republicans have no shame

[twocoach]

Quite often the staff of drug and alcohol rehab facilities that deal with people who run afoul of the law are those in recovery themselves. I don't think they consider themselves elitist, just sober.

What? What does that have to do with "But the staff qualifications for either of those might be a little different than your friends could tolerate."?!?

[TDub]

This argument isnt about prisons, it changed to become that seahawk chose to make it about that instead of defending her position that people who work in rural prisons are ill educated idiots. Bubba dumbfucks because they choose not to move to a city. Its not true.

I agree with you that Seahawk's post was a gross generalization of what is happening in small town America. But I do believe that the majority of the brightest, most talented kids in these areas are leaving to pursue larger opportunities. Not all, obviously, but a majority percentage. It has been happening since the GI Bill started offering to send the spouses and children of dead WWII soldiers to college. Even before that, the Depression sent people fleeing for larger cities in anywhere in America where they felt they could find work. There were simply more opportunities.

The GI Bill sent my grandmother from a tiny town in Southern Illinois to college at Southern Illinois University after my Grandpa died serving our country as a fighter pilot trainer. That gave her the skills to leave her small town and move to Denver. Then it sent my Mom to college at CU and then Kansas.

My Dad's father did the opposite and chose to come back to his tiny town in Kansas despite his undergrad degree from Kansas and a Masters from Harvard. But of his three children, the only one who didnt move away to a larger city was his only kid that didn't go to college and even he moved to the rural outskirts of Kansas City. Of that kid's four kids, the only smart one moved away and became a pharmacist. The other three are all educated to at most a high school level and are a rural postal carrier with a string of bad marriages, a handy man/construction worker who has his work opportunities limited by a collection of DUI's and a moron who moved to Vegas to be a poker player.

So of those three generations of my family from two different small towns, there is a grand total of one person left in those two original small towns and that was my aunt, who after moving away to go to KU, took early retirement from her job as a teacher in KC to move back home to the family farm to care for my grandparents and who is still staying in the family home waiting to die from the end stages of 50 years of smoking.

It doesn't feel like this life story is out of the ordinary. It feels like most really small (less that 1k) towns are facing the same issue with the last three generations of families.

I dont disagree with the point of your post. My issue is with the perceived arrogance of those who think if you dont move to the city you cannot be a valuable, educated person. Your father is an example of that and my story is similar. I did not attend Harvard but I do have a masters. I chose to move out of the city and back to the rural areas because thats where I'm happy and it keeps me sane. I would argue that in this age it is technology, not prisons, that will allow people to live remote and function in some industries. Seahawks act of arrogance and superiority, the omnipotent one, is fucking tiresome.

[twocoach]

This argument isnt about prisons, it changed to become that seahawk chose to make it about that instead of defending her position that people who work in rural prisons are ill educated idiots. Bubba dumbfucks because they choose not to move to a city. Its not true.

I agree with you that Seahawk's post was a gross generalization of what is happening in small town America. But I do believe that the majority of the brightest, most talented kids in these areas are leaving to pursue larger opportunities. Not all, obviously, but a majority percentage. It has been happening since the GI Bill started offering to send the spouses and children of dead WWII soldiers to college. Even before that, the Depression sent people fleeing for larger cities in anywhere in America where they felt they could find work. There were simply more opportunities.

The GI Bill sent my grandmother from a tiny town in Southern Illinois to college at Southern Illinois University after my Grandpa died serving our country as a fighter pilot trainer. That gave her the skills to leave her small town and move to Denver. Then it sent my Mom to college at CU and then Kansas.

My Dad's father did the opposite and chose to come back to his tiny town in Kansas despite his undergrad degree from Kansas and a Masters from Harvard. But of his three children, the only one who didnt move away to a larger city was his only kid that didn't go to college and even he moved to the rural outskirts of Kansas City. Of that kid's four kids, the only smart one moved away and became a pharmacist. The other three are all educated to at most a high school level and are a rural postal carrier with a string of bad marriages, a handy man/construction worker who has his work opportunities limited by a collection of DUI's and a moron who moved to Vegas to be a poker player.

