If some white supremicist joined the discussion and used the prison statistics to suggest that minorities were inherently more violent we'd be jumping all over him for his flawed logic. Using this data to 'prove' that the system is racist is similarly bad logic.

The point that I'm making is that there is more to it than poverty. I mean, from 1960 to 1970, poverty rate steadily drops by a total 40% (about 22% of the population in poverty to about 13% of the population in poverty, 15 million fewer people in poverty total, looking at the graph I previously posted), but property crime rates look like they steadily increased to the point where there were about twice as many property crimes in 1970 than there were in 1960, per capita.

My guess is that culture/society plays one of the largest roles, although I am not ruling out poverty playing a direct role or an indirect role by influencing culture.

[Dark567]

Why does that lead you to think that USPS should be privatized? How about the reverse - changing the legislation covering them so that they can compete on an even playing field? Please note I'm from the UK so don't know the details of USPS obligations but we are in the process of similar arguments about our own Royal Mail.

Does removing the barriers to a level playing field, also remove the barriers on FedEx and UPS preventing them from competing against USPS? How about removing the government subsidies and debt guarantees on USPS? Right now the playing field isn't even, its generally tilted in favor of USPS.

As an aside, ~50% of all USPS mail is junk mail. FedEx and UPS, are certainly not used often by junk mailers. If it weren't for the government subsidization, these mailers would have to pay the full cost.

[Izawwlgood]

Junk mail standings aside, the fact that FedEx and UPS don't have the subsidiary that the USPS does, as well as the fact that they have to pay for their drop boxes, means that they should be at a disadvantage. That they are still successful businesses, while the USPS has been in the red for years and years, means that the USPS is a horribly run business, and no amount of slowly hiking up the cost of postage stamps a couple pennies at a time is going to fix them. Their biggest issue is that they are run by the government, and subject to strong unionization, and because they are a government business, instead of simply declaring bankruptcy and being bought out by a better business, they are continually injected with tax payer dollars to keep all those inefficient employee's employed under inefficient managers.

How about the reverse - changing the legislation covering them so that they can compete on an even playing field?

The reverse would be changing legislation about mail, so that FedEx and UPS get the same benefits as the USPS.

EDIT: Sorry, I realize the USPS has declared bankruptcy, but it's simply taking loans from the Fed. Also, read this;
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=12200

Back OT with societies obligations.

[zmatt]

I like to subscribed to Utilitarianism (a form of classical liberalism) and in short utility (or happiness) is maximized when you give everyone as much freedom as possible without infringing on others freedom, which is a basic tenant of classical liberalism which is the foundational ideology of American political thought .However utilitarianism also states that everyone should be allowed to fulfill what their definition of happiness is (not everyone is a materialist and wants 5 yachts after all). In searching for your version of happiness be it a rock star, uber successful business man, that guy who lives for the perfect wave, whatever, not everyone will succeed and they will fall by the wayside. It's the government's job to help them. There is a lot of debate on to what degree of help that is and how you measure it (hence different ideas for social welfare). And it's a very difficult question to answer. In the simplest terms i think we should help those who cannot help themselves. People who didn't grow up with a good household and never got an education, people who are mentally disabled, people who are physically disabled and can't work, and people who luck decided to forget and suffered a bad string of events that they can't recover from. I think most reasonable people would agree that those people deserve help. However (and this is true especially in my home of Kentucky) you have a lot of unmotivated types who take advantage of our good intentions and live off the government bill. I have seen too many intentionally have kids out of high school to draw welfare. I think they should be punished and for their laziness be stripped of any and all support. Furthermore I think social security is a waste of time and resources. People should save for retirement, not having money once you retired isn't something out of your hands, that is poor planning on your part. not to mention the amount it pays out is insufficient to support oneself anyways.

[broken_escalator]

Spoiler:

I like to subscribed to Utilitarianism (a form of classical liberalism) and in short utility (or happiness) is maximized when you give everyone as much freedom as possible without infringing on others freedom, which is a basic tenant of classical liberalism which is the foundational ideology of American political thought. However utilitarianism also states that everyone should be allowed to fulfill what their definition of happiness is (not everyone is a materialist and wants 5 yachts after all). In searching for your version of happiness be it a rock star, uber successful business man, that guy who lives for the perfect wave, whatever, not everyone will succeed and they will fall by the wayside. It's the government's job to help them.

