Why is there religion???

[Brant Gaede]

3 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

Moral Law is man-made.   Which is not to say it is unimportant.  There is nothing in physical law that entails or requires any particular human made moral code. Moral law is an artifact.  It is also necessary to make it possible for humans to live together.  Humans made levers to pry up rocks, sharp edges to cut flesh or wood  and moral laws to live together in a reasonably peaceful fashion.  

Yes, if it be a "law." If I murder someone the only law I'd break is the law against murder. Murder is immoral, after all. Thus "law" matches up with "moral."

Yes, there is no understanding of basic physics--the interactions of mass and energy(?)--that can include morality.

But because of the social, free-willed, cognitive nature of human beings and human being, the right morality needs to be identified and applied. That's physical nature to moral nature. In doing so mistakes are made. A mistake is a wrong aspect of morality which should not be codified but it is. Such codification can described as an "artifact" or arbitrary. If the law is right and proper then it has serious gravitas and not to be dismissed with a flick of your wrist and a sneer.

Jews can fight for Jews, and do, out of tribal allegiance. Even sans "moral law." But where they get their real strength is their religion awash in moral precepts. These--many of these--match up to reality, the reality of being a person. All that person's physicality works because of the laws of physics which create human consciousness. Of course, I'm sure there's a lot of moral nonsense in Judaism describable therefore as artifacts.

Contra human nature is what Greg is talking about and then reality slaps back one way or the other. I simply say everything has a price. That's why it's not God who's the moral agent--it's you, and me. It's not God's (reality's) fault if you shoot yourself in the foot. (If someone else shoots you in the foot, assigning fault is another discussion. But, again, God's off the hook.)

--Brant

[BaalChatzaf]

2 hours ago, moralist said:

Your secular government taught you that, Bob... and you're stupid enough to believe them.

Please feel free to believe what public employees told you until the objective reality of your own life lets you know otherwise in no uncertain terms...

 

...and it will... upside your head.

Greg

 

 

I came to my conclusion independently of any school work.   My business is thinking logically.  I do that on my own.  My judgement is independent.  If morality is so objective where are there so many different sets of moral codes and moral laws?   Arithmetic is objective.  1 + 1 = 2  everywhere and always.  The same is not true for moral  laws.  

If you look at the structure of physical laws you will not find a single moral term in them.  Thus morality cannot be deduced from physical law. Moral law is disconnected from the physical laws that govern matter and motion.  

[moralist]

11 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

I came to my conclusion independently of any school work.

That's what you mind tells you so that's what you blindly believe without question, Bob. Intellectual deception only works devoid of self reflection which made you a perfect candidate. It's the reason autism is prevalent among government educated intellectuals. Someone screwed you up bad enough for you to choose not to ever dare to look, which set you up for the government to finish the job.

No one doesn't believe. Everyone believes. You believe your intellect because it tells you that you're the god creator of it... and that makes you a sucker.

 

None of this is unfair by any means, because everyone gets what they deserve in their life as the results of how they chose to behave.

Objective reality is utterly impersonal in that regard... so no adult has anyone else to blame but themselves for what they get.

Greg

[BaalChatzaf]

11 hours ago, moralist said:

That's what you mind tells you so that's what you blindly believe without question, Bob. Intellectual deception only works devoid of self reflection which made you a perfect candidate. It's the reason autism is prevalent among government educated intellectuals. Someone screwed you up bad enough for you to choose not to ever dare to look, which set you up for the government to finish the job.

No one doesn't believe. Everyone believes. You believe your intellect because it tells you that you're the god creator of it... and that makes you a sucker.

 

None of this is unfair by any means, because everyone gets what they deserve in their life as the results of how they chose to behave.

Objective reality is utterly impersonal in that regard... so no adult has anyone else to blame but themselves for what they get.

Greg

I get the life deserved by people who are smarter than 98 percent of the human race. 

[Brant Gaede]

21 minutes ago, BaalChatzaf said:

I get the life deserved by people who are smarter than 98 percent of the human race. 

From where do you get your data?

--Brant

[Peter]

Hugh Grant asked Ballyhoo Ba’al: From where do you get your data?

Doesn’t Apple have an AP for that? It measures your IQ throughout the day so you can tell if people, exercise, circumstances or diet adversely affect your computing ability. Oh, oh, it’s time for a lox n’ bagel. Thanks Siri. Have a banana.

