I know nothing of this guy, but if he thinks teachers are the reason our educational system is in tatters, I would respectfully suggest finding different dinner partners.

That was followed by raising the California sales tax and repudiating every interest group that actually supports the Democratic Party.

So, you'd be against raising the one tax that affects everybody equally (illegal immigrants don't pay social security, income tax, property tax, etc.), for appeasing corruption union leaders, and against holding teachers accountable for the terrible shape of their classrooms?

Good to know where you stand. I've never heard of this Marc Danziger, but he sounds like a reasonable democrat.

From what I know of his writing on his own blog (he's the "Armed Liberal") he voted for Bush and continues to support him and the War in Iraq, conflating it as the "central front in the war on terror".

So I think it is altogether too kind to suggest that his crazy ideas are limited only to domestic policy.

Did someone just try to turn "You support progressive taxation" into an insult?

Hardly a fair description of what we actually discussed, Kevin. I'm seriously puzzled, but will comment at greater length over at my place.

Marc

Hawk, illegal immigrants most certainly do pay Social Security tax, and they never collect any Social Security payments. The reason is that, to work, they have to give the employer a Social Security number, so they provide a false one. No one checks this, and Social Security happily collects the money.

Armed Liberal, you comment here because nothing in that post makes me feel like giving you my traffic.

Personally I think we should make it clear to interest groups on both sides from say NOW to the Oil Lobbies that they are there to service US and not the otherway around.

Armed Liberal is a nutcase former backer of pajamalines media. Who has claimed there is no way, no way, no way, that pajamalines may have had any funding from the dod or the bush administration, because the administration just doesn't do things like that.

He is liberal like I am armed. Not in the sense of the usual meaning of the words.

Kevin, you sit down to sup with whores, no telling what you will wakeup with in your mouth.

I'm a conservative, evangelical Republican, and I think we should break up all heterosexual marriages and force people into gay marriage camps after giving Osama bin Laden the Presidential Medal of Freedom. I mean, it must be true... wrap your heads around that one!

Yeah, just checked out his place, and he's advocating for more Bush propaganda in Hollywood. His blogroll prominently features LGF.

Maybe I'll start a blog called "Disarmed Conservative" and broadcast my agreement with every post by Armando at Kos. But I'm a conservative Republican, of course.

Sounds like a Cat fight between you and the other guy Kevin.
Please Don't drag me into your personal arguments with ONE person.

Thanks =)

In other Words
NO COMMENT.

Nother slow news day eah ?

"Everyday reality now is a complete fiction, manufactured by the media landscape and we operate inside it." - JG Ballard

Did someone just try to turn "You support progressive taxation" into an insult?

Punitive taxation, you mean. Sales tax is inherently fair, because rich people buy more and therefore pay more. A similar argument can be made for property tax. Income tax punishes those who work the hardest.

Hawk, illegal immigrants most certainly do pay Social Security tax, and they never collect any Social Security payments. The reason is that, to work, they have to give the employer a Social Security number, so they provide a false one. No one checks this, and Social Security happily collects the money.

The ones that lie to their employers and SAY they're legal, yeah, they pay a bit. But many immigrants get paid cash money, and that's tax free. Plus, of course, they're entitled to all sorts of benefits (free emergency room being the big one) that costs way more than their paltry ss tax brings in.

Fire all the teachers? What an ass. Do you need some flea powder Kevin?

Hawk -
I agree up to a point... Income tax that doesn't apply to capital gains certainly punishes those who work.

So, he wants more Muslims to get their asses kicked, and occasionally doles out the shocky contrarian schtick otherwise. How is this different than, say, TNR, the Prospect, Slate, NYT, and almost every single one of the liberal blogs (at least before the Iraq war went sour)?

Mickey Kaus is a liberal also.

I think it's called brand positioning. And it doesn't hurt that currently. the powers-that-be find such "serious thinkers" helpful.

Get yer blog-war on!

I support a progressive sales tax.