There is a lot of debate on to what degree of help that is and how you measure it (hence different ideas for social welfare). And it's a very difficult question to answer. In the simplest terms i think we should help those who cannot help themselves. People who didn't grow up with a good household and never got an education, people who are mentally disabled, people who are physically disabled and can't work, and people who luck decided to forget and suffered a bad string of events that they can't recover from. I think most reasonable people would agree that those people deserve help.

However (and this is true especially in my home of Kentucky) you have a lot of unmotivated types who take advantage of our good intentions and live off the government bill. I have seen too many intentionally have kids out of high school to draw welfare. I think they should be punished and for their laziness be stripped of any and all support. Furthermore I think social security is a waste of time and resources. People should save for retirement, not having money once you retired isn't something out of your hands, that is poor planning on your part. not to mention the amount it pays out is insufficient to support oneself anyways.

(I spoilered a quote because it was easier for me to read after breaking up the text a bit, and thought maybe someone else might like that, too)
I'm wary of people clamoring about unmotivated types that live off of government support. There is a common thought in America that if you try hard enough you can get whatever you want, and that the poor people are just lazy. Usually that segues into talking about how society has advantages or disadvantages for certain members of society, etc.

I like the idea of a safety net for when people fall below the poverty line, especially when they start out disadvantaged. I forget the statistic but I remember in one of my sociology books they said that a large percent of people on welfare are not on it long-term. Something along the lines of half of all welfare receivers leave in the first two years. So I imagine a young mother would hit hard times, receive welfare for a year or two and then stabilize above the poverty line. I'm sure someone out there does scam the system though.

[Dark567]

I'm wary of people clamoring about unmotivated types that live off of government support.

The problem for me that anecdotally, in my life, the only people I know that get government support are either unmotivated, or using it to supplement their under the table income. I understand that this is partially because of the situations and social circles I am in, and that there are people that really do need the support, but it becomes very hard not to look at the programs with some cynicism.

[Choboman]

That they are still successful businesses, while the USPS has been in the red for years and years, means that the USPS is a horribly run business, and no amount of slowly hiking up the cost of postage stamps a couple pennies at a time is going to fix them.

When USPS was first created, the primary mechanism for long distance communication in most households was mail. They had sufficient volume to overcome the cost of inefficient routes. That's no longer the case. Email and phone are the typical means of communication for nearly all households. Pretty much the only thing USPS in any volume now is bulk mail, which doesn't currently net much profit margin at $0.25 per letter. If you allowed the USPS to only deliver once a week, and to require senders to take their mail to a post office instead of requiring mail carriers to come get it, and allowed them to raise their rates competitively vs the private carriers (minimum cost for a letter: USPS-$0.44, FedEx $5.17), then I predict that the USPS would do just fine.

There's no way Congress will allow that to happen, though.

[Deep_Thought]

The problem for me that anecdotally, in my life, the only people I know that get government support are either unmotivated, or using it to supplement their under the table income. I understand that this is partially because of the situations and social circles I am in, and that there are people that really do need the support, but it becomes very hard not to look at the programs with some cynicism.

Yup, I have the same problem. I know only a few people who have claimed benefits, but there's been a roughly 50/50 split between people who I thought deserved it and those who didn't. One claimed simply because he could not be bothered to get any kind of job despite just having graduated from a top university. It wasn't like the guy didn't have options! Hell, work in a pub if you have to. One broke an arm and was then signed off work for over a year. How you separate these cases from those that have a more genuine need I don't know.

[zmatt]

Spoiler:

I like to subscribed to Utilitarianism (a form of classical liberalism) and in short utility (or happiness) is maximized when you give everyone as much freedom as possible without infringing on others freedom, which is a basic tenant of classical liberalism which is the foundational ideology of American political thought. However utilitarianism also states that everyone should be allowed to fulfill what their definition of happiness is (not everyone is a materialist and wants 5 yachts after all). In searching for your version of happiness be it a rock star, uber successful business man, that guy who lives for the perfect wave, whatever, not everyone will succeed and they will fall by the wayside. It's the government's job to help them.

