Chrontius said:
My parents still haven't given me 'the birds and the bees' and I'm in college. If not for the internet and high school... well, suffice to say that I don't think parents should be the one and only source.
I can certainly understand why you would feel that parents should not be the only source. The question I have is this: From where does government gain the authority to dicatate to a parent what the other sources will be?
Chrontius said:
So the way to fix an underfunded public school system is to deprive it of even more funding to pay for the private education of a few litigous bastards?
Couple things here:
1) Most private schools would kill to have the budget a public school does. Hell, most of them would kill to have HALF of it.
2) Even insinuating a California public school is underfunded is a good way to get a lot of people to laugh in your face and write you off as seriously uninformed.
3) Question: From where do the public schools receive their funding? I'll give you a hint...its got a lot to do with those litigous bastards you just mentioned.
4) As the parents (remember them? Those are the big people in your house who gave you life, fed you, clothed you, write the checks for your college edumacation...yeah - them) are the ones who are actually paying the taxes which provide the funding for the public schools (yeah, i know - i just answered #3 for you), they can be thought of as the customers. Customers, when dissatisfied with a good or service, have every right in the world to take THEIR money and go spend it elsewhere.
The above may sound condescending, but i find the older I get, the less tolerance I have for someone without children calling those of us with them bastards when we get sick of the state overreaching its authority.
Chrontius said:
The way to heaven is not the way of rote repetition without thought. That demonstrates neither love nor faith and is extremely shortsighted. That's the way a computer thinks, not a moral free agent like a person.
Some things in life are learned through rote repetition so that one understands them without thought. Walking, eating, the understanding that fire is hot, etc. and virtually anything which you do at a subconscious level to ensure your very survival are all good examples. In case you were wondering, those lessons are taught to you by your parents. Regardless, we are not discussing the way to heaven or whether or not being taught about sex by your parents enables one to think freely. We are discussing whether or not parents have the right (and they do) to dictate to the school board that their children will not have sex discussed below a certain grade level and without parental consent.
Now, you may think this kind of thinking is quaint and old fashioned, and when I was still in college and thought I knew everything, i thought much the same way. Funny thing happened though - i grew up, got married, and as usually happens when two people love each other, we had a kid. (Gorgeous baby girl i might add). So, now i've got this little bundle of joy/pain/pride/embarrasssment/insert appropriate emotion of the moment here, and i think to myself "Do I want some bureaucrat who may have no children of his own teaching my 5 year old daughter about sex?" You would be amazed at the intensity of a response one receives from oneself to a question such as this.
So, in closing, I would suggest you consider things from the parents point of view. After all, they are ultimately responsible for that child's existence and raising - regardless of the opinion of the 9th Circus.