[Byron Quick]

Political tags -- such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth -- are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire. The former are idealists acting from highest motives for the greatest good of the greatest number. The latter are surly curmudgeons, suspicious and lacking in altruism. But they are more comfortable neighbors than the other sort. Robert Anson Heinlein

Which are you? Surly curmudgeon or altruistic idealist?

I'm a surly curmudgeon who is suspicious and lacking in altruism.

[MicroBalrog]

I want people to be free - of pure altruism.

[Sir Galahad]

I'm suspicious of defining myself according to definitions made by a writer of science fiction. Seems that's been tried before....ah, yes! The Church of Scientology from L. Ron Hubbard, another sci-fi writer.

"Good evening! Would you like to come over to the Celebrity Center and take the personality test?"

"No, thanks. I already know I'm an *******.":rolleyes:

[Byron Quick]

Yep, but seeing as how Robert Heinlein never tried to make a buck at it...I think there's a big difference there-don't cha know?

[Sir Galahad]

I still fail to see the need to define myself according to the standards of a writer of fiction. In fact, I fail to see the point in quasi-religious reverence paid to the fictional works of some writers. Geez, when I lived in Hollywood, I couldn't shake a braid of garlic without hitting some black-bedecked Goth who thought Anne Rice was a prophetess and they'd all be joining the ranks of the undead and drinking blood happily ever after. It got so bad, there were actual warnings passed out in some certain bars that drinking blood could subject one to AIDS/HIV, so be careful doing it because---these people were actually doing it!!! I wish I had thought of selling black lipstick; I could be buying that Ferrari. Funny thing is, some people will dismiss religious writings as "fiction" but then religiousize known fictional writings. Hmmm.....that's food for thought, no? Well, I'll go right on being good ol' Kevan---secret's out, folks from 1911 forum---and if I have to define myself, why, I'll just pull out a non-fiction reference book about poisonous reptiles and pit vipers and noxious insects and cross-reference those definitions with that from a placard at a rest area on I-17 that describes cholla cactus.

[Byron Quick]

ok, whatever floats your boat, guy.

[Preacherman]

I'm a polite and wannabe-holy curmudgeon...

:neener: :D

[Chris Rhines]

I'm an altruistic idealist. Can't you tell? ;)

- Chris

[Hkmp5sd]

Since I'm not an ill-tempered person, I have to use a synonym of curmudgeon. I'm therefore, a barbarian. An insensitive and uncultured person, which is the inverse of the "politically correct" individual.

[sm]

C.I.T.
curmudgeon in training
:p

[priv8ter]

I guess that would define me too re1973...my wife is always telling me I'm too young to act like a curmudgeon yet...

Can't wait until I'm thirty...will that be old enough?

[mercedesrules]

Which are you? Surly curmudgeon or altruistic idealist?

Curmudgeon.

MR

[Tamara]

"A misanthrope is someone who can't understand why solitary confinement is considered punishment" -Florence King

"Ask a person whether they believe there should be state-mandated, teacher-led, mandatory prayer in public schools. If they say 'no', they're a liberal. If they say 'yes', they're a conservative. If they say 'Public Schools?!?!", then you've found yourself a libertarian." -Vin Suprinowycz


By the lights of gods-on-earth like these, I am a curmudgeonly, misanthropic, libertarian. ;)

[MicroBalrog]

"Ask a person whether they believe there should be state-mandated, teacher-led, mandatory prayer in schools. If they say 'no', they're a liberal. If they say 'yes', they're a conservative. If they say 'Public Schools?!?!", then you've found yourself a libertarian." -Vin Suprinowycz

I see. Only the children of the rich should be educated. :confused:

[Byron Quick]

I see. Only the children of the rich should be educated.

First, consider the concept of personal responsibility for YOUR children. Note the fact that they are not MY children. Next, consider home schooling as just one of the alternatives to government financed indoctrination... I mean education.

[MicroBalrog]

Note that children are humans, even though they do not have full responsibility for their acts. Thus, they should have the protection of society. Some parents will not or cannot provide homeschooling (the stupid, the careless, the poor). The option of "bad government education" is better than "not knowing how to read and write because mum was on Crack".