There is a lot of debate on to what degree of help that is and how you measure it (hence different ideas for social welfare). And it's a very difficult question to answer. In the simplest terms i think we should help those who cannot help themselves. People who didn't grow up with a good household and never got an education, people who are mentally disabled, people who are physically disabled and can't work, and people who luck decided to forget and suffered a bad string of events that they can't recover from. I think most reasonable people would agree that those people deserve help.

However (and this is true especially in my home of Kentucky) you have a lot of unmotivated types who take advantage of our good intentions and live off the government bill. I have seen too many intentionally have kids out of high school to draw welfare. I think they should be punished and for their laziness be stripped of any and all support. Furthermore I think social security is a waste of time and resources. People should save for retirement, not having money once you retired isn't something out of your hands, that is poor planning on your part. not to mention the amount it pays out is insufficient to support oneself anyways.

(I spoilered a quote because it was easier for me to read after breaking up the text a bit, and thought maybe someone else might like that, too)
I'm wary of people clamoring about unmotivated types that live off of government support. There is a common thought in America that if you try hard enough you can get whatever you want, and that the poor people are just lazy. Usually that segues into talking about how society has advantages or disadvantages for certain members of society, etc.

I like the idea of a safety net for when people fall below the poverty line, especially when they start out disadvantaged. I forget the statistic but I remember in one of my sociology books they said that a large percent of people on welfare are not on it long-term. Something along the lines of half of all welfare receivers leave in the first two years. So I imagine a young mother would hit hard times, receive welfare for a year or two and then stabilize above the poverty line. I'm sure someone out there does scam the system though.

I love how you accused me of having a blanket statement of the poor with a blanket statement yourself. I did not claim that everyone who is poor is lazy, and if you actually read my post you would see i dedicated more time of it to the people who didn't choose to be poor.

here's the deal, both exist. There are people who are down on their luck, but there are also (and in great quantities where I am from) people who abuse the system. It's human nature to take the path of least resistance and cheat. One could argue that some are forced into this position because the powers at be have decided that our two main sources of jobs in rural Kentucky (coal and tobacco) are evil and must be eradicated without any suitable substitute and that would be true to a degree. But believe it or not welfare abuse was a problem in the region before smoking bans and the green movement.

I also take offense to people who make general statements about the state of affairs in Kentucky who know nothing of it

I'm all for helping the mom down on her luck and I have given plenty of community service doing just that. But as someone who lives in a world where abuse is common and socially acceptable....well I think you can see why I am a bit jaded.

[Bubbles McCoy]

I like the idea of a safety net for when people fall below the poverty line, especially when they start out disadvantaged. I forget the statistic but I remember in one of my sociology books they said that a large percent of people on welfare are not on it long-term. Something along the lines of half of all welfare receivers leave in the first two years. So I imagine a young mother would hit hard times, receive welfare for a year or two and then stabilize above the poverty line. I'm sure someone out there does scam the system though.

Did this happen to be with the same professor who that claimed the USPS as a success? Welfare payments automatically cease after two years, with a lifetime limit of five years. (sec 402 a ii)

[Thesh]

Yup, I have the same problem. I know only a few people who have claimed benefits, but there's been a roughly 50/50 split between people who I thought deserved it and those who didn't. One claimed simply because he could not be bothered to get any kind of job despite just having graduated from a top university. It wasn't like the guy didn't have options! Hell, work in a pub if you have to. One broke an arm and was then signed off work for over a year. How you separate these cases from those that have a more genuine need I don't know.

I worked with someone at a grocery store back in 2004, who wouldn't work more than 32 hours a week because she would lose her welfare. I don't know whether she made more money with less hours and welfare or she was just being lazy, but I thought it was ridiculous at the time. To me, it's an indication of a broken system. What we should be focusing on is getting rid of the need for welfare programs. For example, through charitable organizations to help provide assistance, possibly including education and training, to get people in poverty better jobs.

Also, for the US at least, we should be looking at developing Latin America. Building the economy, providing better jobs to all, improving education, getting rid of the corruption that some countries there have. If you can bring poverty and quality of life up to first world levels, then you no longer have to worry about immigration (and could possibly have open borders), and people have a lot more choice of where to go to find jobs. I don't think you can get rid of poverty in the United States without significantly reducing poverty in Latin America.

