Education vs. Defense (1 Viewer)

[AnarchyintheUS]

Does it bother anyone else that the government of the United States employs over 600,000 people in the defense department but only 4,600 in the education department? Not only are we going to be a bunch of warmongers, but we are going to be dumb warmongers as well. Isn't there anyone who thinks that this is a gross misappropriation of funds?

 

[FallingPianos]

Does it bother anyone else that the government of the United States employs over 600,000 people in the defense department but only 4,600 in the education department?

yes and no.

public education is not a power granted to the federal government by the constitution, and the military is.

but public education should be.

 

[Goobieman]

Does it bother anyone else that the government of the United States employs over 600,000 people in the defense department but only 4,600 in the education department? Not only are we going to be a bunch of warmongers, but we are going to be dumb warmongers as well. Isn't there anyone who thinks that this is a gross misappropriation of funds?

The word "education" does not appear in the Constitution -- and therefore there should be NO federal involvement in education.

 

[AnarchyintheUS]

Well who do you want to fund it? Corporations, the state and local governments? I am all for state and local governments funding education but with the way the tax system is set up it creates poor funding for schools. With the way that our system of taxation is education has to be primarily funded by the national government.

And about the constitution...Why does everyone hail it like it is holy law. It is a piece of paper that was designed by slaveholders and the rich for the slaveholders and the rich. The founding fathers thought that ordinary people would never be able to take part in their own government and that they shouldn't. This infallible document is the same document that counted blacks as 3/5 of a person and allows for corporations to be people under the 14th amendment.

 

[LogicalReason]

As the old saying goes.. its better to be a living dumb warmonger than a dead peaceful genius.

No its not troubling that the department of education has only 4,600 employees. As stated by others education is the responsibility of the state and local goverments. And guess what.. thats not a bad thing. It means that instead of the federal goverment giving school funding at one amount across the board.. if communities want good education they can pass their own levies to improve it.

Yes the constitution is not a document of holy laws... but its what our goverment was founded on and the reason people consult back to it is because it was made by rich slaveholders who set it up so other rich slaverholders couldn't as easily abuse the system after they were gone. They believed that ordinary people couldn't really govern themselves... and they couldn't back then because of their education they would have been taken advantage of so easily by rich slaveholders. So now to expand your narrow view I challenge you to spend a month in Saudi Arabia and learn just how good you have it you anarchist.

 

[alphamale]

Does it bother anyone else that the government of the United States employs over 600,000 people in the defense department but only 4,600 in the education department?

Yes, it does bother me. The government has abosolutely no business, and certainly not the federal government, in education. That Reagan didn't fulfill his promise to rid us of the department of education is one of the reasons I only give him an A- grade for his presidency.

 

[Simon W. Moon]

The Fed govt got involved w/ education as a result of the huge impact that education has on natl defense.


If technology didn't have such an impact on the battlefield, perhaps the fed govt would have stayed out of it.

 

[George_Washington]

Does it bother anyone else that the government of the United States employs over 600,000 people in the defense department but only 4,600 in the education department? Not only are we going to be a bunch of warmongers, but we are going to be dumb warmongers as well. Isn't there anyone who thinks that this is a gross misappropriation of funds?

It doesn't bother me at all because I don't even think we need the department of education, lol.

I'm not saying we should totally get rid of public schools altogether but we need to put more faith in private schools I think.

 

[Goobieman]

With the way that our system of taxation is education has to be primarily funded by the national government.

Why? 95-97% o education spending is funded by the states.

And about the constitution...Why does everyone hail it like it is holy law.

If you arent going to go by what it says, why bother having it?
-We- wrote our constitution down for a reason.

 

[AnarchyintheUS]

I'm not saying we should totally get rid of public schools altogether but we need to put more faith in private schools I think.

I disagree, private school is unaffordable for many many people, and if public school disappeared, what would stop them from raising the prices higher? I agree with the others that local and state governments should primarily fund education, but like I said with the way that taxes are set up in this country it is difficult for that to be effective.

The reason I am so upset about the amount of people in the defense department is because if we didn't play police to the world we wouldn't need that many people in the department. With the amount of money that we spend on the military per year you could send 40,000,000 students to the college that I attend with room and board! There are around 860,000 employees working in the Homeland Securty Dept and the Defense Dept combined but in the other 13 departments in the cabinet there is just over 900,000.

Why do we need to feel so threatened? If we were not provoking international hatred why would we need to have a military of world conquest proportions?

For example: The US spends $518.1 billion on the military. The country who spends the second most in the world is China at $81 billion, then France at $45 billion, then japan at $44 billion, then the UK at $42 billion. We spend more than almost the rest of the world combined. That is a problem. Maybe if we spent that money on nationalized health care, education, housing and food but especialliy education, the citizens of this country would see how bullshit this governments justification for an inflated military really is.

 

[Goobieman]

Why do we need to feel so threatened? If we were not provoking international hatred why would we need to have a military of world conquest proportions?

Your misconceptions here explain pretty much everything.
You proceed from a false premise, and so all of its fruits are spoiled.