Comment by catz | Hacker News Reader

Comment by catz | Hacker News Reader

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> And, public dollars should never go to religious organizations or anti-religious organizations.

You are acting as if these children's parents did not pay tax. They only get their own tax money back to spend it on their children's education as they see fit.

What you propose is that we remove money from parents (through taxation) and force them to sent their children to school that you (or whoever) approved.

> Again, I am not against religion but I am against someone imposing their religion on others--even their own children.

You use the word indoctrination rather funny. It looks like to you, indoctrination is any teaching of anything which is not approved by you.

A parent should have the full authority to teach his child whatever values and beliefs it is he wants the child to believe. It is not the responsibility of the state or you or anyone else to determine what a parent should teach his child.

You are against a religious person teaching his beliefs onto his children. Yet you are for imposing your beliefs onto the children of other people.

If you want to educate children in your beliefs then you can get your own children or adopt some – but do not try to force other parents what to do.

It is not true that they "only get their own tax money back". A tax rebate would have that effect. I am not opposed to refunding people's tax money; I am opposed to giving them somebody else's tax money to support their religion. The voucher program is not a tax rebate because the people that stand to benefit most from the voucher program do not pay enough property taxes to cover the cost of private schools if they those property tax payments were refunded to them.

I never suggested that we force people to do anything. My whole argument is that we shouldn't force people to pay for religions they don't subscribe to.

I never said that the state should force parents to raise their kids secularly. What I said is that we shouldn't give them money to raise them religiously. I am not trying to impose my beliefs on anybody, and I am not asking anybody for money to help me impose my beliefs.

You keep trying to reframe my argument as anti-choise and anti-religion. It isn't the case. My argument is that the law should ensure that people should be able to choose NOT to support religious organizations they aren't members of, and we shouldn't take people's tax money and give it to religious organizations they oppose.

(I do believe that parents should give their kids a serious means of choosing their own religion. But, I didn't say the state should force them to do so.)

> people that stand to benefit most from the voucher program do not pay enough property taxes to cover the cost of private schools

How do you know how much tax they pay? I can bet you that most people pay more taxes than the value of the voucher program. Why not then abolish the education part of taxation completely and let everyone else decide where to school their children with private money? Or would that lose its coercive effect that you desire?

> My whole argument is that we shouldn't force people to pay for religions they don't subscribe to.

What if a tax payer opposes not sending children to schools of their choice? If 10% of the tax payers are of a certain religion then logic dictates that about 10% of children's parents would belong to that religion.

Religious people can choose religious schools, secular people can choose secular schools or (what happens more often) they choose the same private school and religious people choose religious classes.

> I never said that the state should force parents to raise their kids secularly.

What you said was “I am against someone imposing their religion on others--even their own children.”. The only way you would be able to accomplish that is with state interference (i.e. policing parents to ensure that they do not impart any religion on their children).

> I am not trying to impose my beliefs on anybody, and I am not asking anybody for money to help me impose my beliefs.

If you tax the public and use that money to provide education that fits your specified view (e.g. totally secular/irreligious) then you are imposing your beliefs on someone else.

That is because if a parent wants their children to have a religious education, they would have to pay double for it (once through taxation and once through school fees). The only thing that these vouchers do is preventing parents from paying double for their children's school fees.

When I said "I am against someone imposing their religion on others--even their own children," I meant exactly what I said and no more. In particular, I didn't say anything about the government policing parents regarding their religious practicies.

I totally support a tax rebate program that could be used for both religious and secular private schools. That way parents do not have to "pay double" to send their kid to private school. But, that is not the effect that the voucher program has, because of our progressive tax system.

Interesting. A few things stand out about your view:

You support public financing of education, but only when there is also public delivery of education services.

The objective of public financing of education is economic egalitarianism -- why should a kid not be able to go to school just b/c his parents can't afford it or don't consider it a worthwhile expenditure.

By objecting to some cases of public financing of education (such as vouchers) you seem to think that a kid whose parents are poor or who do not value education should have only one option, public school. I'm curious why you feel the need to limit the choices of the poor kid so much, but not the rich kid -- why shouldn't all parochial schools be banned?

It may be the case that you oppose the public funding of k-12 education. If that's the case, your argument is at least consistent. But you would then need to admit that since most people pay quite different amounts of property taxes, etc., that some deserve a refund and some deserve to have to pay extra even for public school.

As I said in other comments, I support vouchers for most non-parochial private schools.

I am willing to give parents of parochial school students tax rebates as a compromise to make voucher program implementable. Anybody that pays enough in property taxes to have the rebate cover the parochial school tuition can afford to send their kid to parochial school anyway. So, my support for tax rebates is purely tactical/political.

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