Athens or Sparta

[Rising_Sun]

@32Bravo

I seem to recall someone mentioning doffing one’s cap in the St Pat’s Day procession.

You could be on to something there.

I suggest a global reincarnation of St Patrick.

He expelled the snakes from Ireland, so it’d be much the same, albeit much more difficult, getting rid of the political snakes everywhere else.

[32Bravo]

@Rising_Sun

Assuming that you’re not trying to educate a bunch of kids (whose parents are resentful, self-pitying troglodytes engaging in the odd bit of crime to supplement social security income for which they also don’t work) who grow up despising education and the well-meaning and reasonably generous society which tried to give it to them, but from which they didn’t benefit because they were too busy disrupting classes or slagging off or belting up teachers or damaging school propery and generally demonstrating their contempt for the institution which offered them the best way out of the shithole they were born into.

“The children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for
authority, they show disrespect to their elders… They no longer
rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents,
chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their
legs, and are tyrants over their teachers.”
Socrates: 5th century B.C.
Not enough of them keep their legs crossed!

“What is happening to our young
people? They disrespect their elders, they disobey their parents. They
ignore the law. They riot in the streets inflamed with wild notions.
Their morals are decaying. What is to become of them?”
Plato : 5th/4th century B.C.

Nothing is wrong with the young people, it’s the society they are raised in.

[32Bravo]

@Rising_Sun

Combine that with the vastly greater resources of the government and political parties to exploit the press in all its forms to manipulate the populace and it’s like shooting fish in a barrel as far as manipulating the un or poorly educated, particulary when events such as the (I thought patently weak and specious at the time) arguments for invading Iraq persuaded plenty of highly educated and intelligent people.

Did you realize, that that’s quite a long sentence.

Rather than placing the burden on the populace to be sufficienty well educated to identify politicians’ bullshit (which even the best educated often cannot do) it would be better to place the burden on politicians to be honest.

It is wrong to simply beat the drum for “Equal opportunity” in education. If you were present at some of the arguments I find myself in, you would either kill me or buy me a beer!

No, problems cannot be solved by simply putting a faulously whizz scool with all of the latest techno wotsits in an impoverished area. Why not? For all of the reasons which you have already stated and more. The whole fabric of society woud have to be restructured in order for that to work.

Consumer protection laws give us clear remedies against misleading and deceptive conduct from everyone except politicians. If the bastards knew they could go to gaol for gaining office by lies and deception and for not honouring their warranties, judged by a jury of those who voted them in and were deceived by them, they’d soon lift their game.

Isn’t ther an element of “Buyer beware” which limits that protection?

I don’t see why I should have a legal remedy against someone who, even unknowingly, sells me a defective product but I have none against a lying, cheating, devious, piece of shit whose lies jeopardise my country’s future just so he or she can satisfy dreams of power.

You could be onto something there. But in the meantime, how do we go about recruiting St Pat. ?

[32Bravo]

@Rising_Sun

… against a lying, cheating, devious, piece of shit whose lies jeopardise my country’s future just so he or she can satisfy dreams of power.

They’re everywhere, not just in politics… it’s the way of humankind!