[Byron Quick]

The children you reference certainly need more protection than public education can ever provide.

[MicroBalrog]

The fact remains that a lot of people are too poor to pay for private education. Their children are to be allowed to suffer because of it.

[grampster]

I'm an optimistic pessimist. I really want everything
to work out, but I just don't think it will.

grampster:D :neener:

[pax]

Tamara,

I'll see your two quotes and raise you one more: "If you want government to intervene domestically, you're a liberal. If you want government to intervene overseas, you're a conservative. If you want government to intervene everywhere, you're a moderate. If you don't want government to intervene anywhere, you're an extremist." – Joseph Sobran
Curmudgeonly, misanthropic, libertarian, extremist.

MicroBalrog,

I'm always astonished by people who think that someone who is against organized theft is therefore against whatever good thing the theft is supposed to fund. Being against public schools doesn't mean being against education by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, given the abyssmal record of the public schools lately, it could be an indication of the exact opposite -- or it could only indicate a visceral distaste for using stolen money to indoctrinate kids.

pax

A general State education is a mere contrivance for molding people to be exactly like one another; and as the mold in which casts them is that which pleases the dominant power in the government, whether this be monarch, an aristocracy, or a majority of the existing generation; in proportion as it is efficient and successful, it establishes a despotism over the mind, leading by a natural tendency over the body. ... All attempts by the State to bias the conclusions of its citizens on disputed subjects are evil. -- John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (1859)

[Standing Wolf]

I like to consider myself a member of the human race. There are people who'd disagree.

[MicroBalrog]

Pax : Can you imagine a world without government entirely? No cops, no firement, no armies? No. So you can't imagine a world without taxes either. From there, you're arguing size.

Besides, you're talking of the abysmal record of AMERICAN public schools. Quite a few countries have far better ones.

[mercedesrules]

(MicroBalrog)Can you imagine a world without government entirely? No cops, no firement, no armies?

You didn't ask me, but I will answer. Yes.

The fact remains that a lot of people are too poor to pay for private education.

So, you agree that public schools are a socialistic welfare program.

MR

[MicroBalrog]

Excuse me, but that's insane.:rolleyes:
Governments are there to protect our rights. We should guard them from exceeding their authority, but that's different.

Yes, I admit that public education is a socialistic welfare program. So?

[mercedesrules]

(MB)Governments are there to protect our rights. We should guard them from exceeding their authority, but that's different.
Yes, I admit that public education is a socialistic welfare program. So?

Just checking. You were the very first person to answer the thread by saying:I want people to be free - of pure altruism.

So, I find it odd for you to be for a program that forcibly takes part of my income and gives it to strangers to teach I-don't-know-what to children I don't know. You seem to be saying, "Regardless of the morality of the means, I want all the beautiful children of the world to get an education."

To me, an education is a luxury best paid for by the beneficiaries - the child and his parents.

Hmmm...or maybe you meant that you are a pure altruist who wants people to be controlled. If so, never mind. :)

MR

[MicroBalrog]

Let's see, if I got to re-write the Constitution and come up with a governemnt system, it would be a government which protects the rights of
the citizenry. (BoR government)

However, because I understand that a certain amount of taxes is necessary anyway (to finance cops, judges, prisons, militaries, legislators etc.), it's only a matter of degree.

Also, I don't know about your country, but in my country the High Court of Justice has ruled education to be a basic civil right.

[Byron Quick]

http://www.lp.org/issues/program/edu.html

Check that link out...Micro.


Friend, also be aware that your country has a degree of socialism in its fabric that even some of our liberals find shocking.

[MicroBalrog]

One problem: Lots of countries have public education that is not in the condition America's is.

[Byron Quick]

:confused:

Why is that a problem?

[MicroBalrog]

Kind of puts a cramp in the argument that public education is necessarily bad.

[mercedesrules]

(MB)Kind of puts a cramp in the argument that public education is necessarily bad.
My condemnation doesn't depend on public education's outcome, but its method of coercive funding. I would condemn it even if it was able to create a six-year-old Harvard Ph.D. in one year.