So of those three generations of my family from two different small towns, there is a grand total of one person left in those two original small towns and that was my aunt, who after moving away to go to KU, took early retirement from her job as a teacher in KC to move back home to the family farm to care for my grandparents and who is still staying in the family home waiting to die from the end stages of 50 years of smoking.

It doesn't feel like this life story is out of the ordinary. It feels like most really small (less that 1k) towns are facing the same issue with the last three generations of families.

I dont disagree with the point of your post. My issue is with the perceived arrogance of those who think if you dont move to the city you cannot be a valuable, educated person. Your father is an example of that and my story is similar. I did not attend Harvard but I do have a masters. I chose to move out of the city and back to the rural areas because thats where I'm happy and it keeps me sane. I would argue that in this age it is technology, not prisons, that will allow people to live remote and function in some industries. Seahawks act of arrogance and superiority, the omnipotent one, is fucking tiresome.

To me, the issue that prevents what your saying from happening more is that the GOP has spent decades talking down education as elitist and snobby so they can cut education funding. Will small town kids be educated enough in K-12 to allow themselves to work those jobs that you can do remotely. Those types of jobs are a switch from manual labor to mental labor and it feels like the failures of the GOP to properly fund education and training opportunities has left people in rural areas with lives of more limited opportunities.

What is the Republican Party doing to help accomplish what you described? What are they doing to give rural Americans more opportunities?

[HouseDivided]

I agree with you that Seahawk's post was a gross generalization of what is happening in small town America. But I do believe that the majority of the brightest, most talented kids in these areas are leaving to pursue larger opportunities. Not all, obviously, but a majority percentage. It has been happening since the GI Bill started offering to send the spouses and children of dead WWII soldiers to college. Even before that, the Depression sent people fleeing for larger cities in anywhere in America where they felt they could find work. There were simply more opportunities.

The GI Bill sent my grandmother from a tiny town in Southern Illinois to college at Southern Illinois University after my Grandpa died serving our country as a fighter pilot trainer. That gave her the skills to leave her small town and move to Denver. Then it sent my Mom to college at CU and then Kansas.

My Dad's father did the opposite and chose to come back to his tiny town in Kansas despite his undergrad degree from Kansas and a Masters from Harvard. But of his three children, the only one who didnt move away to a larger city was his only kid that didn't go to college and even he moved to the rural outskirts of Kansas City. Of that kid's four kids, the only smart one moved away and became a pharmacist. The other three are all educated to at most a high school level and are a rural postal carrier with a string of bad marriages, a handy man/construction worker who has his work opportunities limited by a collection of DUI's and a moron who moved to Vegas to be a poker player.

So of those three generations of my family from two different small towns, there is a grand total of one person left in those two original small towns and that was my aunt, who after moving away to go to KU, took early retirement from her job as a teacher in KC to move back home to the family farm to care for my grandparents and who is still staying in the family home waiting to die from the end stages of 50 years of smoking.

It doesn't feel like this life story is out of the ordinary. It feels like most really small (less that 1k) towns are facing the same issue with the last three generations of families.

I dont disagree with the point of your post. My issue is with the perceived arrogance of those who think if you dont move to the city you cannot be a valuable, educated person. Your father is an example of that and my story is similar. I did not attend Harvard but I do have a masters. I chose to move out of the city and back to the rural areas because thats where I'm happy and it keeps me sane. I would argue that in this age it is technology, not prisons, that will allow people to live remote and function in some industries. Seahawks act of arrogance and superiority, the omnipotent one, is fucking tiresome.

To me, the issue that prevents what your saying from happening more is that the GOP has spent decades talking down education as elitist and snobby so they can cut education funding. Will small town kids be educated enough in K-12 to allow themselves to work those jobs that you can do remotely. Those types of jobs are a switch from manual labor to mental labor and it feels like the failures of the GOP to properly fund education and training opportunities has left people in rural areas with lives of more limited opportunities.

K-12 public education has become an absolute joke. I see it with every progressively lazy and illiterate crop of incoming Freshmen that I spend four or five years trying to teach to love reading and thinking, but the coup de grace has been observing my 16 year old during the COVID-19 shutdown.