[zmatt]

Yup, I have the same problem. I know only a few people who have claimed benefits, but there's been a roughly 50/50 split between people who I thought deserved it and those who didn't. One claimed simply because he could not be bothered to get any kind of job despite just having graduated from a top university. It wasn't like the guy didn't have options! Hell, work in a pub if you have to. One broke an arm and was then signed off work for over a year. How you separate these cases from those that have a more genuine need I don't know.

I worked with someone at a grocery store back in 2004, who wouldn't work more than 32 hours a week because she would lose her welfare. I don't know whether she made more money with less hours and welfare or she was just being lazy, but I thought it was ridiculous at the time. To me, it's an indication of a broken system. What we should be focusing on is getting rid of the need for welfare programs. For example, through charitable organizations to help provide assistance, possibly including education and training, to get people in poverty better jobs.

Also, for the US at least, we should be looking at developing Latin America. Building the economy, providing better jobs to all, improving education, getting rid of the corruption that some countries there have. If you can bring poverty and quality of life up to first world levels, then you no longer have to worry about immigration (and could possibly have open borders), and people have a lot more choice of where to go to find jobs. I don't think you can get rid of poverty in the United States without significantly reducing poverty in Latin America.

I agree with paragraph 1 of your post. I have some problems with paragraph 2. the first is that historically US meddling in Latin America has never gone well and a lot of people resent us for it. Even when our intentions are good you would meet resistance. The second is in most of these situations a solution from the outside is extremely difficult or impossible. A lot of those nations could only first be improved by a popular revolution against the corruption and rebuilding their government into one that serves the people. You also have to think about the drug violence, many of those groups have a higher gdp than some countries. They wont take it lying down. but I digress. I completely agree that the best course of action is to work at the root of the problem and try to get rid of poverty. We just have to keep in mind that even though we can greatly improve the situation utopia is impossible and there will always be someone who has a crappy life.

[Dark567]

Did this happen to be with the same professor who that claimed the USPS as a success? Welfare payments automatically cease after two years, with a lifetime limit of five years. (sec 402 a ii)

Yeah, but social security/disability doesn't. The US has lots of welfare programs, some of them have longer terms.

[broken_escalator]

I love how you accused me of having a blanket statement of the poor with a blanket statement yourself. I did not claim that everyone who is poor is lazy, and if you actually read my post you would see i dedicated more time of it to the people who didn't choose to be poor.

I'm not really sure where you thought I was accusing you. I certainly didn't mean to sound like I was attacking you, so sorry if you read it that way.

[Thesh]

I agree with paragraph 1 of your post. I have some problems with paragraph 2. the first is that historically US meddling in Latin America has never gone well and a lot of people resent us for it. Even when our intentions are good you would meet resistance. The second is in most of these situations a solution from the outside is extremely difficult or impossible. A lot of those nations could only first be improved by a popular revolution against the corruption and rebuilding their government into one that serves the people. You also have to think about the drug violence, many of those groups have a higher gdp than some countries. They wont take it lying down. but I digress. I completely agree that the best course of action is to work at the root of the problem and try to get rid of poverty. We just have to keep in mind that even though we can greatly improve the situation utopia is impossible and there will always be someone who has a crappy life.

I never said it would be easy. Also, I don't think the US government itself should be involved. The best place to start is the countries that are less corrupt, and try and spread out from there. It needs to be accomplished by a combination of charity and working on creating local businesses that primarily make money through exports to North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia and that are willing to pay employees generously. I think corruption is something that would be somewhat reduced as economy strengthens and poverty declines, but getting rid of corruption entirely would be a long process and I really don't know how to do it.

The goal isn't to build a utopia, the goal is to make it so that people can go anywhere in the world and be able to live with a good quality of life. If someone is having trouble with finding a good job where they are, they should be able to pack up and leave to somewhere with better opportunities.

[omgryebread]

I worked with someone at a grocery store back in 2004, who wouldn't work more than 32 hours a week because she would lose her welfare. I don't know whether she made more money with less hours and welfare or she was just being lazy, but I thought it was ridiculous at the time. To me, it's an indication of a broken system. What we should be focusing on is getting rid of the need for welfare programs. For example, through charitable organizations to help provide assistance, possibly including education and training, to get people in poverty better jobs.

