What is fair?
Which of these theoretical statements do you agree with if any:
(Think of the assertions as objectively evaluated to be valid by our societal standards, and that everything was acquired/achieved in a legal manner. Also a better standard of life can mean a more luxurious lifestyle, education, property, salary, food, etc - whatever else that means in our American society.)
1. It is fair for the people who do more valuable/important work than others to have a better standard of life. (Doctor vs Janitor)
Read on for more...
2. It is fair for the people who work harder than others to have a better standard of life. (Multiple jobs)
3. It is fair for the people who acquired more education to have a better standard of life. (Professors, Engineers)
4. It is fair for the people who are creative to have a better standard of life. (Inventors, Artists)
5. It is fair for the people who sacrifice more of their safety to have a better standard of life (Police, CIA, Firemen)
6. It is fair for the people who are more business savvy to have a better standard of life. (Businessmen)
7. It is fair for the people who are more financially savvy to have a better standard of life. (Investors, Traders)
8. It is fair for the people who are elected to represent us to have a better standard of life. (Politicians)
9. It is fair for the people who are naturally talented to have a better standard of life. (Basketball player vs Accountant)
10. It is fair for the people who do more glamorous work than others to have a better standard of life (Actors)
11. It is fair for the people who inherit wealth from their relatives to have a better standard of life. (Paris Hilton)
12. It is fair for the people who got lucky to have a better standard of life. (Gamblers, Lottery winners)
13. It is never fair for any person in our society to have a better standard of life than for others.
Can you think of anything else? This list is not random but it also does not necessarily correspond to my moral rankings of fairness. If you partially agreed with this list and not with #13, where does the drop off occur for you and why?
As for myself I agree with the top 12 with varying degrees of enthusiasm somewhat dropping off towards the end. I believe that people should be entitled to the fruits of their labor and that they should be able to do what they please with the money they receive as compensation (including leaving it to their relatives, giving it away). It is also imo fair that if you acquire money by the existing rules of our society (even if not precisely through labor) that you should be able to enhance your lifestyle as you please without encroaching on other people's freedoms to do the same with what they have.
- Ender's diary
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Comments :
Who get's to judge what is more valuable?
I am talking about societal standards
but in that case the market will do as well. Saving lives and curing people is generally accepted as more important and valuable than sweeping floors. Which leads to disparity in salaries.
"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR
The response you're addressing
is exactly what I mean by my post below.
Furthermore, such a response totally ignores the role of wages and prices. They are merely indicators of scarcity of supply vs. demand.
As cold and unsatisfying as that sounds, it's how it works.
It's not different than why you'll find $10,000 to buy a new car but wouldn't spend that a bicycle..even if you had $20,000 in your account.
it is how it works
but you can't ignore a certain moralistic agenda that seeks to regulate the way it works now. My questions are a check of how much people agree with that certain moralistic agenda.
"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR
Of course it's fair
The question then becomes who will build the bridges and roads that your 12 prototypes use to have a better standard of life.
It is the economy, stupid.
don't construction workers
make decent amount of money? And of course those bridges will be designed by people who have a better standard of life as well :)
"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR
I am asking
who will PAY for the bridge to be built that benefits your 12 prototypes.
Sorry I didn't make that clear.
Of course construction workers will do the labor.
It is the economy, stupid.
thru taxes, obviously
what does that really have to do with anything??
It doesn't obviously have to be
through taxes in this hypothetical example does it John.
Which was the point of my question John.
It is the economy, stupid.
still,
what does this have to do with the question of it being fair to see some earn more than others.
The only person talking about roads and bridges is you.
The question is about earning levels of an individual vs. another...not taxes and public goods.
You overlook the FACT that
income is earned, in context of infrastructure.
I travel the bridge to make $14 an hour.
You travel the bridge to make $100 an hour.
Even though we both earn a fair, yet unequal wage for our work, we both benefit equally from crossing the bridge.
The bridge, relative to our fair but unequal living wage is, nuetral to the income level of those who travel on it.
So who pays for to maintain the bridge that helps both us earn a fair and living wage.
It is the economy, stupid.
I'm not stupid, MissL
And I already answered this question...we all pay thru taxes that fund such construction and maintenance.
But I'm still wondering why are you are insisting on making this the issue when it isn't.
Dear John
I assumed Ender's question was theoretical (as it states in the heading) to explore interesting and creative alternatives to how our society functions in light of disparity in income.