Assuming Marc actually said what he said, and given the cherry-picking around here, I reserve judgement:

During another discussion on teachers and education, I pointed out that where education costs per student have tripled in constant dollars since 1960, that teaching salaries have only gone up by a factor of 1.4.

How much influence do teachers have over selections of curriculums, textbooks, teaching methods, criteria for testing, and other issues that tend to drop down on them from what some education school doctorate holder happens to pick out as the New Math of this year?

How much influence do the teachers actually have over what union leadership decides to do politically or otherwise?

I really don't think the problem is the teachers.

Tbrosz:

The problem lies with every fuKKhead who votes for a Demonrat politician.

Very familiar with "Armed Liberal" from the Windsofchange blog. It used to be a somewhat thoughtful, if very conservative, source of critical analysis. While more civilized than LGF, WOC has certainly degenerated into an apologyblog for the Administrationm and Armed Liberal is one reason why. Armed Liberal may well be armed, but he is in no sense liberal.

"The Social Security Administration’s (SSA) chief actuary estimates that three quarters of undocumented immigrants pay Social Security tax, an estimate that makes undocumented workers responsible for about 1.5% of total wages reported to the SSA."

http://www.immigrationforum.org/DesktopDefault.aspx?tabid=724

Something is bizarre here.

Kevin, where is your post about dinner with Marc??

I can't find it.

"Sales tax is inherently fair, because rich people buy more and therefore pay more."

What a hoot! Actually, sales taxes are inherently unfair because the poor use a greater share of their income to make purchases.

"A similar argument can be made for property tax. Income tax punishes those who work the hardest."

Wow, I didn't realize there was anyone around who still believes such stupidity. There is no evidence that people in the top 5% income bracket work any harder than the rest of us.

Moron.

Well, get used to it. It's an old tradition, dating back to the fact that American "Conservatism" is nuttier than a California fruitcake and has been wrong on every major issue of the 20th century. Everyone wants to be a 'liberal', and we could retire the national debt if we could tax the phrase "I'm a liberal, but..."

In my county the Republicans cross party lines in the primary to choose a candidate the Dems hate, to run as a "Democrat". They still haven't figured out that by doing that they're training the voters to vote the Democratic ticket.

Of course, the greatest "I'm a Democrat, but..." was Scoop Jackson, the Senator from Washington who actually trained and suckled some of the Bush gangsters in his political organization. He was otherwise known as "the Senator from Boeing".

I wondered why Danziger wasn't telling us any of his liberal opinions, so I went over to his blog and scrolled down...it turns out, he doesn't have any liberal opinions!

Guess what, he hates the Kennedys, despises Juan Cole, and thinks Shelby Steele is a scholar. I bet that's a real shocker.

I'm guessing Kevin will be checking the seating chart before he goes to another dinner with Danziger. I know I would be.

tbrosz:Here's my brief history of Western culture that's causing most of the problems today.

The "hippy" mantra of "If it feels good, do it", grew up and went into suits, and that mantra adapted to "The ends justify the means".

That mantra has infiltrated both the school and business worlds, and that's the core of most of the domestic social problems you see today. We don't teach children to love learning. We teach that learning is hard work, a chore...PAIN.

We teach that the only reason you learn is to make more money down the road.

That's the problem. And all of the "firing all teachers", or school vouchers, or NCLB is going to fix the problem. It's a cultural problem and it's going to need cultural solutions.

Really Kevin,

You shouldn't waste your time with that one. He tries his "I'm a liberal but all I do is pick and choose various obscure liberal issues to criticize, completely ignoring the lawlessness (750 laws Bush declares he can ignore at whim) of the current administration.

I don't know how he came to such views, but he truly is an absurdity.

