Hypocrisy Sighting:
A Reader Comments On OTBL's "Terms of Use"
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I had to take a few minutes and read what the OTBL folks think is an acceptable "Terms of Use" for registration for OnTheBorderLine.net
"The opinions expressed herein are the opinions of each individual. They do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the administrator of this site. This is a private blog and all postings and comments become property of the administrator of the blog. Each and every participant of this blog also acknowledges that any posting or comments may be modified, edited, screened, or deleted without question. Additionally, the new registrant also acknowledges that they may not be allowed to post or comment. . New registrants will be put on a moderated status and allowed to submit a comment. However, It may take a while for the comments to get approved and posted. Again, the administrator can modify, edit, or delete any submitted material without question. The users of the blog system, also agree to self moderate and use their best judgment as to content provided to the blog. The admin is not responsible for inappropriate material submitted by others and will delete once he is made aware of it."
You have got to be kidding me!
Are these the same people who are crying that School Board members freedom of speech is threatened by a Code of Conduct that 5 of the current 7 New Richmond Board members voted for at its inception?
Andy Brinkman
30 comments:
Excuse me Cato, but this blog is public. Anyone in the universe with internet access is welcome to leave a comment and join it. A blog like OTBL is a close shop that doesn't allow anyone who reads it to comment. If you work your way around the blogoshere, you will quickly see that OTBL is one of a small minority of blogs that doesn't let everyone comment.
OTBL has an agenda that it wants to control the content of debate taking place on it. If someone comes in a questions the OTBL questioners too much, the debate gets shutoff.
If OTBL was completely open to the public, it could end up looking like a teen-age IM session, like many of the postings here. keeping it closed to a known set of users weeds out the garbage, and keeps the conversations on-topic.
Yeah Right!!!!!!
Like Carnac, The Lone Randger and Tonto (Jack B and Towncrybaby and the ever popular School Vulture N.Onimous.
This comment is the funniest thing you guys ever said!!!!!
Or like a goose-stepping, chorus line in the truest Mel Brooksian sense of the imagery.
CATO:
Your side defines "Public to suit your needs". There's a post on OTBL right now titled. "Are Public Schools Hazardous To Public Education?" So what is the Public Education in their argument?
Regardless, you're just playing your samantic parlor game again.
Here's the fact: This blog is open to
almost anybody even you who has not agreed with anything we have posted.
If anybody even makes it onto the OTBL firing range and disagrees with the OTBL party line they are summarily banned from commenting.
The distinction is obvious an clear so FORGET THE WORD GAMES!!!!!!
WE CAN SHOUT TOO!!!
Cato:
Lets say the blog is a private park that has been donated by some wealth capitalist for anyone in the universe to come and swap sandwiches.
I challenge to find one post on this site that insults everyone who reads it. One man's meat is another man's poison. We've tried to use the OTBL site as our guide to setting our standards. We might be a little more creative over here and better able to express ourselfs with Paintshop, skunks and cartoon bubbles. It's a matter of personal taste.
I don't think you've suffered the junkyard dog attacks on this site that I've received on the OTBL site. This is my personal taste, but I find sticking to the "thread" is a bit too anal retentive to me. Improvisation and coloring outside the lines are often more eye-opening -- to me anyways.
Cato:
The reason I was banded from that site is becuase most of the commenters there didn't want to debate and discussion the issues. They wanted to insult me and call me names. So if that's how they want to play the game, we can do that here.
I have to admit that when I first joined that site, I had an agenda. My agenda was to keep an open mind an find outwhat these guys were all about and where they were coming from. In the course of an ongoing discussion, I would bring up facts that countered their arguments and would then get the insult enema from the resident junkyard dogs there.
You innocently tap dance around over on this blog with your comments and pretend to be unaware of the history of that blog. You don't don't fool me. Most certainly you are a member of OTBL. For how long, I can't say.
If you don't participate on that blog, why would you be worried about insulting them?
No one's "arguing" with them. We are making fun of them. I went into their house to talk about their issues and they turned the dogs loose on me with insults and personal attacks drooling from their fangs. Granted, there are actually people posting on that blog that want to "discuss" the issues. Or should I say make you change your mind and join their side. But the junkyard dogs and the frequent unsubstatiated cheapshots and slander of public and private individuals great diminishes their credibility.