I was having fun exploring alternatives to questions about fairness in a civil society that must maintain and build infrastructure for economic viability freedom to earn (fairly and unequally) of its individuals.
What other ways could the bridge be maintain fairly. Are there any.
If the 12 prototypes pool their money to build a bridge how do they do so equitably and fairly.
It is a theoritical question for exploring alternatives to our present system. Why does it so easily offend you?
It is the economy, stupid.
I'm not offended
I'm just bewildered by your insistence on misreading the intent of the diary.
He asked a simple, straw man question with an obvious answer:
YES.
It's not theoretical, it's real. It's reality. he's simply asking if it's fair that this happens.
Moreover, with that in mind, it's not even implied as being an invitation to explore creative alternatives.
But hey, go ahead. explore away....
I see.
A simple Yes would suffice as the 'right' answer.
Interesting.
Then there is no point in further discussion is there.
What was the point of posting a dairy with only "1" right answer.
Gosh thanks for your permission to explore alternatives.
It is the economy, stupid.
my questions
were fairly specific as to which fairness I was talking about. It was about fairness of inequality of wealth, income, and standard of living based on the person's livelihood...
To be fair you went off on a not very related tangent and John is pointing that out. Not everything is related to a particular issue of the day.
"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR
The question was narrow
Okay.
But you can't have wealth without infrastructure. And someone has to pay for it!
That is a problem I see with conservativism in general. That little piece of the puzzle ALWAYS gets left out, as if everything is always individual effort.
Someone has to pay for the roads that help us make the money so that we can be a free, fair and capitalistic society. That is a group effort.
(And to be an even more horrible liberal generalizing the specific to the broader picture....... this relates to Iraq because, oh well never mind. :+)
It is the economy, stupid.
umm
but again that all just currently relates to taxation (which is a separate issue) and is happening already. You can't have wealth without air we breathe as well as we'd all die - you can keep bringing up unrelated issues that are a requirement for us to function in general but it will not go far.
"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR
I think it is totally material
to the issue at hand.
How and why we redistribute money (which is what you find unfair) is a valid discussion on fairness. 'Air' (which I could see as potentially relevant, but not as much as infrastructure) is understandably a tangent, but not a fair analogy to what she is saying.
How are we supposed to judge fairness if we can only discuss one side of the coin.
Infrastructure (or taxes in general) are valid points if I say that many of the above should be taxed higher than others.
point taken
but my question did not go as far as to extend to the taxation issue. That is a pretty huge discussion of its own.
My title is perhaps misleading but it was not about fairness in general but only as it applies in the particular examples I used.
"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR
You are still restricting
the issue unfairly.
You state 'luxurious lifestyle' as a qualifier for 'better standard of living', which I would say opens a Pandora's box of issues concerning when this luxurious life is still fair in consideration of the 'broader good' i.e. infrastructure.
So if I say 'no' to some of your examples and I cite the above reason, am I taking the issue out of context?
good point
but I think I was writing this with the assumption that the better standard of living itself would not be the subject of debate. Which is why I tried to leave contentious items like healthcare out of it.
You can take the tangent pretty far with 'luxurious lifestyle' alone :)
"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR
RE: You are still restricting
This is funny. Ender wants to ask about some specific thing and you guys argue that he shouldn't even be allowed to ask his own question because even THOSE are unfair.
Bageesus.
You were concerned about thread hijacking the other day. Missliberties question is clearly an example thereof.
Republican Maverick at Large
-4:Strongly Disagree; 0:Meh; +4:Strongly Agree
State his specific
question(s).
What does he mean by 'encroaching' in the final paragraph?
RE: State his specific
See Ender's question was nothing more than ...
Why are you asking me? Ender can probably explain what he meant better than I. Why do you object to his wanting to discuss this topic with being thread-jakced?
EDIT:
I suspect that Ender meant:
We conservatives are funny like that. We rely on words having meanings. :)
Republican Maverick at Large
-4:Strongly Disagree; 0:Meh; +4:Strongly Agree
Reading comprehension
helps.
Quoted from Ender's diary:
RE: I think it is totally material
See RE: The question was narrow
Republican Maverick at Large
-4:Strongly Disagree; 0:Meh; +4:Strongly Agree
RE: RE: I think it is totally material
See Reading Comprehension
RE: The question was narrow
Ignorant strawmen!
And just how did people survive BEFORE roads and bridges were invented? Were there still inequalities of incomes even then?
