• Police want drinking age raised

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A Police Association survey has shown that 72% of the statist thugs in blue want the drinking age raised to 20.

There are two main issues here:

1. the state has no right to tell people when they are old enough to drink: think “Nanny State”
2. the drinking age isn’t the problem

Let’s look further at #2. I believe that the problem with alcohol abuse – which is not a problem that the state should be attempting to solve – arises from people being raised to be nihilistic hedonists. Translation: people are raised to believe that there is no meaning or purpose to life beyond personal pleasure so they go and get drunk. Universal welfare is also a problem, permitting people to be be permanently drunk without the penalties that a drunken worker would experience. You can even get an Invalids Benefit on grounds of alcoholism.

The ironic thing is that the secular humanism taught in schools encourages nihilistic hedonism so the state is trying to fix a problem which it has aided and abetted.

The state cannot solve the drinking problem, nor should it attempt to.

Related posts:

• The minimum drinking age

• The pointless death of an undercover policeman (arguments for drug legalisation, which also apply to alcohol)

• A biblical perspective on home schooling and state schooling

Do you think that we should have a minimum drinking age or not? Do you think that raising the drinking age will help?

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• Government dropping DPB work rule

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The National government had planned to get beneficiaries (welfare recipients) on the Domestic Purposes Benefit to work part time when their youngest child turned six. In earlier posts I said that this idea would backfire and it placed homeschooling beneficiaries in grave danger of having to send their children to the state brainwashing camps called state schools.

Now the government has dropped the plan, for a daft reason:

…yesterday Social Development Minister Paula Bennett confirmed it was on the backburner because people were being made redundant and jobs were in short supply.

I believe that this is a good move, for two reasons:

• as I said in my earlier post, beneficiaries would have just had more children to to avoid the work rule, resulting in more fatherless children, more life-long problems for those children, more crime, more costs for taxpayers, and more multigenerational welfare dependency
• those beneficiaries who wish to homeschool will be free to do so. Not only will those children be free of state indoctrination, but it is reasonable to assume that the sort of parents willing to do the hard yards of homeschooling are less likely to raise future beneficiaries

Why do I agree with this move when I believe that the state should not provide welfare? Because the DPB work rule would have simply increased the number of people dependent on welfare: dropping the rule is the lesser of the evils.

Related posts:

• Paula Bennett claims ownership of all New Zealand children

• A biblical perspective on home schooling and state schooling

What do you think about the dropping of the work rule?

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• Reader’s comment on “A moving story about a murdered baby…and one that was saved”

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Samuel Dennis posted a comment on my earlier post, saying…

” The sight of a fully formed baby was a complete surprise to Williams [the woman who watched her live baby being being tossed into a rubbish bag after a botched abortion]. “I thought it would be a blob thing, but bigger, not a baby,” she said. ”

That anyone could possibly think a baby at 23 weeks would be “a blob thing” shows what disgusting lies these women are told by the authorities.

I helped out at a pro-life stall last year at the Christchurch A&P show, and we were showing life-size models of babies to people. Many were shocked how well developed the 12-week baby was [see the picture below], because of the misinformation you are fed these days. But for someone to think the same about a 23 week one means there has been some serious lying going on.

12 week old baby. Click on the photo for the source and for information regarding what the baby is doing at this stage

I too was struck by the comment that Williams made, and I wondered if this was an isolated case. However Samuel’s experience indicates that this is ignorance is probably widespread (without wanting to criticise anyone, do people think that a blob magically becomes a baby just before birth?). State education and health systems are usually pro-abortion so obviously they will try and tell people that an unborn baby is a ‘blob’ or a ‘piece of tissue’, whilst also hiding the visible humanity of the baby*.

One possible exception is Texas, which has the Women’s Right To Know legislation, and I have used the information and pictures from that website extensively. That website does not show the results of abortion: if you want to see that click here (warning: graphic images of babies that have been aborted).

How many people would be anti-abortion if they saw pictures and models of unborn babies?

Do you know of any examples of people thinking that an unborn baby is just a ‘blob’?

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*this does not remove personal responsibility, i.e. people cannot entirely blame the state for their ignorance regarding babies and abortion, or any other subject. I am aware that obtaining information is difficult for some people.

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• Teachers Council says 10% of new teachers incompetent

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Here’s some excerpts from a Stuff article:

The Teachers Council says principals put the number of incompetent new teachers at about 10 per cent, but last week principals told the Sunday Star-Times the figure was actually much higher.

