Jeff Stahler for May 12, 2012

Simple solution, raise taxes on the rich. They aren’t creating jobs anyway. We can then use the money to fix up our roads, bridges, ect.

And after all the only reason to learn something is to make money from it.

False. Most charter schools cater to those who disdain Public schools. From reports of professionals who have taught in charter schools it is obvious that the aim of many (not all) charter school operators is to get as much money as possible from the parents and the state while spending as little as possible on education. One teacher complained bitterly about discovering that student grades had been altered by her boss AFTER she had posted them. The purpose was to give the school a higher rating.

There are many trade schools that do teach vocations in demand, their record is just as spotty. Many seek to teach the student a useful trade, others seek to get government grants.

..we used to make jokes about Chinese doctors and lawyers coming over here only to become short order cooks.The tables are turned..I just know Mitt Romney will make everything better…

Ima is most likely a maintenance supervisor at a roller rink, pin spotting machines are too complex.

huzzah!

Really? My, my. My university pushes degrees in engineering, the sciences, health care, pharmacy…

You forgot to mention, drugs, socialist-liberal methods….

You are not part of the problem, YOU ARE THE PROBLEM!

Tax payer subsidies to oil companies are not just tax breaks (which, after making trillions of dollars, they don’t need) it is the government giving tax payer money to them. You, as a CONservative, must have been angry when Obama gave millions to solyndra, right? Well the oil industry gets much more EVERY YEAR.And the no bid contracts served no purpose other then to put more money in to the pockets of dick and bush. Look up the ties between those two and blackwater and halliburton. Now I know you are right now scrambling to find an equal connection between anyone and Obama, but I’m sure it wouldn’t cost Americans as much. Fun fact about this “free market system” CONs claim to love so much, no bid contracts tend to go against that.Job creators? One of only seven times where “LOL” can be used where someone is actually laughing out loud. Fact: taxes are lower then they have been in six decades. So where are the jobs?And I neglected to mention this before, but as an atheist, I’m still pissed that the republicans feel that they can give my tax dollars to the church through the office of faith based initiatives. What about my freedom of religion?

The “jobs” discussion can get interesting, in association with education. Spoke to a neighbor yesterday who defined his “career” as in three basic blocks. We’re both retired now, and I stopped to think back on my “careers”, actually just jobs, over the years, where they were, and what they were. It was those experiences that might just have led to the fact that as a “branded liberal” I don’t have a singular view, or see things in black and white, but constant “shades of grey”. (Apparently not 50, but haven’t read that book, yet.)

First actual “paid” job was in a saw shop, cleaning up, and learning to sharpen saws as “apprentice”- 12 years old, $1 a day. Had a lot of jobs cooking, as folks owned restaurants and bakeries as I was growing up. Stockroom work, day labor, bartender, pizza delivery (paying my way through high school and college, folks were often out of work because of poor health, and had to “chip in” there as well.) Nearly a decade in law enforcement after military “training” in aircraft and “other duties as assigned”, that DID make me better, and LESS hostile, as an officer in law enforcement. Then came a few decades in work directly or indirectly affiliated with “the sciences”, including sociology, archeology, and various “biological” sciences. SO! How does this influence a person’s “growth” and “world view”????

Never “looked down” at ANY of the trades, or “labor” where skills weren’t “book learned”, sweat is an honorable byproduct of labor. Saw many “educated idiots” promoted well above their “Peter level”, in government, AND in “private industries”.

What disturbs me as “a liberal”, is the number of folks on the right, who cannot, or WILL NOT, accept that other folks might have very broad levels of education, AND EXPERIENCES, upon which to base their views, and the complexity, rather than rigidity of those views.

“Politics” is perhaps the poorest definition of “liberal” or “conservative”, as “evolution” has seen a flip flop in the parties, that make any individual “candidate” seem the Rock of Gibraltar. It is the DICTIONARY DEFINITION, that shows a rather milder, and saner, distinction. Thinking is good, as is education. Being resistant to truly threatening change may be GOOD, but relying on false dogma, “liberal” OR “conservative”, is dangerous. It is that ignorance, and acceptance of “myth”, or fallacy, that is dangerous.

It IS “experience”, combined with “education”, that sheds light on our views, complexities, and “reality”.