Don't worry about firing all the teachers. Most of the teachers are leaving anyway. A huge precentage (some states are saying something like 70-80%) are due to retire very soon, with education schools graduating less and less teachers to replace them. Those teachers that are not set to retire, are looking seriously at early retirement, between the NCLB unfunded mandates, talk of pay raises tied to student test scores, students increasingly coming from horrible homes, even in affluent parts of the country, and parents and political leaders asking for schools to be the fix for all that troubles them (don't be surprised to hear the mess in Iraq being foisted onto our public school teachers) more and more teachers are looking at every means to get out of the system as it is. Meanwhile, China, Japan, Sweden, Italy, and Canada are talking even more seriously about pedegology and what is good for the child, while also increaing funding for teachers and early childhood education: expect U.S. schools and school children to do worse and worse and worse. Who would want to be apart of that mess?

Kevin, here's a portion of the response I posted on my site:

So let's go to the points in his post first and foremost:

I didn't say 'fire all the teachers'; I said that reforming education was going to be so hard that it might be necessary to simply fire everyone and start over. I'll discuss education reform in more detail in a bit.

And yes, I do support raising the California sales tax - and rebating a healthy chunk of what's raised to pay the Federal and state payroll taxes of low-wage workers, giving them a pay raise they'd see every two weeks - is something I believe would be a good idea.

And repudiating every interest group supporting the Democratic Party is a little strong; I suggested that the three interest groups driving the Party off a cliff were a) state and public employees; b) The gambling interests masquerading as Indian tribes; and c) Hollywood and the media companies, who never met a subsidy they weren't greedy enough to demand. I think that all three of those interest groups - as opposed to, say real working people - have interests that lie in opposition to what ought to be core Democratic values which I expressed at dinner in a simple test:

What benefits does the Democratic Party bring to a 35-year old single mom, who's trying to raise her two kids as best she can while living three paychecks from homelessness? Or a working couple who collectively make $70k year, and are officially 'middle class' but can't afford decent childcare, health care, or to live anywhere near where they work? Or an immigrant family, trying to live on $40K year?

For far too long, the Democratic Party has handed away the interests of the working class (which certainly includes large groups of middle-income workers) and the working poor in favor of a collection of interest groups who have the ability to mobilize large donor pools. The Kossaks are simply the latest investor group hoping to mount a hostile takeover of the party.

People are welocme to come over and see what I'm suggesting in response.

Marc

The concept of non-progressive income taxes as proposed by Bush and Reagan (and Roosevelt) has been misunderstood, via the deception these characters have foisted on us.

The idea of trickle down economics is that the government assumes some of the overhead that private sector enterprises normally would incur, such as protecting the oil supply lines, providing nationwide universal education, supporting universities, federal policing, capital infrastructure, and providing medicare and retirement services for the retired.

These costs get passed on to government as government grows in a flat taxed economy. Thus, the costs of business seems to drop, and business grows vertically and horizontally.

It works when you have a vast open spaces out west and you need immigrants and eonomic enterprise. It does not work when you are resource constrained, it simply causes the economic enterprise to grow in height via low wage job exportation and pushing the bottom layer down via immigration.

The idea of a progressive income tax is that as the elite advance in the organization, the costs of growing vertically grow in proportion to the pyramid size beneath them, and that pyramid grows geometrically as you add layers of workers.

We are talking about incomes generally above some large number, say $250,000 where the progressive taxation increases. These incomes rely on government providing services for all the workers below you, training them, protecting them, importing them, etc.

Republicans used to be honest about this, the party was founded by Lincoln on the proposition that the feds would provide inrastructure for westward advancement. Reagan really was a big government conservative in the Lincoln sense, as is Bush. Libertarians and small government conservatives never should have bought into their lie.

Marc,

There is no reasons for anyone to "go over there" and comment. Both you and I know what will happen if they do. Anyone interested will be shocked at what passes for wisdom (invade Iran! - not that you believe in invading Iran, but you did conflate Iraq and Al Queda, and still haven't repudiated that) and will simply write you off as a "useful democrat" for the right wing, who simply confirms their own biases.

And criticizing democrats, while remaining silent about this administration atrocities, is a horrible way to support "working families". That's a joke.

I'll second what JC says in both paragraphs. Both points have been made numerous times at "his place" by non-Bushistas, and usually their met with the predictable pile-on.

