Re: How accurate is carbon dating?

On 4 Apr 2007 06:33:09 -0700, the following appeared in
talk.origins, posted by "hersheyh" <hersheyhv@xxxxxxxxx>:

On Apr 3, 8:01 pm, Bob Casanova <nos...@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Mon, 02 Apr 2007 23:15:48 GMT, the following appeared in
talk.origins, posted by Klaus <khelln...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>:

<snip>

Thank you for the information, though it did not quite address my
question to Cemtech. I just naturally become suspicious when people talk
about rights and mandates that don't actually seem to exist, at least in
the context of the US federal government. I do support public education,
and think the issue was not well addressed in the US constitution, as
well as others, such as limiting taxes.

You might want to note that most jurisdictions require
attendance in school until some arbitrary age; 16 is the one
I've encountered. Now you can argue that this is a
requirement rather than a right (similar to the IRS
regulations), but it seems to have the same effect.

As for being addressed in the Constitution, in the late
1700's most children in the US were on farms, and attended
very little formal school. And the Constitution *does*
provide for limiting taxes (in a roundabout way). Since all
revenue bills must originate in the House, and since the
idea was that Representatives would serve only one or two
terms before returning to private life, it would be in their
best interest to keep revenue, and hence taxes, as low as
practicable. Of course, with the current political careerism
of most Representatives, that no longer applies. They're
effectively isolated from reality and do whatever is
required to get re-elected; "reasonable" tax increases,
especially hidden ones, don't seem to be a "hot button" for
most people.

Education is primarily a responsibility of the individual states in
the U.S. The federal role is limited. In the Northwest Ordinance,
the feds clearly indicated that public education was a responsibility
that the states should undertake and encouraged such by making
provision for paying for it via land grants. Public education (the
aim was to generate Jefferson's ideal of an educated yeoman farmer)
was almost a requirement that the Federal government added in order
for these territories to gain statehood.

Agreed, but my point was that the question of whether
education is a "right" is somewhat moot, given that it's a
requirement in most (perhaps all) jurisdictions. Also, since
the Constitution doesn't grant rights to individuals, but
lists a subset of those rights assumed to exist, and since
it *does* specifically enumerate the powers granted to the
Federal government (and thus by extension, currently, to
state and local governments), a point could be made that
although there is no specific grant of the power to educate,
education is one of those unlisted, but nevertheless real,
rights of the individual.

But the states did not equally live up to their responsibility, and
"public" education sometimes meant different things in different
jurisdictions. In some Southern states, for example, it was a *crime*
to educate blacks at all at some points in time after the Civil War.
And when not a crime, there was still the risk of extra-legal action
by thugs. And I clearly remember seeing a picture of a black school
in Arkansas showing a "separate but equal" classroom with over 100
black kids, 50 desks, and even fewer books (old discards from the
white schools), and one teacher -- in the 1950s! We are not talking
ancient history here, but stuff that was going on in my lifetime.
Well...maybe that *is* ancient history here. But the dinosaurs *were*
before my time, despite what Ken Ham says.

Mine, too. By a bit, anyway. ;-)

FWIW, my high school (in Ft. Lauderdale, FL) was first
integrated (one student, IIRC) in my senior year, 1962-63.
So I'm well aware of the lag in real education for blacks in
the South.
--

Bob C.

"Evidence confirming an observation is
evidence that the observation is wrong."
- McNameless

.

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