To be perfectly clear: I don't want to pay for any stranger's education. You want to force me to.

MR

[MicroBalrog]

I'd rather have everybody pay X dollars in taxes than have people starve in the streets or end up uneducated, if I had the choice.

[Tamara]

Excuse me, but that's insane.:rolleyes:

Find me a room in the Rubber Ramada next to mercedesrules, please. :)

[riverdog]

Black and White, Yes or No -- no maybe's. I'm gray, it is a matter of degrees.

[Chris Rhines]

Governments are there to protect our rights. This is the first time in months that I have laughed so hard. Thank you, MicroBalrog!

Let's see, if I got to re-write the Constitution and come up with a governemnt system, it would be a government which protects the rights of
the citizenry. Certainly a noble aspriation, and I'm willing to stipulate that said government might take, well, maybe as long as a year to jump from protecting citizens' rights to violating them wholesale. It only took the US government a few weeks.

I'd rather have everybody pay X dollars in taxes than have people starve in the streets or end up uneducated, if I had the choice. And how exactly do you think that you have the right to determine the disposal of my money?

- Chris

[matis]

_______________________________________________________

"Stupidity cannot be cured with money, or through education, or by legislation. Stupidity is not a sin, the victim can't help being stupid. But stupidity is the only universal capital crime; the sentence is death, there is no appeal, and execution is carried out automatically and without pity." Rober Anson Heinlein
________________________________________________________

Byron Quick -- I love Heinlein and your sig line above.

But unfortunately this no longer applies.

With the rise of socialism, we now subsidize the poor, who comprise the majority of our stupid. We glorify them and we demonize the intelligent (the achievers). We attack the achievers and producers as "oppressors", "exploiters", and so on.

And we shield the poor from responsibility for their condition. In the USA and even in Israel, any able-bodied person who hasn't troubled himself to learn to make a living, deserves, perhaps, a soup kitchen, but no more than that.

Since whatever you subsidize you get more of, where are we headed?



MicroBalrog, my ex-wife and I are far from rich. Yet we have home-schooled our daughter from grade four through grade nine. One manages to do what one considers important.

And since you boasted (in a different thread) that you voted Shinui (Israeli far left and rabidly anti-religious party) you will no doubt be pleased to learn that starting September she will attend a Chabad Yeshiva (Jewish, ultra-Orthodox high-school). :)



It is true that many socialist countries or countries with socialistic school systems produce better academic results than does the USA.

But they ALL imbue their wards with a love for government and their bureaucratic masters and with a fear and hatred of freedom.



In the end, perhaps Heinlein IS right. This stupid system must ultimately collapse, as it did in the Soviet Union.

Socialism is simply a method to delay the penalty for stupidity, and for sharing the penalty with the whole society.


Oh. In case you might need help in figuring it out -- CURMUDGEON!



Matis

[Ian]

Given the two categories, I'm much close to being a surly curmudgeon...though I'm usually not surly, and definitely too young for the title of 'curmudgeon'. In addition, I graduated from a government school just two years ago, so my experience with them is probably a good deal more recent than most peoples'. The competance of a lot of my fellow graduates is underwhelming. Twelve years of 7+ hours per day, five days per week, 36 weeks per year and people come out not knowing things like how to pronounce "cutlery". I have a friend currently in a government adolescent indoctrination camp who actually did circulate theoft-joked-about petition to ban dihydrogen monoxide because of its dangerous properties. He got 62 signatures on it, including five teachers.

If a young person is genuionely interested in becoming educated, a part-time job and a library will teach far more than a funded-by-force government center will. Also, staying out of school will keep them away from the developing alcoholics, dope heads, and other sundry crappy influences.

The public school system: "Usually a twelve year sentence of mind control. Crushing creativity, smashing individualism, encouraging collectivism and compromise, destroying the exercise of intellectual inquiry, twisting it instead into meek subservience to authority."
Walter Karp, Editor Harper's Magazine

[Byron Quick]

Kind of puts a cramp in the idea that public education is necessarily bad.
MicroBalrog,
You are laboring under a misapprehension,i.e, that I believe that the "goodness" or "badness" of public education is relevant to the proposition that public education should, in fact, exist as currently constituted. I do not believe that.

