How many powerful Lobbies WOULDN'T Barkey piss off as President?

Ivy, I should have re-edited it, I'm actually pro-choice by default, but meant to say that I could be convinced to do otherwise if it was a majority opinion.

Leaving up to the conscience of the individual is a practical position, but as I pointed out you don't have to.

Have you considered taking a moderate 'third way' positions such as regressive party?[1]

edited 7th May '11 3:48:40 AM by joeyjojo

@Barkey: Fair enough.

What kind of foreign policy would we expect out of your administration?

Tell me you're not going to get rid of our FID and UW missions!

In regards to the lobbies which agitate on behalf of foreign concerns, do you think you would piss off the Irish or Israel lobbies and so forth?

Well, I'd cut aid to Pakistan right around.. Oh, the first.

The Irish are very rarely ever on my mind, Ireland itself that is. The Irish ethnicity is just another type of white people to me and unless I'm thinking of leprechauns.. Not a whole lot going on for me with Ireland.

And I'd cut my aid to Israel as well. Hell, I'd abandon them altogether. To me, Israel is merely a PR nightmare and a paycheck we write every year, because they sure as hell never spend their time helping us out all that much, not to mention how often we catch them spying on us...

Education: This is something I'd need to talk to experts about, I really don't know a whole lot about how the educational system itself works. I know I'm fond of the idea of building federally ran boarding schools that orphans are sent to, places where they can build their own sense of family and be assured a stable home and roof over their head. I don't want to chuck money at the public school system if I don't know what it's supposed to fix though, that's one of those things that I would want to speak to experts about and then keep a careful eye on as I slowly introduced new concepts and watched for the effects.

Foreign Policy: I'd want to be fairly hands off. I have no faith in the UN as an organization to get anything readily accomplished, at least not while Russia and China have veto power, so I'd probably go through NATO for organizing any sort of foreign intervention.

If you want some context for that, I'm very enthusiastic about finding ways to help the plight of people in countries like Libya, I feel Afghanistan needed to happen, but instead of occupying the whole country we should have stuck to a few regional bases that specifically used surgical strike teams to find and neutralize Al Qaeda, since they are the ones we came for. Do the Afghan people need to be rid of the Taliban? Hell yes, but I'm a surgeon, not a miracle worker. If someone has a strategy that doesn't involve a billion human rights violations or 50 years of occupation that can actually contain Afghanistan, I'm all for it. Otherwise I'll head the warnings and tread lightly if we ever go to the "Graveyard of Empires" again.

And I wanted to talk about power sources again, I want to be completely independent of the Middle East so we can go back to just letting them kill eachother and burn their own oil fields to the ground. While I support the grid itself being nuclear in nature, one major push that I would go for is an alternative fuel to take the place of gasoline. Once again though, I'm not an expert, the solution belongs in the hands of our scientists, I'm just a facilitator.

There is nothing I want more than to be able to leave the Middle East forever, perhaps occasionally jumping in for situations such as Libya, which I wouldn't go for unless I had full NATO support.

edited 7th May '11 7:03:43 AM by Barkey

Hm, refusing to take a position about a complex issue before consulting experts?

I approve. Muchly so.

You have my vote.*

I love how politicians have to have an answer for everything. Sometimes the best thing to do is just go "You know, I'm not sure. Let me confer with a bunch of experts who have spent most of their lifetime studying this field, and I'll let you know what I glean from that."

That or you know the effect you want, but not how to facilitate it. You need academia on many issues to actually form the basis for the plans that will facilitate those results, unless you yourself are academia in that particular field, in which case you still shouldn't rely on one persons opinion.

Talk to tons of experts with wildly divergent opinions separately, and then let them argue with eachother to exhaustion while you take notes. Borrow all the concepts you like, find a way to make them as compatible with eachother as possible, and do what you need to do.

It's practically like legos, I don't get what's so fucking hard about acknowledging your own lack of expertise. Better than being dishonest and pulling an answer out of your ass.

I'd make a policy so that if I did not know the answer to a specific question during a press conference, I'd make sure that before I took any questions at the next one, all the previous questions would be answered or made available, preferably on TV.

Edit: Oh, also, stem cells are a go. Green light that shit. Advanced prosthetic limbs, for the disabled? Also a massive priority. Stuff like that robot arm for amputees that DARPA is funding? Total support.

Lots of guns, lots of education, lots of FOR SCIENCE!, lots of freedom(with oversight) and LOTS of personal accountability. I don't believe in protecting people from themselves. If you fuck up, you are held personally accountable on a case by case basis, and you aren't going to ruin shit for everybody else. The only time actual regulation is needed is when a minor problem starts to become an epidemic.

edited 7th May '11 7:32:57 AM by Barkey

I'm still amused at the thought of federally run orphanages.

You would be opening up so many cans of worms with that.

Well, the research shows that foster families are a ton better for the children than orphanages tend to be. Nit pick aside, I was a supporter of Barkey for public office way before any of you people. Remember that thread you started when you went on the radio program, Barkey?

Hm, I'd love to see that 'research.' I've heard from people in the industry that foster families are actually more prone to abuse, simply because there's fewer people around to keep an eye on the kids and make sure the relevant rules are being followed. Foster families also shuffle kids around a lot more. That's not that I think they're bad as such, but I do think orphanages have a far worse reputation than they deserve comparatively.