The kid is in all honors and AP classes, yet he completes an entire weeks’ worth of work in ~3 hours of less-than-arduous effort. I asked if they had scaled back the workload because of the transition online, and his reply was that, no, it was the same amount, but “We usually spend the rest of the week watching movies or the teacher just lets kids play on their phones.”

On top of that, a friend of mine who teaches in a local school system told me that Kansas schools have determined that it is unfair to require kids to do their work during the shutdown, so all assignments are considered voluntary, and no grades will be given.

Your tax dollars at work.

[Deleted User 89]

This argument isnt about prisons, it changed to become that seahawk chose to make it about that instead of defending her position that people who work in rural prisons are ill educated idiots. Bubba dumbfucks because they choose not to move to a city. Its not true.

I agree with you that Seahawk's post was a gross generalization of what is happening in small town America. But I do believe that the majority of the brightest, most talented kids in these areas are leaving to pursue larger opportunities. Not all, obviously, but a majority percentage. It has been happening since the GI Bill started offering to send the spouses and children of dead WWII soldiers to college. Even before that, the Depression sent people fleeing for larger cities in anywhere in America where they felt they could find work. There were simply more opportunities.

The GI Bill sent my grandmother from a tiny town in Southern Illinois to college at Southern Illinois University after my Grandpa died serving our country as a fighter pilot trainer. That gave her the skills to leave her small town and move to Denver. Then it sent my Mom to college at CU and then Kansas.

My Dad's father did the opposite and chose to come back to his tiny town in Kansas despite his undergrad degree from Kansas and a Masters from Harvard. But of his three children, the only one who didnt move away to a larger city was his only kid that didn't go to college and even he moved to the rural outskirts of Kansas City. Of that kid's four kids, the only smart one moved away and became a pharmacist. The other three are all educated to at most a high school level and are a rural postal carrier with a string of bad marriages, a handy man/construction worker who has his work opportunities limited by a collection of DUI's and a moron who moved to Vegas to be a poker player.

So of those three generations of my family from two different small towns, there is a grand total of one person left in those two original small towns and that was my aunt, who after moving away to go to KU, took early retirement from her job as a teacher in KC to move back home to the family farm to care for my grandparents and who is still staying in the family home waiting to die from the end stages of 50 years of smoking.

It doesn't feel like this life story is out of the ordinary. It feels like most really small (less that 1k) towns are facing the same issue with the last three generations of families.

I dont disagree with the point of your post. My issue is with the perceived arrogance of those who think if you dont move to the city you cannot be a valuable, educated person. Your father is an example of that and my story is similar. I did not attend Harvard but I do have a masters. I chose to move out of the city and back to the rural areas because thats where I'm happy and it keeps me sane. I would argue that in this age it is technology, not prisons, that will allow people to live remote and function in some industries. Seahawks act of arrogance and superiority, the omnipotent one, is fucking tiresome.

i could be wrong, but i think you, my folks, and the like are in the minority of those that live rurally

in my experience, most are not as well-educated

[Deleted User 62]

I dont disagree with the point of your post. My issue is with the perceived arrogance of those who think if you dont move to the city you cannot be a valuable, educated person. Your father is an example of that and my story is similar. I did not attend Harvard but I do have a masters. I chose to move out of the city and back to the rural areas because thats where I'm happy and it keeps me sane. I would argue that in this age it is technology, not prisons, that will allow people to live remote and function in some industries. Seahawks act of arrogance and superiority, the omnipotent one, is fucking tiresome.

To me, the issue that prevents what your saying from happening more is that the GOP has spent decades talking down education as elitist and snobby so they can cut education funding. Will small town kids be educated enough in K-12 to allow themselves to work those jobs that you can do remotely. Those types of jobs are a switch from manual labor to mental labor and it feels like the failures of the GOP to properly fund education and training opportunities has left people in rural areas with lives of more limited opportunities.

K-12 public education has become an absolute joke. I see it with every progressively lazy and illiterate crop of incoming Freshmen that I spend four or five years trying to teach to love reading and thinking, but the coup de grace has been observing my 16 year old during the COVID-19 shutdown.