I believe that general education of the populace is a necessary adjunct to the freedom of the individual. I believe that public education...funded and controlled by the government...is a danger to the freedom of the individual.

I believe totally in education for all. I fear that with government controlled education...the dangers outweigh the benefits.

[MicroBalrog]

MicroBalrog, my ex-wife and I are far from rich. Yet we have home-schooled our daughter from grade four through grade nine. One manages to do what one considers important.

And since you boasted (in a different thread) that you voted Shinui (Israeli far left and rabidly anti-religious party) you will no doubt be pleased to learn that starting September she will attend a Chabad Yeshiva (Jewish, ultra-Orthodox high-school).

While this is totally off-topic, Shinui is a right-of-center party. They are not anti-religious, but they are against the stupid restraints on individual liberty brought on by the "religious" lobby (such as bans on non-religious marriages). Lots of orthodox jews.

My family scraped together public school money. But a lot are unemployed. Should kids suffer because their Dad was 7th and not 1st in the job line?
Being poor is not always a choice.

[MicroBalrog]

I believe that public education...funded and controlled by the government...is a danger to the freedom of the individual.

The only way to have education for all is to have public education. It's that simple. By the way - how much government oppression is there in Switzerland?

[pax]

MicroBalrog,

When you have children, you take upon yourself certain obligations. Among those are seeing to it that the children receive food, shelter, clothing, and education.

To supply those needs, you might at some point be tempted to point a gun at your next door neighbor and demand that he provide things your children want or need, or that you want or need for them.

That's a bad idea, if only because it is bad for the children to see that their father (or mother) is a conscienceless thief. It messes up the kids' moral educations, if nothing else.

Of course the system is set up now so that you don't have to point the gun at your neighbors yourself; you can merely tell the government to do it for you. That lends a veneer of legitimacy to what is otherwise an illegitimate and ugly idea.

Is it right to hire armed men to threaten force against your neighbors if they don't do what you want them to do? Is it right to tell hired thugs to do something on your behalf which is wrong for you to do yourself?

I think not.

pax

Whenever is found what is called a paternal government, there is found state education. It has been discovered that the best way to ensure implicit obedience is to commence tyranny in the nursery. – Benjamin Disraeli

[pax]

By the way - how much government oppression is there in Switzerland?
Standing on the edge of a cliff leaning over is a dangerous activity, even if you once saw someone doing it who didn't fall.

pax

...our schools have been scientifically designed to prevent overeducation from happening. --- William Troy Harris, U.S. Commissioner of Education 1889-1906

[MicroBalrog]

Pax,
There are two problems with your argument:

a) Even in a libertarian state, where government only finances the police and courts, taxes will still be collected. That is, armed men will still be robbing people. The difference is only in the amount of money collected.

b) If another parent (neighbour) is starving his child because he wants the money for drugs, it's perfectly right to break down the door and threaten the ba***ard with a Solothurn to make him feed the kid. To the same tune, it's perfectly fine to make him supply the kid with other essentials.

[pax]

b) If another parent (neighbour) is starving his child because he wants the money for drugs, it's perfectly right to break down the door and threaten the ba***ard with a Solothurn to make him feed the kid. To the same tune, it's perfectly fine to make him supply the kid with other essentials.
The parent, maybe.

Would it be okay to knock down his neighbor's door and do the same thing? "Feed your neighbor's kid or I'll lock you up or shoot you!"

Think about it.

Drop that line for awhile, and try asking yourself whose responsibility it is if a 25 year old man does not know how to read, write, or cipher.

pax

These kids were smart, they were enthusiastic, and they were young enough so that schools hadn't destroyed all their interest in learning. They could still actually use their brains, which in Thorne's view was a sure sign they hadn't yet completed formal education. -- Michael Crichton

[MicroBalrog]

If a person reaches 18, is of normal intelligence, and can't, at least, read and write, then, if his parents can't prove they did all they could to teach him or provide him with education, well, they should be punished.