But to drag things back on (to this ridiculous but amusing) topic, I would personally oppose attempting to turn public education into a boarding school system. Arguably it does encourage bonding with the group of students you land in (assuming you're not one of the 'uncool' kids), but it comes at the cost of detaching yourself from your geography and your family. I think this is where Barkey's military background is showing - it works for the military, why not for everything else too? But frankly, if I had had to go through that sort of thing for a regular public education, I probably would've killed myself.

As for suggestions on fixing the current system, as opposed to overhauling it, I'd recommend the following:

- More emphasis on digital textbooks and resources, to allow curriculum to vary by state instead of letting Texas have the default say in things. Texas is the biggest buyer of schoolbooks, and their board of education is extremely... conservative, and obviously their tastes aren't going to suit more liberal states that don't want separation of church and state and things like that delicately edited out of history.

- Funding needs an overhaul. The influence of property taxes creates a 'nice neighborhood schools = good funding, bad neighborhood schools = bad funding' scenario when funding needs to be equally spread between them, or possibly even tilted towards the 'bad' schools if you want to weigh things by student population, which is probably not a bad idea. A lot of school funding also tends to float to the top where the administrative bureaucracy is, rather than down to the students who need it.

- And this is just my personal pet peeve, but I'd love to see more emphasis on practical courses in school. A second language should be mandatory, the US is notoriously behind pretty much every other civilized country in that area. Driver's Ed should be a full-blown year-long class, because automobiles kill more people every year than [insert every other random dangerous thing you can think of], and we shouldn't take them for granted. Ditto Finance, which I managed to grab as a one-quarter of a year-long elective. Really, can you think of anything more relevant to life than FINANCE? Firearm safety and self-defense classes, too; people should know how to beat someone stronger than them and how to handle a gun even if they never want to use it. We need all of these things as a baseline for the educational system because we're fighting against the misconceptions and prejudices instilled by media, which is more prevalent a presence than ever before in a multitude of mediums.

That's not an 'expert' opinion, of course, but just a few ideas on things you'd probably want to start digging into in one way or another.

Hmm, do we need an education reform thread?

I agree with Barkey fully except for abortion.

@Barkey: A focus on science and technology, robot limbs, schools for orphans?

I'd certainly vote for this platform. Unless the running mate was completely insane.

Guys, for the boarding schools I specifically meant for orphans, in case I didn't make that clear. There are plenty of good orphanages, I'm sure, but I think you could serve a better purpose by turning those into boarding schools that were well ran. In the absence of a biological family, an institutional family can be just as loving, if not more.

Regular education wouldn't be through these boarding schools(Unless you chose to send your children to one), I meant specifically to use this as an answer to some of the improper care and attention given to orphans, especially the ones who don't eventually get adopted or put in foster care. This is a much more surefire way to ensure that these kids who've been abandoned, intentionally or by circumstance, get a good education and some good role models as well as a guided hand and social network to aid them in getting on their feet as adults.

Somehow it seems you think that there aren't a host of options available already.

The problem is not where you think it is.

Though really, the federal government getting involved? I can't wait for the riots that would cause.

They should do some sort of federal service after they turn 18; make up for the money spent taking care of them.

Not at all. Minors can't enter contracts, so they cannot contract debts.

And mandatory, unpaid service is evil.

edited 7th May '11 2:43:22 PM by SavageHeathen

Education: gut the arts and remove all art requirements, add more science programs. That's probably the best I can say. Execute any teacher that brings up Shakespeare. And add back Home Ec. Move second language out of high school and into elementary as a five or so year set, no switching halfway through. Lump gun safety into Home Ec as a one week basic course, if it takes more than one week to learn gun safety, they shouldn't be holding a weapon. Probably lump in basic driving skills there too, with an optional drivers ed full course. Lots of after school programs and buses to use them. Switch to digital books. A school text book costs more than an e-book reader right now (unless books got a lot cheaper when I wasn't looking). Mandate diversified and student chosen electives, "the first twenty five students get to take the cool technology course, the other two hundred students take band" is bull shit. Knock five years off of arithmetic. Switch science around so that a basic logic and analysis/experimentation course is the intro, with factoids being a "personal study" thing. Teach algebra around second or third grade if possible so chemistry and physics make sense at early levels. Remove cursive, theatre and poetry from english class. Replace "classics" with free chosen books that have a summarized test to make sure they read it.

You should run for your local school board.

It'd be...excellent fun.

^^

Meh, liked some of that, on the fence about some more, and disagree with a fair share as well.

@Deboss: I agree with most of what you said except the digital book thing. They're just irritating to use.

Also failing a class should be counted as a disciplinary offense, and schools should reserve the right to expel kids that consistently fail their classes. Unless there is a legitimate reason to why they are failing (illness, developmental issues, bad home life, etc.)

edited 7th May '11 4:23:54 PM by Neo_Crimson

@Savage Heathen: You get paid for Federal Service.

^^

I don't feel that removing children from the educational system is the answer to fixing education.

@Barkley: The only people that would be expelled are those that don't care about getting an education at all. Why should the school's, and by extension the taxpayer's, money be wasted on them?

Though in my opinion the education system should be completely privatized with funding mostly coming from tuition, with admittance to all school levels be conducted similar to colleges, by looking at the student's previous performance and passing an entrance exam. Of course financial aid given to families who cannot afford to pay for school.