The main problems, the principals say, are that trainee teachers don’t seem to get enough practical in-school time, and many speak English as a second language. To be admitted to train as a teacher, students have to pass stringent English-language tests, but principals say this does not mean they can cope in a classroom.

Other graduates apparently struggle with the basics of professionalism, such as dressing appropriately, turning up on time and preparing lessons.
[...]
One principal said: “It’s fair to say there’s a percentage [of graduates] that should not be in the classroom. They should not even consider it. I think the entrance requirements [to training courses] should be higher.”
[...]
One of the principals the Sunday Star-Times spoke to says the majority of graduates applying for work at his school should not be in the profession. He says their English is often a problem, as is basic spelling and grammar. Many spell the school name incorrectly, or address their application to the “principle”.
[...]
Council director Peter Lind says that when he asks principals how many graduates are problematic, they say about 10 per cent. He says this is not a significant percentage, and in any profession some new graduates will not be fully prepared. Most of the teachers who are below par will not get jobs, but he admits some schools have little choice but to hire them. [emphasis added]

If the Teachers Council says that 10% of new teachers are incompetent it’s a safe bet that the real figure is higher – official bodies always downplay the bad news.

I was personally involved in a situation last year where a school paid for a teacher to fly from one end of the country to the other for a job interview a week before the school year started. This teacher has very little experience and is incapable of explaining anything in a logical and clear manner, but still got the job. That school now has a maths teacher who believes that there is no need whatsoever to learn times tables.

In summary:

• taxpayers a paying a fortune for teacher training
• at least 10% of graduates from that training are incompetent
• the Teachers Council says that that percentage is “not significant”
• some of those incompetent teachers get jobs
• some of those incompetent teachers are teaching a language that they themselves cannot speak properly
• as always, governments steal money and misuse it

Is it my imagination or is there something wrong with this picture?

What do you think about your taxes paying for incompetent teachers and the effect of that on children?

Do you have first hand knowledge of incompetent teachers that you can share?

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• Does homeschooling impair social skills?

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Updated 28-3-09.

In a comment on an earlier post Ozymandias’ Warning said

I don’t agree that home schooled children are more likely to benefit society because of their academic results, maturity level and independent thought. Yes, generally they are more academic but I would argue they struggle more than state school children to adjust and mix socially.

Whilst I could say much about the first sentence, today I will concentrate on the second sentence*. It is reasonable to assume that the belief behind this sentence is as follows: “Children need to go school to learn the social skills that they are born without. Moreover, homeschooled children will struggle to adjust and mix socially because they did not go to school and learn those vital social skills”. I have three responses to this:

1) whilst children do need contact with other children in order to learn social skills, parents need to control who their children are learning their social skills from. When a child is sent to school parents cannot control who their child meets, and disciplinary standards in schools are so lax that children learn their social skills from undisciplined and rebellious children. A child who learns social skills from undisciplined and rebellious children will almost always be undisciplined and rebellious.

I used to catch a train to work every day and alight at a station full of high school pupils. The train staff regularly lamented the need to carry them and security staff were placed on the train runs that carried those children. Almost without exception those pupils were rude, obstructive, obnoxious, foul-mouthed, slovenly individuals bereft of basic good manners. I wouldn’t want my children learning social skills from them.

2) homeschooled children only struggle to adjust and mix socially if their parents have not given them an opportunity to learn social skills. Some homeschool parents fail to do this, but that is a matter of personal responsibility and no business of the state’s, i.e. it does not justify any state interference in family matters.

3) Whilst it is possible to homeschool children in an unhealthy environment reminiscent of a closed monastic order, homeschooling does allow children to see their parents interacting with other adults and to practise interacting with those adults. Sending your children to school reduces these opportunities by 30 hours per week, more if both parents are working.

My personal observation of homeschooled children is that they have excellent social skills, far ahead of their peers who are schooled in the conventional manner. In part this is because they have, under parental supervision, practised interacting with adults from a wide range of backgrounds and observed their parents interacting with those adults.

Conclusion

Athough children do learn valuable social lessons by interacting with other children, they do not need to go to school to do that. Also, the nature of schools is that children are dragged down towards the lowest common social behavioural denominator, rather than being raised towards the highest one.

I believe that if homeschooled children do have poor social skills it is not caused by homeschooling per se, rather it is usually because the parents have poor social skills. Moreover, my personal observation is that children who have learnt poor social skills from their parents do not learn good social skills by going to school.

What do you think about the effects of homeschooling and conventional schooling on social skills? Please share examples if possible.

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Click here for a biblical perspective on home schooling and state schooling.

* Ozymandias’ Warning: an additional response to your comment can be found on the original post.

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