clarke@utcsri.UUCP (Jim Clarke) (12/10/86)
We're not talking about Sunday openings here, I think.... In article <2840@watdcsu.UUCP> brewster@watdcsu.UUCP writes: (in response to my posting) > You seem to assume that there is an automatic right for people to > expect to receive unemployment and welfare. I sure do, only I'd phrase it as "a right to food, clothing, shelter and education". Education's not usually on that list, but we acknowledged that right in the nineteenth century when we brought in free schooling. Daycare is education. > .... If we try to maintain the current system, bad > daycare now may mean no more than bad daycare now, if the "safety net" > you allude to crashes around us. I'm not sure what you mean here. (No criticism meant: I've written my share of obscure sentences too.) But bad daycare will *increase* welfare costs. Children badly brought up before they're five grow up to be incompetent adults. > In the same vein, I have never understood the calls for universal > free daycare. I'm not sure I'm asking for that. I pay for my children's daycare, and don't want a handout. But you must realize that it costs about the same as a university education -- not just the tuition fees, the whole thing. I can afford it because I'm better of than most people. > .... People are not forced to have kids, they > can choose for or against.... Balderdash. Almost everyone wants to have children, and biology says you have to do it when your income is far from its highest. Let the free market tell people that only the rich can afford children, and you'll be in big trouble. This discussion is going nowhere. Let's continue it in ten years when almost all of my free-marketeering opponents have children and understand what I'm saying. They may still disagree then, but at least they'll know what they're disagreeing with. -- Jim Clarke -- Dept. of Computer Science, Univ. of Toronto, Canada M5S 1A4 (416) 978-4058 {allegra,cornell,decvax,linus,utzoo}!utcsri!clarke
acton@mprvaxa.UUCP (12/14/86)
In article <3764@utcsri.UUCP> clarke@utcsri.UUCP (Jim Clarke) writes: > >In article <2840@watdcsu.UUCP> brewster@watdcsu.UUCP writes: > (in response to my posting) >> You seem to assume that there is an automatic right for people to >> expect to receive unemployment and welfare. > I sure do, only I'd phrase it as "a right to food, clothing, > shelter and education". Education's not usually on that list, > but we acknowledged that right in the nineteenth century when > we brought in free schooling. Daycare is education. Daycare is education? I think that is really stretching things. Just about everything is an educational experience. For example working on a farm, having a newspaper route, or visiting a hooker are all, no doubt, very educational experiences but that doesn't mean the government should pay for them. The most disconcerting part about your posting is that you say these things should be rights. Rights should imply obligations but there is no suggestion on your part that people have any obligations at all and when my tax dollars are concerned that chokes me up a bit. I would like to think that if I do things through my tax dollars for people that they do something for society in return. For example if we pay someone welfare then they have the obligation to use it to buy food, shelter and clothing and not to booze it away. Likewise I expect people on UIC to be looking for jobs and not seeing how long they can collect before it runs out and they start "really" looking for work. This I think just accentuates the point brewster@watdscu was trying to make when he asked what was wrong with Canada. Everyone seems to want a free lunch but they forget that in the end someone has to pay. Unfortunately the Canadian government seems to have forgotten that someone has to pay too and they have continued to promise anything and everything to anyone. Donald Acton
andrews@ubc-cs.UUCP (12/16/86)
In article <826@mprvaxa.UUCP> acton@mprvaxa.UUCP (Don Acton) writes: >Daycare is education? I think that is really stretching things. Just >about everything is an educational experience.... I would agree that there are various ways in which daycare cannot be considered to be education. However, I think Jim's comparison is still valid. At one time, education was considered something which you either had to pay for or do at home. The more money your family had, the better your education was, and therefore the better job you got. Clearly, this was a major part of the cycle of poverty. Now that there are fewer and fewer families who can afford to keep one person at home to take care of the kids, it seems like the same argument applies to daycare. Either someone stays home and the family lives in poverty, or someone does part-time work and neglects the kids, or the family finds some daycare that is cheap enough (and therefore bad enough) to justify someone working full-time at the highest-paying job they can get. In any case, the kids are trapped in a cycle of disadvantage. The word "rights" has been used so loosely in the last few years that I don't know what the colloquial usage is anymore. So I wouldn't say subsidized daycare is a "right", but I would say that it's a very good idea, given today's economic realities. I would assume that it would be paid for by property taxes, or whatever it is that pays for education now. If you argue with this, do you also argue with subsidized schools? > ... Everyone seems to want a free lunch but they >forget that in the end someone has to pay.... I think the main thing that's wrong now is that everyone wants the best for themselves and doesn't care about anyone else. That certainly applies to welfare freeloaders. But it also applies to rich, well-educated people who want to deny their so-called "hard-earned money" to people who just haven't had the advantages they have. --Jamie. ...!ubc-vision!ubc-cs!andrews "L'amour, c'est si simple"