Anecdotes can provide an indication, but that's all. They certainly can't provide evidence. I can't personally find much evidence on welfare abuse either way, and I suspect concern over it is probably somewhat overblown. Good welfare programs, though, do assist in job training and education. That being said, teaching a man to fish gets him food once he learns how (and gets a fishing rod and bait). He (and his family) need food in the meantime.

the first is that historically US meddling in Latin America has never gone well and a lot of people resent us for it. Even when our intentions are good you would meet resistance. The second is in most of these situations a solution from the outside is extremely difficult or impossible. A lot of those nations could only first be improved by a popular revolution against the corruption and rebuilding their government into one that serves the people. You also have to think about the drug violence, many of those groups have a higher gdp than some countries. They wont take it lying down. but I digress. I completely agree that the best course of action is to work at the root of the problem and try to get rid of poverty. We just have to keep in mind that even though we can greatly improve the situation utopia is impossible and there will always be someone who has a crappy life.

It's probably gone badly because we've done dumb things like trying to influence leaders and burning coca crops. No one really objects to money coming in. Money coming in is also pretty much the best assistance possible. It gets spent on things people want, which is usually provided by private enterprise (often through an informal economy), which leads to reform. Of course, you have problems in distributing money. Any program to build schools or something usually gets interfered with by the government, or politics in general. It's also rarely as good a distribution of funds as that provided by the market.

One of the best ways of supporting the very poor countries is a liberal immigration (or guest worker) policy. Remittances go directly to citizens who can then spend that money how they see fit. Rewarding entrepreneurs who provide those people with services, leading to a better economy. Remittances combined with micro-loans are probably one of the best ways of reform. (Arguably, a liberal immigration policy hurts richer but not-yet-rich countries because of brain drain. But, in counter-argument, stricter immigration policies that aren't 0 immigrants are going to take a higher proportion of skilled workers than a liberal one, arguably hurting the country more than a liberal one... I digress.)

[sje46]

My work filter blocks "JournalOfAfricanAmericanMales.com", so i'm only going of the text you posted, but it sounded a lot more like an anecdote than data. Given that, i countered it with my own anecdotal experience that children are never given "options" over "commands" by any parent or teacher of any ethnicity.

But even if we accept it as true that six year old black kids have to be told twice to sit down in school, if that's the best example of our "white schools" being unfit to educate black children then it's a pretty shitty argument. I'd stick to your first one. The math behind that one is a lot stronger.

You're strawmanning. A lot. Please try not to.

First off, I'm not saying that six old black kids have to be told to sit down twice. I'm saying that their understanding of communication may differ from the majority. Like in different countries, they have different protocols. Let's say in some European country they don't tip waiters, while, in America, that is the cultural norm. When that European visits the US, that European is not apt to leave a tip, which would disappoint/offend the waiter, and make that European American's friends think he's a dick. Whereas the European wouldn't see what the problem is at all. Sure, he should have maybe studied up a little more, but you can't place too much blame on him...he comes from a different culture, and what may seem like common sense to us is not common sense to him. This same dynamic happens within cultures inside the US as well. With my example, black children are viewed as disobedient trouble makers when really they have a different social understanding of the world.

Neither did I say that that is the "best example of our "white schools" being unfit to educate black children". I'm not obligated to provide the best example of all time. I do aim to provide easily understandable examples. And yes, our schools are white. Our educational system is based off centuries of European American dominance in America. When for the near entirety of your country's history has been controlled by whites, it's really not so surprising that nearly all schools in the US have kept that European-American friendly school system.

Also, may I ask why that is a shitty argument, by the way? It just shows how the difference in culture results in black children being less successful in school. The particular example isn't important; what is important is the recognition that cultural misunderstandings lead minority members to be less successful. here is the source, btw. It isn't a formal study, but still:

A BLack mother, in whose house I was recently a guest, said to her eight-year old son, "Boy, get your rusty behind in that bathtub." Now I happen to know that this woman loves her son as much as any mother, but she would have never have posed the directive to her son to take a bath in the form of a question. WEre she to ask, "Would you liek to take your bath now?" she would not have been issuing a directive but offering a true alternative.... Upon entering school the child from such a family may not understand the indirect statement of the teacher as a direct command.