Conservatives ALWAYS forget about roads and bridges. [ Insert standard reference to Specter's Rule of Bad Inductive Logic. ]
Even so, the is patently false on its face. Please provide references to prominant Republicans advocating letting the roads and bridges deteriorate which is what you are claiming.
Its not necessarily a Societal effort, though. The obvious alternative to public roads and bridges would be privately funded roads and bridges ... which would obviously involve a toll system. This would obviously be a pay as you go system which would be implemented without regard to income level (assuming a typical toll model) but even that could be addressed with either credits or something like an EZPass which could then take your income into account on your bills.
Personally I prefer the pay as you go with a fixed rate model because it minimizes my effective rate of "toll-based taxation". The poor may end up excluded from the use of the roads and bridges if they cannot afoord to pay the tolls, though. Sucks to be poor.
Ah, so you even recognize that you are doing it. Specter must be SOO offended at this point. :)
Republican Maverick at Large
-4:Strongly Disagree; 0:Meh; +4:Strongly Agree
"Sucks to be poor"
Wow, I think you nailed the conservative philosophy on the head!
You ask the wrong question, Ender
But the answer is obviousy "YES".
Besides, you'd have to really stretch your imagination to say otherwise in an effort to simply quibble and disagree for its own sake.
It's not a matter of "Is it fair?"
The question is if something should be done legislatively to prevent or minimize such occurances. The answer is no.
Interesting that you would suggest
that there is such a thing as a wrong question in your search for a preconceived result.
I would think the question in this limited instance, is how do the 12 prototypes come to grips with individual needs vs group needs, as in who pays for the roads.
It is the economy, stupid.
What?
Preconceived results?
where is the "vs. needs" part of the question? I didn't see it.
This is about earning levels.
I'm addressing the nature of the question and saying that I think it's the wrong question. I don't think "fair" by some subjective meaning of the word is the correct way to engage this issue.
Doctors making more than dishwashers is not a matter of fairness. It's a matter of scarcity of labor and resources.
Ender's question was nothing more than ...
Is it fair to have disparities in income levels. No roads, no needs, blah blah blah.
Is it in the nature of Democrats to never give a straight answer to obvious questions?
Republican Maverick at Large
-4:Strongly Disagree; 0:Meh; +4:Strongly Agree
It is in the nature
of democrats in general to have a broader vision. ONe that encompasses are more completely picture....... which is precisely what this country is aching for, a broader vision.
I agree Ender's question was narrow, but I think it is correct to point out that you don't have an opportunity for have wealth, even if unequal, without a civil society and the infrastructure that supports it, including bridges and roads as one small, relevant and timely example.
Every time you flush the toilet you should be grateful to your government that you have a reliable water system and water treatment, that takes care of waste. Without it you might have to go to work to make more money than me smelling like sh*t.
It is the economy, stupid.
Strictly a matter of opinion
Broader in what terms? BTW, that's a not veiled support of the GOP.
BTW, I think you overstate the value of public goods in these discussions. It's not that great of an accomplishment, not that expensive compared to the other 99+% percent of the budget and it's the very least they can do.
Talk about last place trophy syndrome.
Finally, it's hardly ideological to expect and/or support the proper functioning of basic utilities.
I think this is the problem
the battles we wage today are ideological.
Not all but some Republicans are so stuck an ideology, of no taxes, privatizing all services and govt in general is bad.
We saw this in Minnenapolis when Gov. Pawlenty and his veto pen.
http://minnpolitics.blogspot.com/2005/05/pawlenty-vetoes-transportation-...
http://minnpolitics.blogspot.com/2005/05/pawlenty-vetoes-transportation-...
Public goods is a fantastic accomplishment. We neglect them at our peril. That includes police, jails, water systems, roads, bridges, court buildings, schools, food inspections. These are all things we take for granted everyday.
The ideological battle isn't keeping the commons, it is who is going to pay for them. Republicans never want to raise taxes, but maintaining it costs money. Where will it come from.
http://www.startribune.com/587/story/1215760.html
The big veto pen includes striking down money for libraries.
Everyone wants to take advantage of these "trophy" services, yet the gop generally doesn't want to pay for them, while the dems generally do.
Your last statement is really the crux of the difference between the gop and the dems, imho. The gop wants to privatize the functioning of basic utilites, the dems do not.
It is the economy, stupid.
OK
but keep in mind that privatizing in itself is not bad. The devil is in the details.