The kid is in all honors and AP classes, yet he completes an entire weeks’ worth of work in ~3 hours of less-than-arduous effort. I asked if they had scaled back the workload because of the transition online, and his reply was that, no, it was the same amount, but “We usually spend the rest of the week watching movies or the teacher just lets kids play on their phones.”

On top of that, a friend of mine who teaches in a local school system told me that Kansas schools have determined that it is unfair to require kids to do their work during the shutdown, so all assignments are considered voluntary, and no grades will be given.

Your tax dollars at work.

This sounds suspiciously like one of those stories that preachers make up for a sermon

[HouseDivided]

To me, the issue that prevents what your saying from happening more is that the GOP has spent decades talking down education as elitist and snobby so they can cut education funding. Will small town kids be educated enough in K-12 to allow themselves to work those jobs that you can do remotely. Those types of jobs are a switch from manual labor to mental labor and it feels like the failures of the GOP to properly fund education and training opportunities has left people in rural areas with lives of more limited opportunities.

K-12 public education has become an absolute joke. I see it with every progressively lazy and illiterate crop of incoming Freshmen that I spend four or five years trying to teach to love reading and thinking, but the coup de grace has been observing my 16 year old during the COVID-19 shutdown.

The kid is in all honors and AP classes, yet he completes an entire weeks’ worth of work in ~3 hours of less-than-arduous effort. I asked if they had scaled back the workload because of the transition online, and his reply was that, no, it was the same amount, but “We usually spend the rest of the week watching movies or the teacher just lets kids play on their phones.”

On top of that, a friend of mine who teaches in a local school system told me that Kansas schools have determined that it is unfair to require kids to do their work during the shutdown, so all assignments are considered voluntary, and no grades will be given.

Your tax dollars at work.

This sounds suspiciously like one of those stories that preachers make up for a sermon

Which part?

[Deleted User 62]

K-12 public education has become an absolute joke. I see it with every progressively lazy and illiterate crop of incoming Freshmen that I spend four or five years trying to teach to love reading and thinking, but the coup de grace has been observing my 16 year old during the COVID-19 shutdown.

The kid is in all honors and AP classes, yet he completes an entire weeks’ worth of work in ~3 hours of less-than-arduous effort. I asked if they had scaled back the workload because of the transition online, and his reply was that, no, it was the same amount, but “We usually spend the rest of the week watching movies or the teacher just lets kids play on their phones.”

On top of that, a friend of mine who teaches in a local school system told me that Kansas schools have determined that it is unfair to require kids to do their work during the shutdown, so all assignments are considered voluntary, and no grades will be given.

Your tax dollars at work.

This sounds suspiciously like one of those stories that preachers make up for a sermon

Which part?

Like, from here:
"K-12 ...............

To here:
...... given.

"Your tax dollars at work." Just sounds like grumpy old man talk.

[HouseDivided]

This sounds suspiciously like one of those stories that preachers make up for a sermon

Which part?

Like, from here:
"K-12 ...............

To here:
...... given.

"Your tax dollars at work." Just sounds like grumpy old man talk.

Sorry to offend. It bugs me.

[twocoach]

I dont disagree with the point of your post. My issue is with the perceived arrogance of those who think if you dont move to the city you cannot be a valuable, educated person. Your father is an example of that and my story is similar. I did not attend Harvard but I do have a masters. I chose to move out of the city and back to the rural areas because thats where I'm happy and it keeps me sane. I would argue that in this age it is technology, not prisons, that will allow people to live remote and function in some industries. Seahawks act of arrogance and superiority, the omnipotent one, is fucking tiresome.

To me, the issue that prevents what your saying from happening more is that the GOP has spent decades talking down education as elitist and snobby so they can cut education funding. Will small town kids be educated enough in K-12 to allow themselves to work those jobs that you can do remotely. Those types of jobs are a switch from manual labor to mental labor and it feels like the failures of the GOP to properly fund education and training opportunities has left people in rural areas with lives of more limited opportunities.

K-12 public education has become an absolute joke. I see it with every progressively lazy and illiterate crop of incoming Freshmen that I spend four or five years trying to teach to love reading and thinking, but the coup de grace has been observing my 16 year old during the COVID-19 shutdown.