But those vieled commands are commands nonetheless, representing true power, and with true consequences for disobedience. If veiled commands are ignored, the child will be labeled a behavior problem and possibly officially classified as behavior disordered. In other words, the attempt by the teacher to reduce an exhibition of power by expressing herself in indirect terms may remove the very explicitness that the child needs to understand the rules of the new classroom culture.

A black elementary school [principal in Fairbanks, Alaska, reported to me that she has a lot of difficulty with Black children who are placed in some White teachers' classrooms. The teachers often send the children to the office for disobeting directives. Their parents are frequently called in for conferences. The parents' response to the teacher is usually the same: "They do what I say; if you just tell them what to do, they'll do it. I tell them at home that they have to listen to what you say."

Another example is that European American narrative tends to be more tightly structured, and in general written in a certain way. African American stories "sharing time" tends to be more show-and-tell style. European American adults judged the stories written by European American children to be better written, and to indicate future success in school. African American adults judged the stories by African American children to be better written and to indicate future success in school. And since schools tend to promote the former style of story telling as better, that is problematic for black children, who are placed at a disadvantage, simply for being of a different cultural upbringing. Michaels and Cazden, 1986, "Teacher/child collaboration of oral preparation for literacy".

One great example of cultural differences leading to lower success in schools is this long article by Deyhle about the Navajo: http://her.hepg.org/content/156624q1205 ... lltext.pdf

My single argument is that there are cultural differences between ethnic groups, and that when these ethnic groups are underrepresented, they are at a disadvantage in the system which gives undue preference for the majority group. Society is obligated to fix these discrepencies.

I disagree with this notion entirely. If the culture of a minority is incompatible with the culture of the majority, then the minority should abandon their culture for the culture of the majority, or they should go somewhere where they are in the majority. To say that millions of people should twist their society out of shape for a handful of people instead of the handful joining the society that they live in, is absurd.

Wow...that is pretty ethnocentric of you. You're suggesting that cultural minorities should simply adopt to the majority culture, portraying anything else as "twisting society out of shape" for the few. That is wrong in so many ways, but let me break it down for you.
[*]First, I'm not suggesting that we try to make life as easy as possible for minorities as possible. I am simply advocating cultural relativism...the idea that we should try to understand others' activities and beliefs through their culture. This is not moral relativism. Moral relativism is the idea that X is ethical in the context of the culture. Since I do not support, for example, female circumcision, I am not a moral relativist. I do think that we should, however, aim to understand other points of view instead of automatically assume they're inferior and that our way is best.
[*]Secondly, your view is discriminatory. There will always be cultural differences, no matter what. Unless you decide to outright eject all cultural minorities from the school system. The differences may be vast, like a person from Africa moving to the US, or it could be a student with Italian heritage in a location that is predominantly Polish. No matter what, there will be cultural differences, no matter how slight. And because of these differences in mindset, each kid will come to school with a different understanding of the world...with different understandings of social interactions, with what makes a good story, different dialects, different moral systems, etc. The school's responsibility is to make sure that all kids are enriched and educated as much as possible in order to function in this (in my case, American) society. And I'm not talking about just race here either. Religion, dialect, class, even mental/physical handicaps. The school's responsibility is to take what they get and try the best they can to enrich that kid as much as they can. To ignore the minority and attend to the majority means that the kid starts out already behind, and is simply unfair. I'm just saying that the teacher should take note of the backgrounds of all the students, and try to be as inclusive as possible...not attend to the majority and neglect the minority.
[*]Your view results in the increased separation between the majority culture and the minority cultures. If the schools prefer an education that favors the majority culture over the minority culture, that means that the average majority kid will have more success than the average minority kid. This will result in all "upper level" echelons in pretty much most professional fields to have a disproportionate amount of the cultural majority. This will continue the cultural dominance of the majority at the loss of the minority.
[*]Supporting one idea of education without considering other cultures' ideas results in not only systematic discrimination, but also leads to the loss of the majority culture as well. Up until somewhat recently, US schools didn't have collaborative group projects, at least not to the extent it has now. American education was more about fending for your own self in competition with your peers, with a very didactic "switchboard" style of teaching. I may be mistaken in this (I was born in 1989) but judging from my readings, group discussions is a relatively new style of teaching adopted from other cultures. Which is good. But having the idea that other cultures should conform to the mainstream style is ludicrous because it assumes that our style is so much better, and couldn't be improved.

