Educating children in public schools? Exactly like stealing!

[linnea27]

She really needs to realize that an educated populace benefits society as a whole. Without an educated workforce, the standard of living would go down and we would fail to grow new technologies and industries. Even though an individual person may not need everything our government provides (such as public schools), we need to look at the bigger picture, and see what is needed to thrive as a community/nation/world. Few people really enjoy paying taxes, but if it helps to better society in the long run, then it is worthwhile. In addition, if public schools were eliminated, it would eventually eliminate the middle class as well, since only the more well-to-do people could afford private education, and it would be difficult to climb out of poverty if educational opportunities were severely limited.

ITA. I'm contemplating homeschooling, but I have no problem paying our taxes, and generally believe we should be taxed more to provide more and better services to our community. I read a quote somewhere (maybe on FJ?) that taxes are good because they "buy us civilization" and I believe that.

I am completely bewildered by the economic and political views so many fundies have.

[gardenvarietycitizen]

She really needs to realize that an educated populace benefits society as a whole.

Problem is, thinking that way usually requires people to start from a basic assumption that we're all in this together, in some sense, we are the same group, we are WE, we are a nation, etc.

Far too many of the "I've got MINE" crowd never come anywhere near that - it's "US" and "THEM," we are deserving and THEY are not, THEY are Other, and all we need to worry about is staying away from them and locking them out of our wonderful free market utopia. If you reassure yourself you'll never meet that uneducated populace unless you're fighting or policing them, there's no compelling reason to care if they're educated or not. Just wall them out - all the more reason to not have any public services that might require you to mix.

I find that attitude horrible, but not so uncommon. Often it ends up boiling down to "I chose good parents, so F you" (yep, that ridiculous). If it's religious people saying it you can expect a good helping of "well, God blessed me, you must have something wrong with you."