I snip a lot, and I just expect whoever reads to know.

> > In the system in which we have now, my parents would have an easier time paying for my college education if they went out and bought a Lambourgini. Then they could claim need based scholarships and grants, and have the government pay for my education.

I hear you. If only my mom could give back her raise, my family would be much better off, because we'd qualify for lower taxes and larger college financial aid. This seems to be a fairly common complaint in the US.

> We're talking about the need for a public education system (read: you don't pay for it, whether or not you buy a Lambourgini). We are /not/ talking about tax credits for University-level education. Stick to the topic!

There's nothing wrong with bringing up new facets of the same issue.

> > We have a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We have a right to seek to become propserous. But we don't have a right to happiness, and we don't have the right to prosperity.
>
> I am not talking about a right to happiness, and I am not talking about a right to prosperity. I am talking about a right to a decent education, and I am arguing that the government guarantees this right because it benefits /all/ Americans and not just the parents of the children who attend public school.

I already said this, but not very well. From a position closer to MarkN's, I look at our Declaration of Independence and see "...all men are created equal..." and I hold that it is the duty of a just government to insure that every person has the initial chance to pursue happiness and success. Publicly funded education is the best possible way to accomplish this that I can think of. As a matter of values, I think that if we agree with that famous clause, we ought to make every effort to bring people up to a standard and let them go from there. Taking care of children is a fundamental goal of society, and thus I feel it is acceptable to force a child to go to school, to wear a bike helmet, to not smoke, and obey others rules which I maintain would be wrong to force the same on an adult. Schools should ideally let no child fall through the cracks, but enable each to succeed. Adults, on the other hand, must be trusted to seek their own best.

> > "If a man shall not work, neither shall he eat"-a Bible quote that means a lot to me. To have the government tax those who are propserous to feed those who are not is wrong.

Biblically, farmers also left the corners of their fields unharvested, and never went through the same field more than once, so that poor people could go *work* and gather enough to survive on.

>Spacebar

Does Spacebar have the highest _average_ size of forum posts?

gab"really stuck in POAT, so visiting the forum"by