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A lot of parents don't want unapproved media to reach their kids. If something like this passes, it's going to be at least because of parental support.


In that case, they are free to take responsibility for the media their children have access to.


Good luck. My uncles kid was always on dating sites etc at a young age. I did everything for them setting up restrictions, ensuring the kid had an account that only could access a few sites. They took away their tablet and phone etc.

The kid still managed to get caught hooking up with older men via Grindr.


Maybe teach the child how to think about their decisions in a responsible manner instead of trying to hide the world from them? You won’t win and the child won’t know why you’re hiding it from them. If they knew why, you wouldn’t need to hide it because they’d understand what to avoid on their own.

I was certainly on Grindr before I was 18 because I was a curious child and was never exposed to queer people. I was thankfully raised by parents that also taught me why making decisions like hooking up with old men could be bad. So I never did that.

My parents banned the internet from me as a kid -until i was 18- except in controlled manners. I flashed Linux on a school computer, used it to make a bootable VM of android that I could use to run apps on my person computer. I was particularly technically literate but there’s endless ways to avoid your parents wishes.


In 20 years, do you think the kid will think the gratuitously restrictive parenting or the hooking up with older men caused more damage?


Both


Funny thing is that I guarantee a lot of the parents in support of dumb shit like this lose their minds at sexual education classes in public schools. Just shows that most people don't have the IQ necessary to be competent parents.


If you lose your mind about a sexual education class, I agree that's misguided, but saying they have a low IQ because of that? Maybe a low EQ if they can't control their emotions, but it's absurd to automatically equate emotions with intelligence. We've all acted stupidly because we've been emotionally invested in an idea. To pretend otherwise is disingenuous at best, and probably indicative of a low IQ at worst ;)

Anyways, lots of people and religions have wildly different ideas on the sanctity (or lack of sanctity) of sex. Some people don't like it when a public school decides to teach their child something different. Whether that's a school teaching that heterosexual monogamy is the one true way, or homosexualism or polygamy or whatever. People have very different opinions on this and that's OK.


Don't think you got my point. I'd wager most parents that don't like sexual education courses don't see the hypocrisy in supporting this bill. They're essentially letting the state do the parenting for them.


Ah gotcha. Yep I agree with that completely and must have misread your original sentiment :)


Which do you prefer?

1) We should have school districts teaching _Republican_ ideals because the local schools support it.

2) We should have school districts teaching _Democrat_ ideals because the local schools support it.

3) No to both 1 and 2.

You simply can't have it both ways, therefore the reasonable option is to say no to both.


The problem with this is that Republicans in power today equate things like evolution with Democrat ideals.

When facts get labeled as bias it's impossible to remove both from the classroom and still have a functional classroom.


Can you name two Republicans who "equate things like evolution with Democrat ideals"?



The OP said "Republicans in power today". You provided a link of legislations from 10 plus years ago most of which didn't even go anywhere.


Well i could wish for correct ideals to be taught which happen to be overwhelmingly not the republican ones.


Why not just teach math, reading and science and other non-political skills?


Because then you end up with a society with extreme STEM brain. You will not raise citizens but a politically uneducated servant class in a society vulnerable to extreme fracturing as common frameworks to think about politics were not established.

Poltical education has been part of the education for the rulers since forever and since the enlightenment it has been more and more become part of education of everybody. By not teaching politics to a class of people you make them unable to work as lawyers, judges or (suprise) politicians taking away their control and feedback into how society develops. Those positions will be taken up instead by a different class of people by the accident of whom they have been birth been found deserving to get such an education. I hope do not elaborate why that is bad.

You could argue that people could get the same education from the internet. However as long as the internet is not censored people will spread versions of political education that are not aligned along country borders and not constrained by being a reproductive, self sustaining system of thought. This leaves the political order highly vulnerable.

We teach politics so that nations do not fall apart into local fiefdoms ruled by an elite class tied to who the parents are. By proposing to axe political education you are proposing to get onto a path to pre-enlightment political structures. This is not hyperbole. Political education goes beyond "how do i vote and how does my government work", it includes all of history, large parts of art, literature and so on. Political education like that is an pre-requisite to be able to find your own individual political opinion and it is a prerequisite for contributing to shape society. If you take away that power (in particular along a public/private education line) you kneecap one side of the politics of power and possibly irreversibly trigger a run-away feedback leading to a categorical change/tipping point how society works.