Peter  

[Brant Gaede]

Well, maybe the Smart Watch helps.

[moralist]

6 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

I get the life deserved by people who are smarter than 98 percent of the human race. 

Government education is the antithesis of common sense, Bob.

Only the government educated could be stupid enough to believe that carbon dioxide is a pollutant.

Greg

[BaalChatzaf]

21 minutes ago, moralist said:

Government education is the antithesis of common sense, Bob.

Only the government educated could be stupid enough to believe that carbon dioxide is a pollutant.

Greg

I have little to do with "common sense".   Einstein described "common sense"  as the collection of prejudices one  accumulates in the first 15 years of life.  I have discovered by experience that most of our common sense  is faulty.  Science has  progressed along paths that  refute "common sense"  

By the way,  CO2 is plant food.  I never had the position the CO2 is a pollutant.   CO2  can slow down the rate at which the atmosphere can radiate heat into cold space.  In that sense is is like a blanket.  A blanket works by slowing the rate at which the air around  your body (under the blanket)  radiates heat away.  Blankets are very good to have on a cold night and not so good to have on a warm humid night.  In any case,  the effect of  infra red retarding radiation gases is NOT going to turn the planet Earth into Venus. This  is all simple thermodynamics.  If we did not have heat retaining gases in our atmosphere the average temperature of the Earth would be below the freezing temperature of water.  I am not a global warming alarmist.  I am at most a lukewarmist.   

I would prefer to see us building nuclear reactors to make our electricity (the technology exists and it works).  I would also like to see photocatalytic decomposition of water produce free hydrogen for running fuel cells.  The plants know how to do this (it is called photosynthesis) and if we can do this on a grand scale  we can produce all the energy we need and produce H2O as a by-product.  CO2 is best kept in hot houses where we can raise the concentration safely to 2000 ppm.  The plants love it!  CO2 is life to the plants and the plants  reward us with O2  which is life for the animals. 

By the way the thermodynamics taught in government funded schools is exactly the same as the thermodynamics taught in private schools.  Science is science and it is nature that dictates the content,  not the Kommissar of Education.  It does not matter how a school is funded.  The math and science courses have the same content regardless of funding.  Unfortunately this is not true for politics,  ethics and philosophy which is why I make it a point to avoid politics, ethics and philosophy when I think.  I deal with facts,  experimentally supported scientific theories  and mathematical logic.  That is the sum total of what is in my head.  The best way to keep garbage out is not to put any in. 

[moralist]

4 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

I have little to do with "common sense".

I know. It was educated out of you by your government.

 

Einstein described "common sense"  as the collection of prejudices one  accumulates in the first 15 years of life.

...and becoming an adult means overcoming the prejudices you had as a kid. Why don't you know that?

"Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school."

--Albert Einstein

And why are you completely ignorant of that pearl of wisdom from Albert? Because your government education wouldn't dare to ever tell you... and you would never even think to ask.

 

Greg
 

[BaalChatzaf]

6 hours ago, moralist said:

I know. It was educated out of you by your government.

 

 

...and becoming an adult means overcoming the prejudices you had as a kid. Why don't you know that?

"Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school."

--Albert Einstein

And why are you completely ignorant of that pearl of wisdom from Albert? Because your government education wouldn't dare to ever tell you... and you would never even think to ask.

 

Greg
 

I am very familiar with that  remark.  Which is why I am mostly self-taught.  The only thing I took out of my "government education" was the science and the math  which has the same content regardless of how the school is funded.  In a government funded school  1 + 1 = 2.  In a private school 1 + 1 = 2.  

 

[Brant Gaede]

13 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

By the way the thermodynamics taught in government funded schools is exactly the same as the thermodynamics taught in private schools.  Science is science and it is nature that dictates the content,  not the Kommissar of Education.  It does not matter how a school is funded.  The math and science courses have the same content regardless of funding.  Unfortunately this is not true for politics,  ethics and philosophy which is why I make it a point to avoid politics, ethics and philosophy when I think.  I deal with facts,  experimentally supported scientific theories  and mathematical logic.  That is the sum total of what is in my head.  The best way to keep garbage out is not to put any in. 

If you really didn't put anything in you've spent your life being led around by the nose by those who do the leading. Fortunately--sorta--you are an American. Someone else put something in. You never saw it coming for it was much more than words.