If you take one thing to ponder from this, please consider all the state-run utility fiascoes and state-induced fiascoes before saying things like that.
the Problem with utilities is that it can't work like other products since it's not easy to promote competitive forces since most have a regional monopoly that is further tied down with regulations....both good and bad.
RE: It is in the nature
Ha, no it isn't. Just look at the middle east. The democrat's broad vision consists of pulling up our stakes and high-tailing it out of there ASAP. Some broad vision you got going there. I can just tell that you're all imagining the possibilities as we speak.
Republican Maverick at Large
-4:Strongly Disagree; 0:Meh; +4:Strongly Agree
I don't think the Middle East debate is a question
of broad or narrow vision.
It may bit in some sense but I think the overriding vision of what to do there is one of different visions all together.
These visions are formed by very different perceptions of what's at stake, what the risks are and what we can accomplish towards a positive end.
And the pro-war crowd, primarily from the GOP, are wrong on their vision IMO and wrong about what to do next. This is mainly because we view the "nature of the beast" quite differently....be it Al Qaeda, Iraq, Iran or whatever.
Fortunately (mainly for me), I'm totally out of juice on this topic and rarely discuss it.
That may all be true ...
and I'm not admitting that it is ...
but GWB clearly had a big vision for changing the face of the middle east and on a far grander scale that anything the Democrats have proposed or tried.
Republican Maverick at Large
-4:Strongly Disagree; 0:Meh; +4:Strongly Agree
Yes,
because GWB had a very different vision on what was possible and that was reinforced by a rationale based on a totally different understanding of the Middle East, its machinations and how it can be changed for our benefit.
I called BS the first second he uttered "Iraq". I thought whole undertaking was misguided and plain counterproductive and wrong. Sadly for all of us, I and many others haven't been proven wrong yet and most likely never will.
Neo-Cons and Wilsonian Liberals have a very different vision than I do about how we can influence the world and promote our own well-being and security.
As president, I would utterly obliterate any nation that attacked us. But that's highly unlikely to ever happen. As for rag tag extremists, I'd hunt them down covertly while doing what could be done to isolate them socially and politically among their own people. Their own people would wind up lynching most of them before we did.
See you just did
what I did.
I took this narrow question, of is it fair, relating to income diversity and said that you can't earn wealth without infrastructure that gets you to work, keeps you safe while you are at work, and keeps the lights running while you are working. Laws, courts and police, paid for with your tax dollars, to keep the people in order, so you can make it to work without being shot or robbed.
Rich or poor, fair or unfair we all need basic infrastructrue to generate wealth.
(I say this is the broad view. You can't measure wealth without including this aspect of the civil society we live in.)
So the fairness question comes when you ask how, how much and how do they divide the payment for the infrastructure, that the 12 prototypes use to generate their unequal income.
Then you just went off base and took the whole question overseas. Fine. Let's go overseas.
If you want to compare Iraq to the 12 prototypes, then you have to say that it is glaringly apparent that basic infrastructure and utilities, and govt services are vital to a stable and civil society that provides a safe working environment. The GOP model for Iraq is the experiment of making a govt using only 'the market forces' as motivation. They don't pay taxes in Iraq. So far they are having some trouble with this whole experimental model of govt.
The religon of Islam is much more inclined to view the greater good as a positive. That is in part why Hezbollah has been so successful. They fill a need that the US has been incapable or unwilling to fill.
But that still leaves unaswered the question of who pays for the basic infrastructure in Enders model that helps all of the 12 prototypes generate income by providing the infrastructure that gets you to work.
It is the economy, stupid.
RE: See you just did
It is only unanswered because it was never part of his original question. AND, I gave you a response to boot.
From RE: The question was narrow:
Republican Maverick at Large
-4:Strongly Disagree; 0:Meh; +4:Strongly Agree
Yeah that would be super.
We could have an electronic card swiper on every block to measure the inches that you drive, and on which roads, so that you only pay for the pavement you are actually traveling on.
Or maybe they could just imbed an electronic card swiper in everyone's muffler so that the road automatically takes money out of your bank account for every mile that you drive.
That way you would be sure that you wouldn't have to pay for any inch of roadway that you don't actually use.
It is the economy, stupid.
I'm glad I'm taking road trips while I'm young...
...if this is the direction that we're going as a country.
I've paid for those roads with my taxes. And I'll be none too happy when all of a sudden they start putting tolls on the roads because the government sold them off to private interests for a quick fix after decades of spendthrift habits in areas other than infrastructure.