The kid is in all honors and AP classes, yet he completes an entire weeks’ worth of work in ~3 hours of less-than-arduous effort. I asked if they had scaled back the workload because of the transition online, and his reply was that, no, it was the same amount, but “We usually spend the rest of the week watching movies or the teacher just lets kids play on their phones.”

On top of that, a friend of mine who teaches in a local school system told me that Kansas schools have determined that it is unfair to require kids to do their work during the shutdown, so all assignments are considered voluntary, and no grades will be given.

Your tax dollars at work.

1. Like anything else, the quality of the education being received during this quarantine is largely a factor of the amount of money a district has invested in its core technological infrastructure. Many have been completely exposed and were totally unprepared and ill equipped to handle this new normal while others have rolled on largely uninterrupted. Outside of less quizzes and tests, my oldest child's workload is still pretty heavy right now. She just has more time to get it done because she does have all the "admin" of going to school (parking and walking in, passing periods between classes, the inevitable ramping up and down to begin and end classes, etc...) It takes her less time to do the same amount of school work right now.

And perhaps they are not grading right now because they don't want kids grades during a period where teachers are not actively teaching counted the same as when they were being taught. Our district has already announced plans to weigh grades from 3rd quarter at a significantly higher weight than those for this quarter. I have no problem with that as my kid is finishing up her crucial junior year in HS.

[HouseDivided]

To me, the issue that prevents what your saying from happening more is that the GOP has spent decades talking down education as elitist and snobby so they can cut education funding. Will small town kids be educated enough in K-12 to allow themselves to work those jobs that you can do remotely. Those types of jobs are a switch from manual labor to mental labor and it feels like the failures of the GOP to properly fund education and training opportunities has left people in rural areas with lives of more limited opportunities.

K-12 public education has become an absolute joke. I see it with every progressively lazy and illiterate crop of incoming Freshmen that I spend four or five years trying to teach to love reading and thinking, but the coup de grace has been observing my 16 year old during the COVID-19 shutdown.

The kid is in all honors and AP classes, yet he completes an entire weeks’ worth of work in ~3 hours of less-than-arduous effort. I asked if they had scaled back the workload because of the transition online, and his reply was that, no, it was the same amount, but “We usually spend the rest of the week watching movies or the teacher just lets kids play on their phones.”

On top of that, a friend of mine who teaches in a local school system told me that Kansas schools have determined that it is unfair to require kids to do their work during the shutdown, so all assignments are considered voluntary, and no grades will be given.

Your tax dollars at work.

1. Like anything else, the quality of the education being received during this quarantine is largely a factor of the amount of money a district has invested in its core technological infrastructure. Many have been completely exposed and were totally unprepared and ill equipped to handle this new normal while others have rolled on largely uninterrupted. Outside of less quizzes and tests, my oldest child's workload is still pretty heavy right now. She just has more time to get it done because she does have all the "admin" of going to school (parking and walking in, passing periods between classes, the inevitable ramping up and down to begin and end classes, etc...) It takes her less time to do the same amount of school work right now.

And perhaps they are not grading right now because they don't want kids grades during a period where teachers are not actively teaching counted the same as when they were being taught. Our district has already announced plans to weigh grades from 3rd quarter at a significantly higher weight than those for this quarter. I have no problem with that as my kid is finishing up her crucial junior year in HS.

Sounds like your daughter is is a better school district than my son.

[twocoach]

K-12 public education has become an absolute joke. I see it with every progressively lazy and illiterate crop of incoming Freshmen that I spend four or five years trying to teach to love reading and thinking, but the coup de grace has been observing my 16 year old during the COVID-19 shutdown.

The kid is in all honors and AP classes, yet he completes an entire weeks’ worth of work in ~3 hours of less-than-arduous effort. I asked if they had scaled back the workload because of the transition online, and his reply was that, no, it was the same amount, but “We usually spend the rest of the week watching movies or the teacher just lets kids play on their phones.”

On top of that, a friend of mine who teaches in a local school system told me that Kansas schools have determined that it is unfair to require kids to do their work during the shutdown, so all assignments are considered voluntary, and no grades will be given.

Your tax dollars at work.