Forgetting what you learned is replacing the "politics, ethics and philosophy" others learned in school with the critical thinking that leads to the true, real education of self teaching or, "there is no teaching, only learning." (Porter Stansberry.) But one of the big teaching or learning tools one uses doing that is examination of what the teachers in government and government dominated schools--most schools--had spent years trying to force into one's head. And it's not that simple: the militaristic way the teaching is done and how the teachers make one respect their authority and the authority of the state. (Take the Pledge of Allegiance: before WWII the kids didn't put their hands over their hearts, they stuck out their arms like Germans saluting The Fuehrer.) One's self esteem or sense of self is melded into identification with effectively being part of the state. You became--I say this based on your past postings--as much of an American warrior as I did. I can't get rid of all of it and I doubt if I'd want to if I could, but because you made yourself purblind to what happened to you--for whatever reason or combination (nature or nurture or nature and nurture)--you can't get rid of any of it; indeed you glory in it--the life you have led. Eschewing philosophy only means you are a pure tribalist. That's what happens through cultural osmosis. The right philosophy counters that. Didn't you get anything from Ayn Rand? Did you read a thousand page novel full of "politics, ethics and philosophy" saying all through the damn thing, "No, no, no--no politics, no ethics, no philosophy"? Did you even read Atlas Shrugged--once? How could you stand to?

One of the greatest tragedies for Americans was the complete destruction of private for public education in the first half of the 19th Century. Today many high school graduates don't even know their three "r's". I've read that when this republic was founded Americans were highly literate--just mentioned here for the contradistinction. Once Americans gave up public for private they started getting educated as if they were living in Germany. (In Germany today it is illegal to home school your children. That's because, as in ancient Sparta, children belong to the state. So do they now in this--I'm not saying "these"; the "Civil War" took care of "these"--United States of America.)

We have always been ruled--or tried to be--by the minions of Alexander Hamilton. Power and money flow to Washington. It's like gravity. It doesn't matter if the host is slowly dying to the parasites. They could turn this country into Zimbabwe for all they care.

--Brant

I know these words can't mean anything to you--or so you say--I'm just making a public record

 

 

 

[william.scherk]

20 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

On 5/18/2016 at 11:21 PM, moralist said:

 It's the reason autism is prevalent among government educated intellectuals. Someone screwed you up bad enough for you to choose not to ever dare to look, which set you up for the government to finish the job.

I get the life deserved by people who are smarter than 98 percent of the human race. 

Who is going to be the first to ask Greg how he was 'schooled'?  Was he home-schooled, private-schooled, or entirely unschooled by any measure? The way he goes about his business here implies everyone in view has had the dreaded 'government education' -- but he has not.

The most fruitful parts of Greg's remarks are his thoughts on autism.  Somehow government schools ensure a recurrence or prevalence of autism (and so Bob) and this causal chain is clear in his mind. I have no idea how that deal works.

Since Greg prides himself on answering questions plainly put:  Greg, can you tell the rest of us how you were educated?  Did you spend a moment or two in public schools?

[Brant Gaede]

I didn't know Bob was autistic. Is that the same as being an Aspie?

[Jonathan]

31 minutes ago, william.scherk said:

Who is going to be the first to ask Greg how he was 'schooled'?  Was he home-schooled, private-schooled, or entirely unschooled by any measure? The way he goes about his business here implies everyone in view has had the dreaded 'government education' -- but he has not.

The most fruitful parts of Greg's remarks are his thoughts on autism.  Somehow government schools ensure a recurrence or prevalence of autism (and so Bob) and this causal chain is clear in his mind. I have no idea how that deal works.

Since Greg prides himself on answering questions plainly put:  Greg, can you tell the rest of us how you were educated?  Did you spend a moment or two in public schools?

Raised by apes. He was ape-schooled.

J

[william.scherk]

51 minutes ago, Brant Gaede said:

58 minutes ago, william.scherk said:

The most fruitful parts of Greg's remarks are his thoughts on autism.  Somehow government schools ensure a recurrence or prevalence of autism (and so Bob) and this causal chain is clear in his mind. I have no idea how that deal works.

I didn't know Bob was autistic. Is that the same as being an Aspie?

Not exactly, no.  It looks like Greg may be speaking generally of the 'spectrum' of autism, though I cannot be sure without asking.  