You gotta wonder about a "liberal" who needs to surround himself with Neocon warmongers and Dem haters in order to feel at home.

As much as I appreciate seeing a blogger respond politely in comments, modifying "fire all the teachers" to "fire everybody" does not reflect maturity or a knowledge of the facts.

The most salient characteristic of American K-12 is that it is locally controlled. You can make changes in any single district without firing anyone in other districts. In fact, just who would "fire everyone"? Neither the states nor the feds have any authority to do that.

Danziger might ask himself why he wants to think he's a liberal.

It's because his mummy (the one that protested with the teachers in the 1970 UTLA strike) and his duddy (the union guy that fought in WWII) brought him up as a Democrat, and no matter how much he hates democrats now, there is no way he will publically identify with Republicans.

That's what I love about dinos. No guts to just admit they've crossed over.

Marc-

If you think education needs to be reformed in a way that's so difficult that it requires firing the teachers then you support firing the teachers. No amount of weaselling changes that.

What is or isn't "liberal" is, I suppose, open for debate. There are those who feel the term liberal is not to be used as an epithet and yet those same people may disagree violently with positions held by most people who self-identify as liberal Democrats. This appears to be the case with Armed Liberal who feels we should all be required to call ourselves "leftists" so he can use the other "L" word as he sees fit.

Marc is THE MAN.

Fire 'em all, and re-hire the ones whose resume and student-parent recommendations warrant re-hiring, paying the better ones more.

I would not wish the double monopoly (government-union) public school system on any child; nor should any truly conscientious and "reality-based" Democrat and/or progressive. Regardless of vouchers, we should make it so teachers cannot conspire to fix prices in restraint of trade, i.e., cannot unionize. The right of teachers in New York City to form unions vested by statute in the late 1950s and the quality of schools has tanked since.

But what I write here is pointless; Regressive-Democrats will always be more concerned with UFT dollars than children's welfare.

TOH

god I'm dumb

Why yes, yes you are. And a bit smelly to boot

I have always found him a bit creepy. He drones on and on and on. I should have have taken History 302 instead.

Wait; what am I doing?

You Regressive-Democrats should continue to destroy the public school system; you'll keep generating young low and middle income people as incompetent at influencing American politics as they have been for the past 25 years; they'll continue to do as they do now: goof-off, do drugs, and spend their time fornicating bisexually while WE rule America and make money while we're at it.

Keep it up R-Ds!

TOH

Danzinger in his response to Kevin's post:

"I didn't say 'fire all the teachers'; I said that reforming education was going to be so hard that it might be so hard that it might be neccesary to simply fire everyone and start over."

So, his clarification is even more draconian than Kevin's representation. Who the hell is this guy? I don't much want to hang at his site to find out, although a brief glance gave me the idea that Marc believes that The Brown People must be resubjegated.

He's no "liberal Democrat". A liar, yes.

I'm not familiar with ArmedLiberal's positions, but if he isn't considered a "liberal", perhaps it's because many of those who currently call themselves "liberals" are basically Gramscians.

Hawk, illegal immigrants most certainly do pay Social Security tax, and they never collect any Social Security payments. The reason is that, to work, they have to give the employer a Social Security number, so they provide a false one.

Not entirely true. Many illegal aliens work under the table and thus have no doings with the SSA. And, half a million people are using the following SSN: 000-00-0000

--
In somewhat related news: Senator Dick Durbin supports illegal aliens marching in our streets

Looks like Kevin needs a fresh new batch of trolls since these are really, really lame & stupid

I doubt they can even spell reality much less have any idea what it is

Better Trolls Please !!!

"...The growth of state power is neither a caprice of history nor the fruit of "paganism." It is the consequence of the community's effort to protect itself against irresponsible economic power." - Reinhold Niebuhr

Kevin: "As I recall from that dinner, 'fire all the teachers' was #1 on the list, and not as a joke. That was followed by raising the California sales tax and repudiating every interest group that actually supports the Democratic Party. Oddly enough, I didn't think that was an especially inspiring strategy for liberal Democrats to get behind."