Again, I don't think all of education should change. The basic American style of teaching isn't all that bad, IMO. I'm just saying that a particular school or teacher should take into consideration all learning styles, predispositions, cultural backgrounds, when teaching. Otherwise, it'd be kinda like showing a video in a class where there's a deaf kid, telling the kid to simply think harder, infer harder about what may be said judging from the pictures. It simply isn't going to work like that. If all teachers have that attitude towards deaf kids then deaf kids, will, on average, do worse at school, and therefore won't get into as good colleges, and therefore won't get good jobs. And, if the deafness is genetic, that means their children will have the same problems, only worse! Whereas it's only a very slight inconvenience to turn on the closed captions.

Turn on the closed captions. Be culturally sensitive...it works for the benefit of everyone.

[zmatt]

I love how you accused me of having a blanket statement of the poor with a blanket statement yourself. I did not claim that everyone who is poor is lazy, and if you actually read my post you would see i dedicated more time of it to the people who didn't choose to be poor.

I'm not really sure where you thought I was accusing you. I certainly didn't mean to sound like I was attacking you, so sorry if you read it that way.

no problem, it's all civil. I just found it funny that you quoted me and said that you are annoyed when people assume that everyone who is poor is lazy. And in doing so you assumed I was one of them, or we all think that way. In reality there are many causes, some are lazy and they should be punished, and some just have crap luck and they deserve help. I'm just very hostile towards the lazy types because I have personal experience with it. When i went to college a professor tried to tell me I was being unkind and that nobody chooses to be poor. That may be true for some but I have spent too many hours in the cold helping others for some smug professor to tell me I'm wrong.

[nitePhyyre]

I just said this in another thread, but I'll say it again here because it is relevant and there is no reason to assume everyone in this thread read a different one.
Multiculturalism is a stupid, oxymoron of an idea. If people are going to immigrate, they should integrate.

I disagree with this notion entirely. If the culture of a minority is incompatible with the culture of the majority, then the minority should abandon their culture for the culture of the majority, or they should go somewhere where they are in the majority. To say that millions of people should twist their society out of shape for a handful of people instead of the handful joining the society that they live in, is absurd.

Wow...that is pretty ethnocentric of you. You're suggesting that cultural minorities should simply adopt to the majority culture, portraying anything else as "twisting society out of shape" for the few. That is wrong in so many ways, but let me break it down for you.
[*]First, I'm not suggesting that we try to make life as easy as possible for minorities as possible. I am simply advocating cultural relativism...the idea that we should try to understand others' activities and beliefs through their culture. This is not moral relativism. Moral relativism is the idea that X is ethical in the context of the culture. Since I do not support, for example, female circumcision, I am not a moral relativist. I do think that we should, however, aim to understand other points of view instead of automatically assume they're inferior and that our way is best.

My single argument is that there are cultural differences between ethnic groups, and that when these ethnic groups are underrepresented, they are at a disadvantage in the system which gives undue preference for the majority group. Society is obligated to fix these discrepencies.

Ok, Maybe I read a little too much into "Society is obligated to fix these discrepencies." If you are "not suggesting that we try to make life as easy as possible for minorities as possible" then what exactly do you want us to do?

[*]Secondly, your view is discriminatory. There will always be cultural differences, no matter what. Unless you decide to outright eject all cultural minorities from the school system. The differences may be vast, like a person from Africa moving to the US, or it could be a student with Italian heritage in a location that is predominantly Polish. No matter what, there will be cultural differences, no matter how slight. And because of these differences in mindset, each kid will come to school with a different understanding of the world...with different understandings of social interactions, with what makes a good story, different dialects, different moral systems, etc. The school's responsibility is to make sure that all kids are enriched and educated as much as possible in order to function in this (in my case, American) society. And I'm not talking about just race here either. Religion, dialect, class, even mental/physical handicaps. The school's responsibility is to take what they get and try the best they can to enrich that kid as much as they can. To ignore the minority and attend to the majority means that the kid starts out already behind, and is simply unfair. I'm just saying that the teacher should take note of the backgrounds of all the students, and try to be as inclusive as possible...not attend to the majority and neglect the minority.