You didn't address point a.

[Ian]

MicroBalrog - A taxless society is certainly a possibility. Even if we can't accomplish it in our lifetimes, there's no reason to accept any more taxation than the absolute minimum possible.

[pax]

MicroBalrog,

The reason I didn't answer point #1 is because the only answer that kept coming to mind was that it sounded as if you were saying, "Well, odds are that you're going to get raped anyway, so you might as well go solicit sex on the streetcorners."
If a person reaches 18, is of normal intelligence, and can't, at least, read and write, then, if his parents can't prove they did all they could to teach him or provide him with education, well, they should be punished.
And what should that illiterate adult do?

pax

It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. -- Albert Einstein

[MicroBalrog]

And what should that illiterate adult do?

Well, in your taxless society, all he can do is work at 14-hour-a-shift menial jobs (if he has a job), so he has no time (and probably no money) to educate himself or his children if he reproduces, perpetuating the cycle..

Of course, in my society, he'd get educated by the government, for free.

[MicroBalrog]

MicroBalrog - A taxless society is certainly a possibility. Even if we can't accomplish it in our lifetimes, there's no reason to accept any more taxation than the absolute minimum possible

In a taxless society, there would be nobody to enforce the law. Therefore, there would be no law.

[pax]

Well, in your taxless society, all he can do is work at 14-hour-a-shift menial jobs (if he has a job), so he has no time (and probably no money) to educate himself or his children if he reproduces, perpetuating the cycle..
Not quite.

In the ideal society, anyone old enough to feed himself is old enough to take responsibility for the contents of his own mind and the shape of his own character, that much is true.

Our hypothetical illiterate might, for instance, find friends from whom he can borrow books, and teach himself. He might get lessons from a charitable organization, funded by people who willingly give their time and money to teach others for free -- or in exchange for his pledge to pay it forward by volunteering to teach others in turn. He might get lessons from the next door neighbor, in exchange for watering the other guy's lawn. He might find an employer willing to teach him what he needs to know in order to do a good job, and he might be willing to take lower wages in exchange for that. He might do any number of things. What he wouldn't do is spend his whole life blaming his parents, the government, the next door neighbors, and the phases of the moon for his own ignorance and lack of resourcefulness.

Further, in the ideal society, there would be plenty of competition in the education market: lots of tutors, schools, universities, colleges, think tanks, and learning centers, all of whom are vying to survive in what would probably become a fairly competitive market. That means schools would be much cheaper than they are now, and (not coincidentally) would also be more efficient at providing education.
Of course, in my society, he'd get educated by the government, for free.
Don't fool yourself. It isn't free and never could be. Just because you don't see the high cost doesn't mean it isn't there.

There really ain't no such thing as a free lunch, and anyone who tells you otherwise is either a liar or a fool.

pax

Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is. -- Isaac Asimov

[MicroBalrog]

He might get lessons from a charitable organization, funded by people who willingly give their time and money to teach others for free --

You know why welfare and govt. sponsored education came to be? Exactly. Because there weren't enough charitable groups to pay for it all.

[MicroBalrog]

Read Dikkens for a description of a society without welfare.

[Airboss]

Guess what the Government didn't give me my rights nor can they take them from me!
The Government should get back in the business of doing what the constitution said it was to do.

byRaiseing a Army and Navy
Moveing the mail and collecting custom duties.
I have read my copy of the Constitution again and no where can I find"takeing money by force to educate children".Please help me here point out where the Government should educate anyone?

[MicroBalrog]

What about your state/local government?:D

[Dannyboy]

Just out of curiousity, how many here were homeschooled or went to private schools?

[MicroBalrog]

I went to public school until Grade 9, then switched to private. Graduated with distinction three days ago.:D :D :D

[trooper]

Some months ago when I joined this board I had a rather heated (on my side :-) debate with some other members about foreign politics. It eventually came to the point that I specifically asked another member if I really needed to remind him that the US constitution is based on the assumption that all people are created of equal worth.

