JP> JK> IT began with a Sunday School superintendant who tried to convince
 JP> JK> me that creationism was superior to biology. Ever since that
 JP> JK> episode, I have used my constitutional rights to question everything
 JP> JK> that someone tries to get me to believe.
 JP> Ahhh, a radical, scarred at an early age by a truamatic
 JP> mental/emotional event. If you were so scientific based why were you
 JP> discussing big bang ideals with a theorist ??
I wasn't discussing it with him.  I was part of a captive audience he 
blathered to one Sunday morning.  I can still see him standing there doing 
his best to save us from the theories that the Jewish teacher was giving us.
 JP> JK> Our schools are more interested in what is politically correct
 JP> JK> than teaching kids to compete in a global job market.
 JP> Change schools to nation and you will be on the starting phase of
 JP> making a point.
The nation has come to reflect what is taught in the schools.  At one time, 
this was not so.  The schools reflected what the nation believed in.  Since 
WWII, this has changed.  I blame the two Navy shrinks who weren't busy enough 
in the South Pacific who gave us an entire new way of raising children, based 
on the culture of the islanders.
And forever since, we have raised children in a competitive society not to 
compete.
 JP> You seem to think that for some reason, within your paranoia that
 JP> you are of a superior intellect. You come across as arrogant,
 JP> informed enough to be dangerous to the uninformed and have a knack
 JP> for avoiding direct comments by going off on non-thread topics.
"Just because you are paranoid does't mean they aren't out to get you"
 was on a poster given to me at one time.  I might still have it around the 
place in a tube, rolled up.  If being sick and tired of the paranoia that 
surrounds those who break the law over their drug use is being arrogant, then 
I got that way a long time ago.  I am sick and tired of the stupidity that 
thinks it can cure a genetic condition by locking up someone in jail instead 
of providing the kind of treatment and learning incentives that will allow 
that person to be a productive member of society.
We are far behind every other civilized nation on earth as far as our schools 
are concerned.  We are also far behind other civilized nations such as Sweden 
on our treatment of addicts.
We still are discriminating against blacks, mexicans, Jews, and others whom 
we don't understand.  Addicts are among this group.
The alcoholic has long since been used up and thrown away by society once he 
or she is no longer capable of the hard work in the logging and other similar 
industries.
Those groups once recruited to work in our factories now find that their 
children's children are being laid off and their jobs sent to other nations.
Oh yes, we can point to all of this and much more as the price of progress, 
American style.  Which really impresses someone from another nation.
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