Re: Not really

quite often against their will--this glorified idea that many MAPs seem to have that kids were all working because they had more freedom then is a myth

1) Pay no attention to the War on Lemonade.

2) Why is this always the argument? (not from you, admittedly, but I see this repeated over and over with no basis) Who seriously believes that farm and factory child labor would return to the USA if child labor was legal and school not compulsory? (And before someone says "I do", let me address you - whoever seriously believes that has no idea about world economics)

Summarizing - even if true, that doesn't make the argument hold across time.

America was (and still is) an amalgam of all sorts of people, including (but not limited to) "independent-minded entrepreneurs and doers." Mandatory schooling has not changed that fact, nor ever will.

The point Seamus was making is that there is less entrepreneurship now than there was before. I don't know if the precise statistic is collected, but there is close evidence everywhere: the concentration of farming land, the reduced income/class mobility, the declining number of people who pay more taxes than they receive subsidies all of those point to a reduced entrepreneurial class.

Now, I will agree with you that mandatory schooling is not the main factor against it; features of the economic system are more important in this. It certainly makes no favors, by keeping minors in school who would otherwise be setting up their own gigs, but is surely not the deciding factor.

One in particular I can think of: prior to the late 19th century American culture (art and literature specifically) was largely insipid and uninspired compared to what was being produced in Europe at the time. American art didn't really become interesting (no real innovations) until Impressionism and luminism took hold here. Before that there was a lot of dull, stilted historical paintings and a ton of mediocre-to-bad portraits. The most interesting artists in America at the time were actually European-born anyway (e.g. Albert Bierstadt) or trained by Europeans.

Are you all right?

I have heard you say the opposite; and criticize similar statements. Recently, in fact...

I suspect I know what is at play, but I will not say it; it's not meant to cause a flame war.

Er, I'm pretty sure the medical exams are primarily to make sure your kid doesn't have any diseases or illnesses he or she can pass on to other kids. I very much doubt sexual abuse is a primary issue with the school examiners. In fact, I don't recall when I got my childhood physicals being subjected to anything but a cursory glance down my shorts.

Except that most of communicable diseases are no longer an issue in the US (or the whole developed world for that matter) so they are no good reason for a thorough physical. Lice might be an issue, but an easy one to spot.

And of course, you again mention the key factor "I don't recall... my childhood" - you went to school before the sexual abuse hysteria. You cannot pretend school is frozen in time and is and will always be like yours was.

I personally didn't have any such experience with being screened for sexual abuse either - but I have heard reports from a variety of places and contexts that tell me it is being done. I even did once refuse an offer for camp counseling because of the long list of checks to be run and rules to be followed (aimed at many things, of course, eg drugs, but obviously the most ridiculous were about sex). [From friends who did the job, I know the rules were not enforced so harshly, which makes me believe they use them as an insurance against suits more than anything - but still, I do not really regret refusing]

There's no way they could've seen if I had been sexually abused by that. In fact, if they could've they would've known that I had been. Obviously nobody can tell that by simply glancing at your junk.

So? It is easy to take special looks at pussies and anuses - closer, and opening them to find swellings or rippings.

At any rate, we have plenty of diversity in our population even though kids have been subject to mandatory schooling in parts of the US since at least the 1700s. Imagine that. So, perhaps we should rethink this: schools either aren't turning out little drone bees by design or they are fairly incompetent at it.

Immigration.

The USA has always had a large proportion of people who were born and raised abroad.

Compared to the extreme opposite example - the North East Asian countries have for some 3 centuries had virtually zero immigration; and their conformity is high and diversity low, despite shorter times with universal compulsory education (and for Japan and South Korea you cannot even argue totalitarianism as you can China and North Korea).

Now compare to Canada - which has had compulsory schooling for longer than the USA, yet has had more liberal immigration policies also for longer; and Canada is a lot more diverse than the USA; not in "absolute" terms but certainly so if you think that America has eight times as many people as Canada.

And that is dwarfed by the powers parents hold over their children. What's your point? That children are basically slaves in this country? Agreed, but that extends far beyond schools.

So you cannot criticize schools before or without criticizing parents?

Seamus sure has. But it would be OT to a post about schooling.