I guess you missed the part where i said "incompatible". If an Italian moves to Poland, it doesn't mean he has to stop drinking wine and has to only drink vodka. These aspects of their culture aren't incompatible. On the other hand, where I live, you aren't allowed to carry weapons in public. If you are a sheik you have to carry a weapon on your person at all times. These aspects of culture are incompatible. When this incompatibly arises, you only have so many options. You can:
1) Tell sheiks "Too bad, learn to integrate into our culture"
2) You can say "OK, Sheiks you are allowed to do this that other people aren't
3) You can allow everyone to carry weapons at all times
These are literally your only options. Both 2 and 3 would be massive changes to how we conduct north american society. Number 1 says too bad. You either change how the majority lives their lives, or you change how the minority lives their lives. There are no ways around this.

Unless, I'm wrong and there is a number 4 that I'm not thinking of.

[*]Your view results in the increased separation between the majority culture and the minority cultures. If the schools prefer an education that favors the majority culture over the minority culture, that means that the average majority kid will have more success than the average minority kid. This will result in all "upper level" echelons in pretty much most professional fields to have a disproportionate amount of the cultural majority. This will continue the cultural dominance of the majority at the loss of the minority.

Why did you stop counting?
You are missing the point. My views cannot lead to an increase in separation between minority and majority cultures. In my view there is only one culture. Increased integration by its very definition cannot lead to increased separation.

[*]Supporting one idea of education without considering other cultures' ideas results in not only systematic discrimination, but also leads to the loss of the majority culture as well. Up until somewhat recently, US schools didn't have collaborative group projects, at least not to the extent it has now. American education was more about fending for your own self in competition with your peers, with a very didactic "switchboard" style of teaching. I may be mistaken in this (I was born in 1989) but judging from my readings, group discussions is a relatively new style of teaching adopted from other cultures. Which is good. But having the idea that other cultures should conform to the mainstream style is ludicrous because it assumes that our style is so much better, and couldn't be improved.

Just because two values are incompatible does not mean that one is better or worse than the other. It just means that they cannot coexist. Now again we have basically 2 options, we can ask the minority to change or we can ask the majority to change.

Also, you have to make the case that it is people who immigrated to America that enacted the change you are describing. If America saw that another country was using this system and had better results and then tried to adopt that style to keep up, it wouldn't be applicable to this conversation. Noticing some good aspects of another culture from outside and adopting it is not related to having multiple cultures on the inside and trying to balance them.

Again, I don't think all of education should change. The basic American style of teaching isn't all that bad, IMO. I'm just saying that a particular school or teacher should take into consideration all learning styles, predispositions, cultural backgrounds, when teaching. Otherwise, it'd be kinda like showing a video in a class where there's a deaf kid, telling the kid to simply think harder, infer harder about what may be said judging from the pictures. It simply isn't going to work like that. If all teachers have that attitude towards deaf kids then deaf kids, will, on average, do worse at school, and therefore won't get into as good colleges, and therefore won't get good jobs. And, if the deafness is genetic, that means their children will have the same problems, only worse! Whereas it's only a very slight inconvenience to turn on the closed captions.
Turn on the closed captions. Be culturally sensitive...it works for the benefit of everyone.

Sure, if being deaf was a choice where one could simply not be deaf anymore if they wanted to, you might have a point. Actually, no you wouldn't. You would just tell the kid to open his bloody ears. And how far do you take this multiculturalism? If someone moved here from Kenya and spoke only Swahili, that would give them a distinct disadvantage. Should they be taught English in Swahili so that everything is equal? What if there is a Kenyan, an Italian, an Indian, a Jew, a Quebecois, and a penguin? Should the teacher have to learn and teach in English, Swahili, Italian, Hindi, Hebrew, French, and bird chirps? Should we just hire personal translators for these students?

Do penguins even chirp?