I hope i could persuade you that this is an extremely bad idea.


What is wrong with just teaching facts about politics instead of beliefs about political positions?

(my education list what not exhaustive)


1. Facts are in contention and can also be politicised. When it comes to humanities there are often no facts just interpretations backed by arguments which you guessed it are political. Interpretations impose higher order structures. Recognizing such structures is important to draw parallels and apply learnings from history to the current time. If you just teach (= have people memorize) facts they will not be able to learn from history.

2. You can not act upon facts. To rationally decide what action to take you need a value system. Value Innsystems are political.

3. If you do not teach a value system people tend to construct irrational, selfish, short sighted value systems or just without reflection assume value system of their environment. Some viral value systems teach helplessness, people wouldn't dare to use their own mind but instead consult book or preacher.

4. Without encouragement for unified values nations fracture. So without politics having a thumb on what goes on in schools nations can not reproduce over successive generations.

What's wrong? Your suggestion would cripple western society (actually any society) and might get people killed.


How do you solve the issue when your ideals are rejected by parents (adults) of children being taught? Is it just "too bad for them?" (whether democrat or republican?)

No, my suggestion is to view schools as politically agnostic. This is possible, and the best option for everyone everywhere.

Political beliefs can, and should be, left to adults to decide on their own.


> How do you solve the issue when your ideals are rejected by parents (adults) of children being taught?

The best one can do is teaching about the existence of the variety of values (i am against teaching ideals) walk through some of the consequences, discuss it and encourage students to reflect. If the memetic power of values of the parents are so low that knowledge of the existence of values which conflict with them causes them to not be transmitted to the next generation then i say "tough luck". If soley one set of values is being taught and all others are demonized that would be something parents can be justifiably enraged by.

I wouldn't trust the americans education system to get things right anyway but it can get things less wrong.

> (whether democrat or republican?)

I do not care much about this destinction.

> No, my suggestion is to view schools as politically agnostic.

My suggestion is to have schools teach tolerance and give people a rough enough understanding of the different value systems so they do not cause offense because of ignorance. I find this preferable. If existence of different values causes offense to the parent "too bad for them".

> Political beliefs can, and should be, left to adults to decide on their own.

For people to be able to make their own choice, they should be guaranteed the right to learn about other choices. (I am against home schooling, if you can not tell but i am not sure abolishing home schooling would be worth while use of political capital as it is used to plaster over a lot of problems in education system that would have to be fixed first).


>> (whether democrat or republican?)

>I do not care much about this destinction.

This is the crux of the problem here, American's very much do care about this distinction. So to dismiss it is to not solve the problem.


You asked me for my opinion. I gave it. You Americans need to sort it out on your end.

Not teaching politicized stuff is dangerous as that means a sufficiently large minority screaming loud enough have a mechanism to censor any school content by making it political even if it shouldn't be.

It did offer a solution in my reply. Explain multiple sides, explain other world religions, if students have a good understanding of all compatible with society ideologies they can pick when they are old enough.


Your opinion can be unuseful for the simple reason it's off topic.

If you aren't American, you simply cannot understand our political issues and to dismiss them as if they aren't important (because they aren't important to you) is disrespectful.


If 3, what are schools teaching? Hopefully students learn something beyond the reality that their education is a political pawn.


Reading and math seem like they would be useful skills taught in school.


There are plenty of school districts in localities where there's no meaningful Republican presence; how are they doing?


good luck teaching much beyond colors and shapes without overlapping with some "Republican ideals" or "Democrat ideals". especially given the ever-widening scope of what so many Republicans claim constitutes Democratic political indoctrination in schools.


2) is actually "We should have school districts _not_ teaching _Republican_ ideals because the local schools support it.

3) is then a contradiction, in that there is nothing that could be taught, since everything is either republican ideals or not-republican ideals




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