1. Like anything else, the quality of the education being received during this quarantine is largely a factor of the amount of money a district has invested in its core technological infrastructure. Many have been completely exposed and were totally unprepared and ill equipped to handle this new normal while others have rolled on largely uninterrupted. Outside of less quizzes and tests, my oldest child's workload is still pretty heavy right now. She just has more time to get it done because she does have all the "admin" of going to school (parking and walking in, passing periods between classes, the inevitable ramping up and down to begin and end classes, etc...) It takes her less time to do the same amount of school work right now.

And perhaps they are not grading right now because they don't want kids grades during a period where teachers are not actively teaching counted the same as when they were being taught. Our district has already announced plans to weigh grades from 3rd quarter at a significantly higher weight than those for this quarter. I have no problem with that as my kid is finishing up her crucial junior year in HS.

Sounds like your daughter is is a better school district than my son.

Our district formed in the late 40's-early 50s when four school districts on the "rural" Western edge of Omaha (we're now basically Midtown) broke away from the central Omaha Public School district and we have been our own independent, landlocked district ever since. They have prided themselves on being upon technology, becoming the first district in the state to offer computers to all students. The taxes in the district as well as the price of a house are higher than outside the district but having my 1st grader sent home with her own iPad that she uses in class every day has been critical. And my HS junior obviously has her school-issued laptop as well. Business as usual for both of them other than not getting as much true instruction, not getting as much exercise and missing out on time with friends.

[seahawk]

This argument isnt about prisons, it changed to become that seahawk chose to make it about that instead of defending her position that people who work in rural prisons are ill educated idiots. Bubba dumbfucks because they choose not to move to a city. Its not true.

I dont disagree with the point of your post. My issue is with the perceived arrogance of those who think if you dont move to the city you cannot be a valuable, educated person. Your father is an example of that and my story is similar. I did not attend Harvard but I do have a masters. I chose to move out of the city and back to the rural areas because thats where I'm happy and it keeps me sane. I would argue that in this age it is technology, not prisons, that will allow people to live remote and function in some industries. Seahawks act of arrogance and superiority, the omnipotent one, is fucking tiresome.

You changed the argument, TDub, I've said one thing, that the new prisons built in the last 30 years were welfare for dying small towns. You've not disputed that, just changed the subject.

According to federal estimates, the payroll for 184 prison staffers would be about $8,000,00. Please explain what industries a declining small town could attract that would make up for that size payroll. That doesn't include the goods that the community can sell the prison, like milk, eggs, meat, clothing, soap. Or the housing that will be needed for employees and families. Or the costs of upkeep for the prison.

Please detail the technology industries that would provide the same as the Taxpayer Welfare that you believe rural towns deserve by keeping unneeded prisons open. Are you talking about taxpayer investment in broadband technology? Which is just more Welfare for for rural areas?

Just curious, if you or your family have medical needs above those that can be provided in a rural hospital, will you refuse to seek treatment in some city?

[Deleted User 62]

Which part?

Like, from here:
"K-12 ...............

To here:
...... given.

"Your tax dollars at work." Just sounds like grumpy old man talk.

Sorry to offend. It bugs me.

It sounded, to me, like a trumpet that seems to get played a lot....that public schools are an absolute disaster.

Of course many public schools are challenged...but it is more a result of poor funding and low incentive for talented people to become badly needed teachers.

Clearly this is not a priority of this administration, who have made no attempt to hide the fact that private, faith based schools are the only schools worth funding.

Of course, regardless of schooling, the skills and drive to be successful ultimately fall on the individual.

[seahawk]

Quite often the staff of drug and alcohol rehab facilities that deal with people who run afoul of the law are those in recovery themselves. I don't think they consider themselves elitist, just sober.

What? What does that have to do with "But the staff qualifications for either of those might be a little different than your friends could tolerate."?!?

I'm assuming that most of the local prison workers, like TDub's friends, are not recovering alcoholics or drug addicts. Those who've dealt with their own substance abuse demons enough to be able to help others into recovery have usually spent some considerable time damaging their physical and mental selves before they got to that point of getting straight or getting sober.

