GOP Tea Party Frontrunner: ‘ABOLISH ’ Public Schools

[Segami]

:grr: :nuke: :grr: :nuke: :grr: :nuke: :grr:



<>



A Tea Party-backed Republican congressional nominee has championed abolishing public schools in California, and is currently the favorite to win his November election.


The candidate, David Harmer, a corporate lawyer who has yet to serve in public office, is up against two-term Democratic incumbent Jerry McNerney for California's 11th district -- located in Northern California -- in the House of Representatives.


Harmer made the argument to kill public schools in a 2000 op-ed for the San Francisco Chronicle, which was dug up Thursday by Nick Baumann of Mother Jones.

<http://articles.sfgate.com/2000-08-27/news/17658015_1_public-school-private-schools-school-issues>


Framing the issue as a struggle between government tyranny and freedom -- a preferred political tactic of conservatives -- Harmer wrote: "In the freest and most prosperous country on Earth, in the midst of the information age, government ownership and operation of the schools is a counterproductive anachronism."


He added: "So long as the state Constitution mandates free public schools, a voucher system (or refundable tuition tax credit) is the best we can do. To attain quantum leaps in educational quality and opportunity, however, we need to separate school and state entirely. Government should exit the business of running and funding schools."



cont'

<http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/10/gop-tea-party-frontrunner-abolish-public-schools/>


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[LeftishBrit]

1. Ye gods. Even our Tories aren't THAT bad.

'Harmer' is a good name for him. Is there any chance that he'll win? - hope not!

[dawg]

6. Your tories aren't as bad ....

as our Democrats.

[whathehell]

16. True, that..

Actually, even the old republican party was never this crazy until relatively recently.
They just grow nuttier and more fascistic by the day, it seems and it is frightening...People like me who grew up in the sixties or seventies could NEVER have seen this coming.

My "confirmation" of your report on Tories vs. Repukes stems from something my spouse told me a couple of years ago..Seems he ran into a guy from the UK who had relocated here and gotten American citizenship. They started talking politics and the man told my husband that he had been a Tory in the U.K. My husband then just assumed that he was a registered republican here.

He said the man practically shuttered in reply, saying, "Oh no..I'm a democrat..Even the Tories aren't as far right as the Republicans here.

[Taverner]

2. I completely hate evil fucks like that

I wish him nothing but misery and pain for the rest of his life

[Barack_America]

4. I hope his property taxes double.

[Deep13]

3. This country has lost its fucking mind. nt

[Turbineguy]

5. Harmer

Now that's a name to live up to!

[chimpymustgo]

7. They'r really getting brazen about their real agenda. Listen up, people!

Kill public schools, Kill minimum wage, Kill Social Security...just the beginning.

[Segami]

8. Its the G-O Tea Party way

[sufrommich]

11. Yep. All that and Nazi uniforms. nt

[whathehell]

20. It's very, very frightening...

but they MAY just have "maxed out" at this point...Only the reaction of the public at large will tell us..

I agree, thought, that they will probably NEVER go away entirely and we'll alway need to be vigilant...Jeebus.:scared:

[OKNancy]

9. Public schools are what made this country the great one

he spouts off about. These people don't think beyond their nose. They aren't deep thinkers or know history at all.

[Matariki]

10. Jesus, these assholes want to turn this country into Haiti

private schools that only the rich can afford. Hospitals that only the rich can afford. No social infrastructure at all. A huge number of people in poverty and a tiny number of people controlling all the wealth and resources. And all the resources used without regulation, so that mountains become bare and the environment becomes so fucked that every bit of bad weather causes huge amounts of destruction.

:-(

[YOY]

12. How do these morons get ahead?

I mean corporate money is stupid...but not THAT stupid, is it???

Of course it could be foreign money wanting to see us fail completely so they fund the craziest of righties to destroy our very society...totally conspiracy theory...

[nadinbrzezinski]

19. Yes corporate money IS that stupid

Our right wing businesses hate workers that can think. Oh never mind that is what a new economy needs.

[RaleighNCDUer]

13. Subtext -

separate schools and government, and you can reinstate bibles and schools.

if you don't want your child to receive daily religious indoctrination, you will have to find a deliberately secular private school, because there will be no recourse if a teacher brings his religion into the classroom.

Every school a christian madrassa.

[gmoney]

14. Wow, some real nut jobs may get elected as a result of this frustration

People are buying into the Fox news "throw the bums out, bring in all new weirdos" more than I had hoped would be possible.

I can just see the "for profit" school systems... $25,000 a year for elementary school, so suddenly everyone will "home school" but without public school systems to set and enforce some standards, more kids will be grow up to be even bigger dumbasses than they are now, if that's even possible.

[nadinbrzezinski]

15. How else to have an official caste society?

We live in one, but boy this makes it damn official.

What a way to go back to the future!

[denverbill]

17. Is there any country in the world with private-only schools?

Personally, I think this has been tried. It was called the pre_Enlightenment era. Only rich people could send their kids to school, or possibly to monasteries. Everyone else remained ignorant peasants.

It's a libertarian dream world.

[nadinbrzezinski]

21. Yes, Pakistan

They are called Madrassas.

[MadHound]

18. Let me guess, he'll be this administration's bipartisan go to guy when it comes to public education

After all, they do share this strong dislike of public education.

[stopbush]

22. This is political flamebait. Nothing more, nothing less.

This guy knows that public schools are never going away, so he throws this out there as both red meat for the RW crazies and a reason for lefties to go nuts. In fact, he's more interested in getting a rise out of the liberals than he is in assuaging the RW nuts.

He's doing with education what the RW did for years with abortion - talk a radical game but do nothing about it once the election is over. You notice the RW has dropped abortion and gay rights as wedge issues. Public schools are their new bug-a-boo - an easy replacement for wedge issues that have lost their ability to inspire passion.

Ds need to wise up and learn to not even respond to such silliness. We're acting as enablers when we make a bunch of noise over shit like this.

[Arugula Latte]

23. I'm wondering how it is that this country has so many people that hold these extremist views?

If there were just a handful it would be understandable, but it seems there are perhaps millions of people who think this way. How is that? ... I guess religion shares much of the blame for fostering idiocy and irrationality, but there have to be other factors.

[struggle4progress]

24. Wouldn't it be great to have a whole bunch of uneducated unemployable young folk around?

They could spend their time trying to figure out how to steal stuff so they could eat!

[Enthusiast]

25. How is it possible

that he leads. Have voters lost their minds?