Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Micro towns in the west

I like small towns.
Was raised on a cattle ranch between Fairplay and Hartesl Colorado in the late 50’s and early 60’s. The school in Fairplay was small and 6,7,and 8th grades were one room. My graduating class was 13. My aunt and uncle moved there in 62, he was the town doctor and my aunt taught school. The population back then was around 400 and now maybe 800. It was a wonderful way to be brought up and I still cherish my time there.
The town is still going strong, bigger schools and a good economy. Long live small town America.

That eliminates a large % of kids being able to get an education because it would be priced beyond their parent. This country became so successful because every kid could get an education regardless of his parent's income. Many other countries have followed suit but before they did, American kids grew up to lead the world in industry because every one of them could read, do math and have at least a basic grip on science.
The problem in recent years is that the liberals have got control of our free education system and destroyed it by turning it into a political weapon.

Would it? Eliminate property taxes, parents pool together. When lots of parents are getting thousands back because of EIC, once you pool together those thousands, it comes easy.

I'm tired of socialist everything. Government needs to be out of schools and marriage.

My Wife has cousins around Holyoke, CO, and we have been to several high school graduation there over the past 30 years. The last time we attended a high school graduation there about one-half the graduating seniors were Hispanic and about one-half of the Hispanic girls were already mothers at 18. Interesting and a little frightening too. I hope that I don't live to see the U.S. decline into bilingual country, like Canada, where everything will be printed in English and Spanish and everyone will need to be bilingual to succeed. Today's immigrants don't assimilate because they can live their lives without learning to speak English.

Public schools benefit us all even though we don't use them directly. It's like our highway system. Those who don't drive benefit by having the goods they buy coming in on trucks, ambulances getting to their houses faster, etc. Whenever tax money is used for the public good many will scream socialism but many times that public good actually is good.

Social Security and Retirements too?

I'm with Rock.

Used to be, school was seen as a common good, and it was in terms of having functional citizens. But yeah, the teacher's unions and the education "professionals" have weaponized education. There's no Three Rs any more, and these kids hit the world with a splat, too stupid to even know what's been done to them.

My Mom went to a one-room schoolhouse south of Surrey, ND. I still have the school clock, a Seth Thomas. I was thinking of giving it back or donating it somewhere, but the last time I went back, the schoolhouse site had been plowed under. That wetted my eyes pretty good.

You folks' relatives would seem to be a pension actuary's nightmare.


Haven't heard of any centenarians in our family, either side. Think I had a great aunt make it to 94.

Not mine buddy, not mine.

Hahaha!


Yeah.....just a little socialism here and there I guess.

Popo and fire departments are socialist too.

Better do away with them.

Let the poor people solve their own crimes and put out their own dam fires.

Sure, just give me back the money I paid into. You strike me as a guy that enjoys government checks though.

See, lots of pseudo conservatives on the Fire.

Government is supposed to do what people can not do themselves, supposed to.

LMAO. What a maroon.

Almo is not that far from Albion where my parents live. Ive got a friend that lives in Almo. Its right by City of Rocks. My little sister went to the little grade school in Albion and had to go to Declo for the higher grades. Also kids could go to Malta too. Its not that far, maybe 20 miles tops.

Bb

school buses are necessary, so that retired Coasties can virtue signal.

and have a social life.

One of Albert Einstein's most famous quotes is "everything should be made as simple as possible, but not any simpler". I suggest that goes for government as well.

In it's purest form of "small government" conservatism (which isn't conservatism at all, but a form of anarchy), the child would pay for it's own education, since the child is the beneficiary. Reductio ad absurdum? No, I don't think so.

Like economics, extreme small government advocates assume that people are "rational man", i.e. individuals make rational choices at all times, and every individual has all the knowledge, information and ability necessary to make optimal decisions. That's four assumptions that don't hold in the real world, which makes many of the arguments of extreme small government advocates and economists nothing more than theoretical rants.

The arguments about education is interesting, because at it's core the assumption is that the value of education is the same as it's costs -- which isn't true, not even close. The return on the investment in education (no matter who makes it) is many times more than the cost.

Further, on the macro level, it doesn't matter who pays. You did not pay for your own education, so your taxes could just as easily be viewed as paying society back for the education you have already received.

Making sense again, eh?

Well, after 8th grade I did pay for most of my education................sorta

I haven't been through Almo in years. Do they still have the Almo Massacre sign for the Indian battle that apparently never happened? Historians have been trying to get them to remove it for years.

For those who are wondering, in the 1930's, the sign was erected to commemorate the killing of 300 Oregon Trail immigrants by Indians. The battle never happened. Nobody knows how the story got started. Records show that between 1840 and 1860, the prime years for the Trail, only about 400 people were killed by Indians. This would be an increase of 75%. Researchers have been all over the supposed site many times and have found nothing - no artifacts, no signs of entrenchment, nothing.