From our history in the 20th century, we know that a country can not only maintain a system of free highways from its citizenry, it can CONSTRUCT A FREE NATIONWIDE SUPERHIGHWAY SYSTEM FROM SCRATCH-- a much more intensive proposition than mere maintenance-- without an undue tax burden, and without huge deficits.
Freeways are more convenient and more efficient economically, since there is not the need for building a toll-collecting infrastructure on the highways. Toll roads are less efficient and encourage sub-optimal traffic patterns, such as use of parallel secondary roads by through traffic to avoid tolls.
skymutt: wise and powerful... enlightened...
You mean you are willing
to pay for roads that someone else uses besides you?
You better change that bar back to blue.
Although I see some Republicans have jumped on the populist bandwagon of proposing *gasp* tax hikes to pay for infrastructure, then waited for the sky to fall!
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1153AP_Bridge_Highway_Spending.html
It is the economy, stupid.
Well if there's one man in Congress who is familiar with bridges
..it's Don Young:
He knows a lot about roads too...
This guy is asking for more tax money for roads because he treats the transportation budget like his own slush fund.
That's classic. What hubris. Sir, you ARE the problem!
Great find, missliberties.
skymutt: wise and powerful... enlightened...
This is so rich...
...that I put up a quickie diary
on DK about it.
skymutt: wise and powerful... enlightened...
I think
that it is a valid question because these ultimately conflict with the liberal value system and the liberal agenda.
And I am not talking about communism here. Liberals often bring up the concepts of "greater good", "common good", responsibility to society, etc and I believe those ultimately conflict with the basic fairness of inequality of achievement and standard of life.
What I am saying is that inequality is fair (if not necessarily pleasant) and while liberals "usually" point to the extremes in wealth as unfair and in need of regulation - it is a slippery slope. And believe me - legislation is coming.
"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR
No!
The greater good is served by building a road and a bridge for all who reap the fruits of the labor in unequal amounts, to travel on.
Income inequality is not the problem.
The problem is building a bridge benefits your 12 prototypes equally, in spite of the income disparity.
It is the economy, stupid.
just seizing your last statement
So based on that, wouldn't it be fair for all to pay equal amounts of money (in taxes) for rebuilding it?
"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR
That is the crux of my question.
Which I think is the more important question.
It is fair to earn unequal pay, but then how do you decide who pays what for maintaining the bridge, relative to income disparity.
It is the economy, stupid.
I know.
Believe me. I know what you're getting at. I'm just saying, all things being equal, that it's not the right question.
But hey, carry on...
You mischaracterize
imho, the liberal 'agenda'.
There is no need to legislate income disparity out of existence, which seems to be the end point of your question. It is not immoral for people to earn different incomes.
What is immoral is to collect taxes, and NOT use them in an open and transparent fashion to maintain the basic infrastructure and institutions that maintain a civil society.
It is not fair to give tax subsidies to huge corporate institutions that don't pay their fair share to maintain the countries infrastructure, as if they are put off by any obligation to do so.
Suggesting that 'moralism' is bad is an odd position to take in a society that prides itself on being great nation.
It is the economy, stupid.
I am not suggesting that
'moralism' is bad but more that the liberal morality sucks. :) Plain enough?
"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR
so you think liberal morality sucks do you?
Do you prefer conservative morality? You know, the kind where conservatives go out and do the very same things that liberals do, but refuse to admit it publically until they're busted for it?
How many adulterers are you going to say represent your morals? How many closeted gay people represent your morals? How many tax cheats and frauds represent your morals?
Liberals don't like adulterers, tax cheats or frauds. But they aren't going to deny that they are there. Liberals address the issues at hand. Conservatives point their fingers at others and call them immoral. Luckily for liberals, conservatives live in glass houses now days too.
So please, don't hate liberals or their values. They're being more honest about stuff than conservatives are.
RE: You mischaracterize
And IMHO he is NOT mischaracterizing anything.
More strawmen:
So you know of now efforts to legislate caps on CEO compensation? Bah.
And this principle is being violated where?
And who says that these corporations are not paying their fair share? How do we determine what's "fair" there? The trucking industry, for example, who is a major user of that infrastructure of which you speak pays huge amounts in taxes just at the pump alone. That makes their payment automatically pro-rated to their use. Why is that not "fair"? They then pass these costs onto the other corporations who make use of their services which is how the distribution of responsibility occurs here.
Republican Maverick at Large
-4:Strongly Disagree; 0:Meh; +4:Strongly Agree
Teachers
Teachers are a good example to use.