" JPN said: You don't don't fool me. Most certainly you are a member of OTBL. For how long, I can't say.
10/7/06 08:10
Cato said...
Ha. No I am not, I assure you of that. Hell, the other site isn't on my Mozilla quick link bar where I can see it."
Perhaps CATO is playing his semantic
game once more. He may be truthful
in saying he is not a "member" of OTBL. I can't remember when they ever had a membership drive. There are probably no official "members".
Are you an ATBl "member" JPN. Show me your membership card.
I'm with JPN, CATO is too much a kindred spirit of the OTBL gang to not arouse suspicion that he is one of them. Can CATO honestly say that he has never posted on OTBL? I don't mean as CATO, I mean under any identity. If you haven't I really wonder why you don't. You'd be welcomed with open arms in their camp. Why comment here when you know
we don't agree with your thinking?
I'm sure you are pointing the "personal attack finger" at me, and maybe justifiably so. I have a difficult time not associating the point of view you represent with the
OTBL group who we fondly refer to as "Skunks". If you are not one of them then maybe you don't deserve the "negative tone". For me the jury is still out as to how closely you are allied to OTBL.
What's interesting about Cato is that he skips over some fundemental questions concerning public-funded government schools v. government-funded private schools. There are two basic questions he's avoided answering:
1. If we switch to the government-funded private school option, will it:
1. Make my taxes go up or down -- all things being equal.
2. Will teachers get paid more or less -- all things being equal.
Those would seem to be easily answered questions for someone so idealistically convinced of the beneficial efficiencies of the option he is cheerleading.
JPN:
Our dialogue with CATO has been scattered over many posts. In CATO's defense, I think he did address the issue of teacher salaries and said he believed they would be lower. I can't find that statement but I'm 90% certain I saw it.
I'm sure that he would be basing such a prediction on specualtion. I say this because government-funded private schools will be so much more exciting and captivating than what's offered in today's dull government schools. In addition, since there will be no more dropouts because of the excitement sparkling from the private schools. In fact there will be a shortage of teachers, as the private school learns to deal with all these dropouts returning. In the free market, that means the price of acquiring teachers will go up -- unless, of course, the qualifications for teachers are reduced. That would fall in line with an often repeat refrain by the OTBL'ers concerning why an advanced placement chemistry teacher gets paid the same as a kindergarten teacher.
JPN said:
"In fact there will be a shortage of teachers"
I was thinking the same thing earlier today. If teacher wages drop, what's the incentive for the brighter students to go into the profession? Teacher salaries are hardly astronomical now considering the years of preparation and certification requirements. The desire to teach coupled with more attractive benefits to some degree make up for the lack of salary and attract reasonably qualified teachers. Privitizing would in my opinion have the Schools Inc. looking for lower priced labor and most likely less qualified.
Another thing to consider is the profit motive. Wouldn't you expect private schools to consolidate in to franchises as the concept builds and learns how to be more profitable? Some private operators are not going to be as smart or as lucky as others. These would get bought up by the more successful, i.e., more profitable, operators. Eventually, we'd end up with the McWal-mart model of K-12 education. Teachers would be clocking in at the start of the hour and clocking out. They'd get their 15 minute breaks, etc.
Of course, somewhere there must be some warehouse full of dynamic Tony Robbins-wannbe-a-teachers who will have their pre-schoolers walking on hot coals before they finger paint. So lets just say the current pool of teachers has 20 percent dead wood that gets pruned. If we are currently at equalibrium with the number of teacher-bodies needed to fill the position -- regardless of quality -- then we will be 20 percent short. To attract more teachers, the markets would demand higher salaries and/or bennies and/or perks.
Would the McWalmarts of education operate on a cost-plus basis like we've seen in the defense industry?
Cato:
When you say teachers work "180 days, 5 hours a day...," you again are making a value you judgement. You are looking at a teacher as just another factor of production. This would be like it takes 50 minutes of instruction times 1 student plus one textbook plus one class room plus 30 desks plus lights plus one teacher = educated child.