If you do some independent digging, Brant, the key concept is 'autistic spectrum' or 'autism spectrum.'  Over time, Bob has done his best, when asked, to characterize his experience in the world, and in many respects is a perfect example of a 'type.' He is, apparently, at the end of the spectrum where autistic folks are 'high-functioning' ... meaning they can communicate, can use language 'normally' -- and thus live independently in the world.

Other people diagnosed on the spectrum tend to never become functionally independent, never resolve communication, cannot work unsupervised, and may also have concomitant symptoms physical and mental. 

In the medico-legal sense, with recent changes in the diagnostic manual that subsumes psychology, autism is a spectrum disorder,  and on the spectrum, at that 'high' end with Bob, are those whose autism is labelled Asperger's Syndrome.

OL's working psychologists are absent from this thread, but they would likely sketch the same sketch. 

As for Greg's hypothesis/blurt that autism is inculcated in state schools (however he put it), it probably lies in the same bog as his thoughts on the etiology of homosexuality.   There his notions have never been given warrants or explained.  I expect he has the same amount of explanation for the state-school/autism connection.  It is my opinion that Greg just reaches into the Insult Bag when challenged. Discussion is not on a topic or point or issue, but on the personality and failings of character of the other person. 

This is why he seems to have turned on Bob with sheer ad hominem and fuck all reason.  Insult and slurs seem the only thing left in his bag.  But, I am ever hopeful of intelligent conversation.  With some mental work, Bob and Greg might have one.

Greg, can you please say more about this link or causal chain between state education and autism?  How does it work?  Can you give some detail, or give warrants for the notion?

...

There, social service accomplished for the day.

 

.

Edited May 20, 2016 by william.scherk
Grrrrrammar, added link to DSM 5 autism spectrum criteria for diagnosis

[moralist]

1 hour ago, Brant Gaede said:

I didn't know Bob was autistic. Is that the same as being an Aspie?

Hmmm... I thought I had already answered you on this, Brant.  

Again, yes.

Autism is a spectrum of symptoms, most notably a total lack of self awareness and self reflection. It's most prevalent in the offspring of screwed up government educated intellectuals. In my opinion it's a kid's defense mechanism against screwed up parents that still makes them screwed up.

Autism on the increase because it tracks with the increasing numbers of government college degreed intellectuals.

 

Greg

[Peter]

3 minutes ago, moralist said:

Hmmm... I thought I had already answered you on this, Brant.  

Again, yes.

Autism is a spectrum of symptoms, most notably a total lack of self awareness and self reflection. It's most prevalent in the offspring of screwed up government educated intellectuals. In my opinion it's a kid's defense mechanism against screwed up parents that still makes them screwed up.

Autism is increasing because it tracks with the increasing numbers of government college degreed intellectuals.

 

Greg

Greg reminds me of Lamarckianism (sp?) vs The Origin of Species. His observations are irrational. They have no proof and they do not utilize science. 

[Brant Gaede]

His only reference/source seems to be "reality."

[Brant Gaede]

51 minutes ago, william.scherk said:

Not exactly, no.  It looks like Greg may be speaking generally of the 'spectrum' of autism, though I cannot be sure without asking.  

If you do some independent digging, Brant, the key concept is 'autistic spectrum' or 'autism spectrum.'  Over time, Bob has done his best, when asked, to characterize his experience in the world, and in many respects is a perfect example of a 'type.' He is, apparently, at the end of the spectrum where autistic folks are 'high-functioning' ... meaning they can communicate, can use language 'normally' -- and thus live independently in the world.

Other people diagnosed on the spectrum tend to never become functionally independent, never resolve communication, cannot work unsupervised, and may also have concomitant symptoms physical and mental. 

In the medico-legal sense, with recent changes in the diagnostic manual that subsumes psychology, autism is a spectrum disorder,  and on the spectrum, at that 'high' end with Bob, are those whose autism is labelled Asperger's Syndrome.

Thanks.

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

52 minutes ago, william.scherk said:

This is why he seems to have turned on Bob with sheer ad hominem and fuck all reason.  Insult and slurs seem the only thing left in his bag.  But, I am ever hopeful of intelligent conversation.  With some mental work, Bob and Greg might have one.

Greg, can you please say more about this link or causal chain between state education and autism?  How does it work?  Can you give some detail, or give warrants for the notion?

