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To: shades who wrote (37078)	7/27/2005 1:27:02 PM
From: anachronist	Respond to of 110194

"the sheer population of Asian countries may allow them to train more scientists and engineers than the U.S. while devoting a smaller share of their economy to science and technology." As long as America remains an attractive place to live and invest, and as long as we keep our borders open to the best, brightest and hardest working people in the world, this will not come to pass. The danger, of course, is that we are reversing the course of centuries of progress by making our society more closed and less free. We hold the seeds of our own destruction. Long live liberty's century! <g>

To: shades who wrote (37078)	7/27/2005 1:48:00 PM
From: NOW	Respond to of 110194

leadership? g

To: shades who wrote (37078)	7/27/2005 4:03:52 PM
From: Oblomov	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 110194

I think it's a mistake (and the hallmark of a closed society) to view humans as a fixed quantity. Whether the immigrant stock is sufficiently specialized or not, I believe that anyone who is willing to take risks, learn, and work hard is trainable. We need to radically rethink the educational system. One of my favorite educational theorists, John Taylor Gatto, has written extensively on how the structure of the public education system was built in service of an industrial economy, with its attendant need for social regimentation (in fact the public school system was based on the one installed in Germany under the Bismarck). The pressures of global competition will only increase, and the society that can unleash its human capital most effectively will thrive. I believe that the environment that most enables the utilization of human capital is one based on self-government and protection of individual liberty. It's sad, but unfortunately true that we must train people in what this means, that they have obligations as well as rights. The incentives within the educational system should be aligned to encourage the maximization of potential, not the achievement of arbitrary competency hurdles. Further, the system should be cleansed of educationist bureacrats who know nothing of how the world works and who cling to faddish theories about childhood development or whatnot. We have gotten behind the rest of the world partly out of lassitude, partly out of Western self-doubt, and partly out of a misplaced rejection of our own institutions and traditions. I hope that the events of recent years are finally waking Americans up.