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This wasn't a discussion about externalities, but a discussion about direct costs. By moving to hypothetical "externalities" you simply sidestepped the conversation altogether.
Nobody said anything like that. Your strawmen have no power here.
If you think there is cause for concern, damn straight you should read your daughter's diary entries. Monitor her internet use, too. Kids don't generally need to live in a panopticon but sometimes it makes sense to take that approach. I'd rather my children be upset about an occasional "invasion of privacy" than be confident in the sanctity of their phones or diaries and run off with an internet boyfriend, and that's not a hypothetical example. I had a neighbor whose 12-year-old daughter snuck away with a 23-year-old "boyfriend" she met online. That sort of thing is terrifying. Privacy is just not a very important thing for children to get from their parents.
Not at all. To the contrary--you want to turn teachers into parents. I want teachers to share material information with parents, because they work for the parents, literally on the parents' dime. If that information does result in abuse, there are legal protections in place for that sort of thing. If a teacher merely believes that information will result in abuse, that's in many cases just the teacher being bigoted, which is also material information a teacher should share. "I hate your kind so much that I will actively undermine your parenting" is the kind of warning teachers really ought to give to parents, so parents can make an informed choice about where to send their children to be educated. (Wishful thinking, I know.)
I don't think that at all. "Gender-affirming" treatments are not healthcare any more than a nose job is. We do clearly have a straight values disagreement here--you think that mutilating people is "health care," and I don't.
Yeah, see above I guess. "The internet is worse, so it's fine if my kid's library peddles porn" is certainly a take, I'll give you that.
Well, this is the values disagreement though, isn't it? It boils down to you thinking it's healthy for teachers to talk to kids about sex and sexuality without their parents' knowledge, because some parents might do objectionable things as a result, and I think it's not healthy for teachers to talk to kids about sex and sexuality without their parents' knowledge, because some teachers might do objectionable things as a result. You want teachers to make judgment calls at the expense of the parent-child relationship, and I want parents to be the ones making maximally-informed judgment calls, both because parents are generally in a better position to make those calls, and because I think parents have some right to make those calls. Or in other words:
I think this is perhaps the real site of our disagreement. You don't think schools exist to help parents, except accidentally. You think they exist "to serve the societal good at large." But if that's the case, sending children to public school is a horrible choice and no parent should make it. They're just sending raw materials to the collective culture-factory, which will do with those children as it sees fit. I'm sure most public educators would want to walk you back, a lot. Your reference to "personal whims" is of course pure rhetorical bullshit: every school my children have ever attended has been explicit, nay anxious, about ensuring good school-parent partnerships, finding ways for teachers and parents to cooperate, collaborate, and coordinate. Open sharing of concerns and information is central to the proper functioning of a school. Getting lost in value conflicts about the sexuality of children is not only kinda creepy (yes, even in high school), it's detrimental to the whole damn enterprise. It allows identity politics to interfere with what is actually best for the child: well-supported parenting.
I skipped all the parts where you put words in my mouth; I don't see much use in responding to outrageous strawmen and maximally-uncharitable takes where you impose an invented narrative on me and then castigate me for it. Attributing to me views I do not hold, and conclusions I have not endorsed, is not helpful and clarifies nothing.
Just to furnish one ready example, I have absolutely never called Democrats "pedophiles," nor ever implied that you were yourself one; I never even used that word. Please CTRL-F if you don't believe me! Coming back with "well you obviously meant the word groomer to imply--" No. I meant what I said, and I said what I meant. I rather specifically distinguished accomplice-groomers from groomers-who-go-on-to-abuse; if you missed that explanation, all I can do is ask you to read it again and try to think with nuance instead of rage. I am sorry that this was upsetting to you, but it was your own bad reading that appears to have upset you--not the words I actually wrote.
Since I am apparently not a party to the conversation happening in your head, I will also now excuse myself from the conversation happening here.
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