Oh, he keeps piling on Bob because Bob isn't making much objection. Greg can't figure out it's not working or, simply, that's all he has to say and he wants to say something. (Bob just patiently replies with his factual statements.) He stopped doing that sort of thing to me some time ago because I pretty much insisted. It took some time and effort on my part, but it worked. I no longer remember the specifics. It doesn't hurt that a lot of what Greg says is true, btw, but he's said it and everything else a thousand times already here. Ha, so do we all, I suppose; Greg's just quite blatant about it.

--Brant

[moralist]

27 minutes ago, Peter said:

His observations are irrational. They have no proof and they do not utilize science. 

0

• Quote

They are only personal observations drawn from personal experience, Peter. And they will naturally appear irrational to government educated intellectuals.

 

Greg

[BaalChatzaf]

2 hours ago, Brant Gaede said:

If you really didn't put anything in you've spent your life being led around by the nose by those who do the leading. Fortunately--sorta--you are an American. Someone else put something in. You never saw it coming for it was much more than words.

Forgetting what you learned is replacing the "politics, ethics and philosophy" others learned in school with the critical thinking that leads to the true, real education of self teaching or, "there is no teaching, only learning." (Porter Stansberry.) But one of the big teaching or learning tools one uses doing that is examination of what the teachers in government and government dominated schools--most schools--had spent years trying to force into one's head. And it's not that simple: the militaristic way the teaching is done and how the teachers make one respect their authority and the authority of the state. (Take the Pledge of Allegiance: before WWII the kids didn't put their hands over their hearts, they stuck out their arms like Germans saluting The Fuehrer.) One's self esteem or sense of self is melded into identification with effectively being part of the state. You became--I say this based on your past postings--as much of an American warrior as I did. I can't get rid of all of it and I doubt if I'd want to if I could, but because you made yourself purblind to what happened to you--for whatever reason or combination (nature or nurture or nature and nurture)--you can't get rid of any of it; indeed you glory in it--the life you have led. Eschewing philosophy only means you are a pure tribalist. That's what happens through cultural osmosis. The right philosophy counters that. Didn't you get anything from Ayn Rand? Did you read a thousand page novel full of "politics, ethics and philosophy" saying all through the damn thing, "No, no, no--no politics, no ethics, no philosophy"? Did you even read Atlas Shrugged--once? How could you stand to?

One of the greatest tragedies for Americans was the complete destruction of private for public education in the first half of the 19th Century. Today many high school graduates don't even know their three "r's". I've read that when this republic was founded Americans were highly literate--just mentioned here for the contradistinction. Once Americans gave up public for private they started getting educated as if they were living in Germany. (In Germany today it is illegal to home school your children. That's because, as in ancient Sparta, children belong to the state. So do they now in this--I'm not saying "these"; the "Civil War" took care of "these"--United States of America.)

We have always been ruled--or tried to be--by the minions of Alexander Hamilton. Power and money flow to Washington. It's like gravity. It doesn't matter if the host is slowly dying to the parasites. They could turn this country into Zimbabwe for all they care.

--Brant

I know these words can't mean anything to you--or so you say--I'm just making a public record

 

 

 

I understand every word  you have written.  I did my schooling 60 years ago when the public and private schools were a lot better than they are now.

I sent my youngest son to a privately  run high school  to make sure he got  good instruction. 

And you make a good point.  A school does not teach so much as it supplies a place and situation to learn.   The bulk of real education is self education.

[william.scherk]

On 5/19/2016 at 8:55 AM, Peter said:

On 5/19/2016 at 8:49 AM, moralist said:

Autism is a spectrum of symptoms, most notably a total lack of self awareness and self reflection. It's most prevalent in the offspring of screwed up government educated intellectuals. In my opinion it's a kid's defense mechanism against screwed up parents that still makes them screwed up.

Autism is increasing because it tracks with the increasing numbers of government college degreed intellectuals.

Greg reminds me of Lamarckianism (sp?) vs The Origin of Species. His observations are irrational. They have no proof and they do not utilize science. 

Science=Education=State=Secular=Prideful=Stupid=Feminized.   There it is, mathematical proof.