How naive and inexperienced with a releastic working environment are you? What does a CEO do. Sits at his desk, talks on a phone, meets with VPs, etc. He might be there for 12 hours a day, but he doesn't actually push his pencil for 12 hours a day. Ditto for IT works. I don't see 8 hours to measurable productive work coming out of my the IT people I work with.
Is the work value-added, non-value added, waste of idle? Obviously, you've never done any type of teaching. The saying "those who can do, those who can't teach," obviously came from the mouth of an ignorant, armchair quarterback who never strapped on the pads or buckled his helment.
I wish my mother were still alive to tell you about correcting papers at 1:00 A.M. After 20 years in her profession she started teaching. She could do, and then passed that knowledge on to the next generation.
A value, that has no value to you.
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"There will not be a "teacher shortage." The market would work it out to exactly the amount of teachers that there should be. It might be less than now, but what does it matter?"
________
The right amount of teachers to achieve what goal? Line the pockets of the Mac School owners? Of course,
there is no other goal than the bottom line. There are no "societal
goals" because all that matters is the individual. No matter how you cut it CATO you are an extremist.
"Yes andyrand, there are no "societal goals" that should be propogandized to our children until they are goosetepping along."
Like I said, you are an extremist this statement only verifies it.
"Inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist”
George Carlin
P.S. My mom would appreciate your insult.
Yes "Reality hits most people in their ego sooner or later".
Andy Rand
Cato:
Considering your calculation of how much time a time puts in on the job, I would ask you how much time you actually "work" during a 40-hour work week.
Cato:
Put away you top hat and cane for a minute and answer the question. Based on a 40-hour work week, what percentage do you actually work productively?
Cato, it interesting that nothing applies to you. My guess is you are defining what is "productive." You could be the biggest loafer in your company.
Cato the stone thrower. He's never been a teacher but he knows all about it. Cato the bedwetting boy of a crack whore who lives on welfare and gets straight A's. Cato the idealist with rose-colored vision that is distored by the conspiratorial mingling of the eye in the pyramid and those to lazy to pick themselves up by their boot straps. Cato the libertarian palor game player who can answer simple questions because he knows what a hypocrite he truly is. Yes, the same Cato who fights for the libertarian ideals he so boldly defends by not riding on public transit or accepting any welfare. Cato to the libertarian idealist who does shit his wife tells him to -- even though it goes against his lofty libertarian ideals -- just to keep peace at home.
Well...at least you're not a Viking fan!
Definitions of hypocrite:
A person who professes beliefs and opinions that he or she does not hold in order to conceal his or her real feelings or motives
wordnet.
Hypocrisy is the act of pretending to have beliefs, virtues and feelings that one does not truly possess. The word derives from the late Latin hypocrisis and Greek hupokrisis both meaning play-acting or pretence. The word is arguably derived from hypo- meaning small, + krinein meaning to decide/to dispute. A classic example of a hypocritical act is to denounce another for carrying out some action whilst carrying out the same action oneself.
CATO:
An honorable thing ideals. The question is which ones. Obviously you have faith in ideals that few seem to share. The battle will be in building concensus, which I gather you abhor. Quite a predicatment to change the world to values that most reject and in the process to make the many like you. An interesting challenge. Not one I would consider.
Comment moderation has always been on!
Nobody said there were no limits to tolerance.
It seems you will win the day when everyone accepts your world view.
As you say , you will most likely loose. Perhaps you've chosen to believe in an ideal that is not worthy of you.
Sounds a lot like Invictus.
Cato:
There appears to be a Blogger problem and that explains why they are shutting in down at 4 PM for maintenance. I've seen a couple other funky things going on behind the curtain where the wizrad works...keep that like dog out of here.
I've never supported those in office responsible for exporting our debt to China. From my understanding this is a Republican phenomena. (Not that the Dems are blameless ). Clinton was running a surplus. Bush has squandered it and piled up enormous debt, mostly as a result of his tax cuts.
Chaney was quoted as saying "Ronald Reagan has demonstrated that deficits don't matter". I'll assume you disagree with the VP on that one?
I stand corrected. I just now say the
disclaimer:
"Comment moderation has been enabled. All comments must be approved by the blog author."
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