[TDub]

I dont disagree with the point of your post. My issue is with the perceived arrogance of those who think if you dont move to the city you cannot be a valuable, educated person. Your father is an example of that and my story is similar. I did not attend Harvard but I do have a masters. I chose to move out of the city and back to the rural areas because thats where I'm happy and it keeps me sane. I would argue that in this age it is technology, not prisons, that will allow people to live remote and function in some industries. Seahawks act of arrogance and superiority, the omnipotent one, is fucking tiresome.

You changed the argument, TDub, I've said one thing, that the new prisons built in the last 30 years were welfare for dying small towns. You've not disputed that, just changed the subject.

According to federal estimates, the payroll for 184 prison staffers would be about $8,000,00. Please explain what industries a declining small town could attract that would make up for that size payroll. That doesn't include the goods that the community can sell the prison, like milk, eggs, meat, clothing, soap. Or the housing that will be needed for employees and families. Or the costs of upkeep for the prison.

Please detail the technology industries that would provide the same as the Taxpayer Welfare that you believe rural towns deserve by keeping unneeded prisons open. Are you talking about taxpayer investment in broadband technology? Which is just more Welfare for for rural areas?

Just curious, if you or your family have medical needs above those that can be provided in a rural hospital, will you refuse to seek treatment in some city?

From the beginning this is what I have taken issue with

" gave jobs to the Bubbas who were too stupid, ill-educated, or unwilling to move to get other jobs."

You have since reiterated your stance and called me a sick puppy. For a person that has gotten at least 1 elite poster removed for name calling you sure sling a lot of your own name calling shit around.

[TDub]

Also somehow you managed to jack up the quoting. Ill get a bubba to fix it

[TDub]

Fixed. In my post anyway

[twocoach]

Quite often the staff of drug and alcohol rehab facilities that deal with people who run afoul of the law are those in recovery themselves. I don't think they consider themselves elitist, just sober.

What? What does that have to do with "But the staff qualifications for either of those might be a little different than your friends could tolerate."?!?

I'm assuming that most of the local prison workers, like TDub's friends, are not recovering alcoholics or drug addicts. Those who've dealt with their own substance abuse demons enough to be able to help others into recovery have usually spent some considerable time damaging their physical and mental selves before they got to that point of getting straight or getting sober.

Now I am even further from seeing your initial point. But I will say that your initial posts on this rubbed me the same wrong way that they did TDub.

Like you, I would like to see Republican lawmakers ease their attempts to lock up brown and black people in prisons built to prop up rural economies and spend that money to create better educational and employment opportunities for those rural communities as well as minority communities. We shouldn't have to oppress one portion of our citizens to help another portion.

[HouseDivided]

Like, from here:
"K-12 ...............

To here:
...... given.

"Your tax dollars at work." Just sounds like grumpy old man talk.

Sorry to offend. It bugs me.

It sounded, to me, like a trumpet that seems to get played a lot....that public schools are an absolute disaster.

Of course many public schools are challenged...but it is more a result of poor funding and low incentive for talented people to become badly needed teachers.

Clearly this is not a priority of this administration, who have made no attempt to hide the fact that private, faith based schools are the only schools worth funding.

Of course, regardless of schooling, the skills and drive to be successful ultimately fall on the individual.

I don't disagree with 90% of what you have said. The bottom line for me is that I would be more sympathetic if schools invested more of their money in actual teaching and less in social programs and extracurricular activities. Somewhere along the line, schools decided that they need to feed everybody breakfast and lunch and provide free counseling and high-quality athletic facilities and equipment . I don't disagree that kids need those things, but they can be provided outside the school.

Some of the best people I know are public school teachers, and their primary frustration is with parents of the kids who don't want to take any responsibility for their child's learning, behavior, or emotional development. The teachers are doing work that you couldn't pay me enough to do, but they went in knowing what they were in for. I would love to see the salary structure in local schools restructured to reward teachers who do good work with bonuses and other forms of incentive. Instead, all the good teachers end up doing is moving up into administration so they can be paid better and get out of the classroom zoo. Then we replace them with another 22 year old and the cycle repeats.

I'm fortunate that all three of my kids are naturally intelligent and self-motivated. Their mother and I also both value education and pushed them. I recognize that not everyone is playing with that same hand. It just frustrates me.