Re: Back off, man

[Mushroom <mushroom@moscow.com>]

bill london wrote:
> 
> I just can't help myself.  I have to reply to Doug Wilson's assertion:
> 
> > Government schools, by their very structure, subsidize parental
> > non-involvement and penalize attempts to get involved.
> >
> 
> First of all, as I have noted earlier, I totally reject his attempt to
> separate us from our public schools with the use of the term "government
> schools"


Name-calling is a basic propaganda technique, and often it
is easier to call people names than it is to discuss the
merits of issues.

But name-calling can be applied differently. To call public
schools "government schools" is actually using a propaganda
technique.

I might hope that the name-callers could decide they have
made a particular point by now and join the rest of us in
referring to public schools as public schools. Lacking that
development, I would encourage the rest of us to USE the
term "public schools." There's no reason to let the
name-callers define the terms of any debate when it goes
against common usage. If they want to talk about public
schools and the fact that the government does indeed govern
them, the appropriate term is "public schools."

If they want to talk about schools operated by the
government for the children of Americans in foreign
countries, for example, "government schools" would aptly
describe them.

All I am talking about is common usage; I am specifically
not talking about whether a logical case can be made to call
public schools "government schools." Good communication
would be better served by joining in common usage than by
philosophical meandering.

Don Coombs