Are you sure that you didn't have dinner with Sen. Tom McClintock by mistake?

Stagflation:

That period when everyone is waiting to see how high interest rates get.

I am selling this house, I want to maximize the price and maximize the interest rate on the bond I buy with the proceeds.

The fed chairman is working against me.

Stagflation.

"Not entirely true. Many illegal aliens work under the table and thus have no doings with the SSA."

*Most* illegal aliens do not work under the table, and do pay a fraction of their salaries to the SSA. The Social Security Administration’s chief actuary estimates that three quarters of undocumented immigrants pay Social Security tax, an estimate that makes undocumented workers responsible for about 1.5% of total wages reported to the SSA.

http://www.immigrationforum.org/DesktopDefault.aspx?tabid=724

"And, half a million people are using the following SSN: 000-00-0000"

Which means these folks *are* paying into the SS system, yet will never receive benefit. A significant subsidy for the SSA.

I didn't say 'fire all the teachers'; I said that reforming education was going to be so hard that it might be necessary to simply fire everyone and start over.

Oh . . . well, of course that's COMPLETELY different [rolls eyes]

Income tax punishes those who work the hardest.

That is not accurate, but if you really believe, then I trust you don't object to taxing unearned income.

TOH: "Regardless of vouchers, we should make it so teachers . . . cannot unionize. "

Because leaving teachers open to any kind of abuse from higher-ups, whether personal or pedagogical (45 kids in a room, no preps, etc), along with constant downward pressure on wages and benefits, will definitely draw more of the best and brightest to teaching!

tbrosz: "How much influence do teachers have over selections of curriculums, textbooks, teaching methods, criteria for testing, and other issues that tend to drop down on them from what some education school doctorate holder happens to pick out as the New Math of this year?"

You're almost spot-on here. (I would rather refer to the growing educational-industrial testing complex than beating the old ed school horse). Here in Philly - at least for elementary and middle schools - teachers have a core curriculum that outlines what is to be done (matched with specific pages, activities, etc. in district-selected books or packages) each week. At least for certain grades and schools, specific time is put aside each week to drill students on test-taking strategies and review concepts. Increasingly (starting?) in the lowest-performing schools across the country, instruction is literally scripted. That is, teachers follow a script, speaking and performing actions as directed according to whatever education product was purchased - often in ways laughably inappropriate to the population or even age they are directed at.

Some of this is relatively reasonable. Districtwide purchasing is certainly more economical and effective. In a district with high student mobility, having everyone on the same page (literally) is helpful. A clear framework is certainly useful for new teachers. Given the repercussions of high-stakes testing . . . .etc. Even handing teachers a script, however pitiful, can be defended as a recognition as an attempt to deal with the constant teacher turnover at very low-performing schools. But this last also points to one direction this goes in - teacher deskilling. It's like McSchool. We could put in the effort and most importantly, the money to attract, support, and retain high quality teachers even in the most troubled schools (small class sizes, combat pay, all sorts of professional and personal perks), just like McDonalds could hire excellent chefs and cashiers who don't need pictoral icons. Or you can costcut, and try to compensate by making the procedures idiotproof (or at least full of idealism but brand new / haven't left yet but only because unable to get anywhere better / went into teaching because it's a fun easy job that doesn't take much skillz, right? at least, that's what everyone told me! - proof.

/rant

Wow. Not knowing who Armed Liberal was, I checked out his site. After about 10 minutes, it was abundantly clear that he is a hack of the most hacktacular proportions. Rarely have I read such mindlessly silly arguments.

i'm heartened by the fact that liberals are not of one color.
just as conservatives are not.
can we debate the REAL issues without the heavy bias---for our kids---please try?

charlie w

"can we debate the REAL issues without the heavy bias---for our kids---please try?"

Why wait for someone else to do it, charlie? Aren't you man enough. Or are you another phony "liberal" like AL?

I have a heavy bias against phonys. I just do.

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