Without teachers, most of whom are paid by tax dollars, you would not have the skills necessary to go on to practice whatever lucrative profession you do that is highly valued by society.
You can't make an obscene salary as a hedge fund manager if you were never taught to read and write and add and subtract.
Teaching salaries are not set by the market. They are determined by the value the community assigns to them through the amount of taxes they are willing to pay.
qui tacet consentire
misdirection here
It is not a requirement for teachers to be paid by tax dollars and teachers in the private sector would do just as well if not better to accomplish the same job. Same for responsible and intelligent parents.
We chose to provide basic education on a mass level through the government but that does not mean it's the only way the system can function. It can of course go through the market.
"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR
Garbage
If education was not paid for by tax dollars it would not be available to millions of children.
qui tacet consentire
that's a separate question
of fairness as well but not related.
And education can also be put into the private realm using the tax dollars.
"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR
But
the salaries would still be paid by tax dollars and would not be set by the market.
qui tacet consentire
not if the tax dollars
are used as vouchers for parents to be able to pick private schools on their own (and supplement those vouchers if they so desire). Those private schools would set the salaries themselves.
"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR
Not to knock teachers
But aside from the basic "how to read" stuff, I think my contribution to my own education was (and is) of equal or greater weight as their contribution.
I can count the good teachers I've had on one hand.
Most of what I learned I learned on my own. Or maybe that's not entirely correct. I learned from books. So should the writers and publishers get paid more than the teacher?
"Perplexity is the beginning of knowledge" -- Kahlil Gibran
personally I agree
and even there I was reading long before I ever stepped into a school. Of course for most it's not the same.
Generally American public schools provide the basics that any responsible and reasonably intelligent parent can provide (but out of convenience mostly prefers to pay for through taxes and in other cases extra for private).
That is not to slam teachers of public (or private) schools but ultimately it's not individually a terribly important position.
"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR
I'm sorry for you folk.
I can count the number of lousy teachers I had in public school K-12 on one hand. I had some excellent teachers that strove to make me WANT TO LEARN, not just memorize.
Thank god for the public schools in Westchester. But that's why my folks moved out of Yonkers.
It's not that
It's not something to be "sorry" about. I feel (and felt) no emotional value towards that circumstance. It's just my objective assessment of my experience in public schools. It was what it was.
Note that I did not say that all the teachers were lousy. Most were adequate. But very few were good.
"Perplexity is the beginning of knowledge" -- Kahlil Gibran
No it really is...
something to feel sorry about. Having a really first rate teacher makes a huge difference. This isn't a personal knock against you but clearly that isn't something you experienced and that's unfortunate.
My math teacher in high school was fantastic. He was a successful business man and had plenty of cash. He taught because he liked it and he brought terrific energy and enthusiasm to the subject.
One of my english teachers was similarly terrific. A gray haired wide set woman named Mrs Ryker (we called her "the commander" after the character on Star Trek Next Generation) she was knowledgable on a huge variety of topics. I love collecting rare tidbits of obscure trivia and springing them on people. She consistently not only already knew the things I would bring up but could then go on and add some other detail I had no idea about. I loved that woman.
My high school had an attached day care. I attended that daycare as a child and when (thirteen years later) I attended the high school the teacher who ran the child care classes knew me immediately. She was a great teacher and I owe a lot of my modern day parenting skills to the lessons I learned in her classes about how to interact with children in ways that are neither patronizing nor threatening.
I worked with the disabled kids for a while and the teachers there were just unbelievable in terms of how much of themselves they put into working with those kids with no recognition and no money.
And that's just high school, to say nothing of my middle school biology teacher who got me seriously thinking about marine biology with her passion for the subject, or my various college teachers. My favorite physics professor was a gruff older gentleman who assigned hellish amounts of homework but his classroom lectures and diagrams were polished to an amazing degree. I had dropped out of one of his year long series of classes winter term, and when I came back to retake it the next year he made a point of saying the first day that he was glad to see I'd returned. I'd honestly never been prouder.
A good teacher is an incredible gift.
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
Agree completely
My senior English teacher was a gem who helped mold me into the person I am today.
qui tacet consentire
good point
We can't disregard that teachers can have both positive and negative effect on young and malleable minds. It is quite possible though that many teachers do not have much effect whatsoever due to the rather basic subject matter (unless they actively engage and try to influence their students).
I do not remember my school teachers at all (that's how much impression they made on me)