But, forget about insulting Greg. That is meeting mud with muck. Look at the argument he makes  and help him see why it is inadequate by measure of Reason. It does not cut life at its joints. It does not demonstrate a causal relation, it only posits the relation. It does, however, point to a test  of the truth-value of the interlocking claims. The claims can be tested by reason, one by one.

I have tried to do this before, myself, with the etiology of gay issue, but Greg would not participate in step-by-step analysis.  He did what he has done here -- instead of rational argument, bitching and moralistic condemnations, and low-balling the other person's worthiness.  Everything in the Insult Bag was deployed. 

But, since this is a House of Reason, somebody can still follow the House Rules, and try to engage Greg in a thoughtful, non-insulting conversation.

Not me. 

-- the basic test is over the cohorts.  Greg's assertions indicate several statistical realities, but not all the relevant ones. As ever, a four-box helps illustrate the claim and its missing components:

X causes Y

X == gummintEdumacation

Y == Autism/totalLackAwarenessSelfReflection

-- but note that Greg has already abandoned his earlier claim and moved sideways. Instead of answering the etiology of autism question with State Schooling, he shifts over to Bad Parents, or rather, a secondary result of demographic:  

First Ploy: if you are a child (government-schooled) your cohort of similar persons (government-schooled) you have a better chance of being on the Autism Spectrum.  X leades to Y

Second Ploy:  if you are a child of (government-educated) screwed-up intellectuals, you have a greater chance of being on the Autism Spectrum bumpf swerve jiggle.

Why the abandonment of his claims?

Well, this is the way Greg's arguments go. Shift the goalposts, abandon claims, refuse to answer basic inquiries.  That is his contribution to reasoning, and that is why I consider his work here to be poisonous. The ploys degrade discussion.

Anyhow, Greg isn't answering the schooling question. Besides him and his intimates, probably nobody knows details of his schooling. Who knows?

Why I think this is important is because he assumes our Bob is crippled by public education.  He assumes a whole fucking lot about Bob's education all told. Yet ... yes, when called upon to show good faith and tell about his education, crickets.  Crickets.

I was in public elementary and secondary schools for 11 years.  My  family moved a lot.  I had one school for grade one, two for grade two, one for grade three, four for grade four/five (I skipped a grade during that year of four different schools), back to the grade three school for grades six and seven, then another school for eight and skip half a year at the end of nine, and then whoopsie another school transfer for ten, and then one more switcheroo where I finished ten, and completed eleven and twelve.  That was a lotta government schooling. I thrived, as a bright little boy. I managed all the moves and dislocations like any adaptable intelligence. I thrived. I learned more 'off-site' pursuing my interests that tinker-toyed with what I sucked up at school.  Knowledge of the world seemed like a reasonable goal, meaning expanding knowledge about the world in all its discoverable aspects.

I imagine at least half children are like me. Education, formalized, is merely tracks for the learning to be accomplished by a child. A child, most times, is a machine built for learning. The school opens the door to literacy. What you do with that is ... conditional.

To be fair to Greg, he has alluded once or twice to his school experience and his literacy. If I remember correctly, he was a slow reader or similar.  He wasn't all that interested in books anyhow.   I may have that wrong. 

So, Greg might have struggled at times in school, or left school early. That might have left him ambivalent about the value of education. I don't know. Maybe one of his friends can tease out the details. Some of this might go a long way to explain his bitter comments to those he presumes to be better-educated than himself. 

That is psychological speculation. But sometimes motives are hidden, even from our own selves, for a time. If I understood Greg's motivation to attack people for their brains/learning, I would have more sympathy for his existence here as a featured commentator.  On a bigger list, he would just be another gadfly. If the general tone here was calm, rational and conversational, he would stand out as a boorish and half-demented outlier. Since standards have fallen, he sounds quite at home here, and his poison enervates the whole procedure of discussion.

Edited May 21, 2016 by william.scherk
Added "Return of the Primitive" and image ...

[Peter]

Government schools? I went to "base schools" when I was growing up and every time I reentered public schools I was ahead of them. When I went back to base schools I was behind. I remember in an early school year I went to Park Air Force base school in California, and to get out of a reading book we had to correctly say and define the words in the back of the book. If you were wrong you had to start over the next day. It took me a week to advance to their next, official reading level. Those government schools were very good. The various military academies are highly rated. Now, the people who get government grants to toe the line are an example of bad government learning. I am thinking of grants to study bogus science that fits some liberal agenda.

Peter