He answered that according to this principle all people should start out with the same opportunities and then PROVE their worth. It made a lot of sense to me.

If you leave the education to the parents then young people will NOT have the same opportunities to prove what they're capable of. If my parents are crack-smoking unemployed dumb****es I will most certainly not get any education and therefore end up like them.

While a few people might be able to escape from this cycle on their own or with the help of a kind soul, most are not.

The question is simple as this: will you accept inequality as a result of total liberty or are you willing to sacrifice a bit of liberty to achieve equal chances for starters (at least to some extent)?


Regards,

Trooper

[Ian]

MicroBalrog - Right, there'd be no law (aside from contractual obligations enforced by private companies, of course).

The question is simple as this: will you accept inequality as a result of total liberty or are you willing to sacrifice a bit of liberty to achieve equal chances for starters (at least to some extent)? We have no choice but to accept inequality among people. The idea that all people are equal is so blatantly false as to be laughable. Look at any two people and just try to say that they are the same with a straight face. Any two given people will have different skills, different personalities, different handicaps, and different desires. To make people the same would require nothing short of mass cloning and lobotomies. Every country that has tried to make inhabitants as identical beings has gone through a horrific genocide, and most have fallen apart completely.

It's only in the eyes of the law that all people are the same (or should be). Each and every person has the same rights, and thus their actions must be judged by the law in the exact same way.

In a social setting, the free market is by far the best way to provide for the needs and desires of each individual. A free market offers a wide variety of any given product, and also provides an incentive for people to create new products to sate any unfulfilled desire existing in the population. Education is no different.

I could go to a library book sale (held twice annually around here) and for twenty or thirty dollars get a state education worth of knowledge in books. And I could learn that material in a couple months at most, instead of twelve years. Better yet, I could go to the local private university library and read far more for free there. The idea that we have to steal from everybody to give a few people something they may well not want in the first place is flawed in several ways (ignoring for the moment the moral problems involved in the stealing part). One serious side-effect is that a mandatory education will be way below the desires of many students. Is it right to hold back those who could excel for the sake of those who do not or cannot? Secondly, a government education system automatically cripples the private sector of education. Just as with NASA and the space program, most people are unwilling to pay for a high-quality solution when a subsidized low-quality solution already exists. Finally, of course, is the problem that once government sees itself in a position of authority over the mandatory education, it will throw all sorts of regulations at every private provider of education, again destroying much of the potential industry there.

[Byron Quick]

If you are able bodied and do not have the gumption to come up to me and say,"Mister, I don't have a job, do you have any yard work or handy work around the house I can do for you?" I've got the work and I'm willing to pay.

I'm also willing to help you find a suitable area for a garden, and supply seeds and gardening equipment. We'll negotiate a split and you'll have the satisfaction and self respect of be self sufficient.

I'll help you help yourself, friend. If you're such a layabout that, being of sound mind and body, you won't do such...then I'll serenely watch you starve to death.

I've got a family tradition of such. My father took several men in...gave them jobs, taught them to weld, to plumb, to repair appliances. How to balance a checkbook and maintain a budget. What credit is and how to use it and not abuse it. He didn't give them fish...he taught them how to fish. In doing so, he helped them for their lifetimes...my father died five years ago. Even so, there ten men living who my father helps every day.
Plus their wives, their children...for what these children receive from their fathers...my father taught them to give.

One conservative such as my father is worth any number of welfare supporting socialists.

And he did it without stealing a penny for such purposes from his neighbors.

[trooper]

We have no choice but to accept inequality among people.

It's only in the eyes of the law that all people are the same (or should be).

Right. However, I think people should have the same opportunities from the start. What they make of it is another entirely different story.

But some people don't have the money for an expensive privat school. You cannot blame the kids for that, yet they are the ones who will feel the consequences.

It's a mistake to believe that you can just pick up an education from some textbooks all by yourself. In order to learn effectively you need a teacher who has a broad knowledge of his field of work and, more important, knows how to teach. That's why home-schooling isn't always an option. Some parents are up to this task, most aren't, though.

I'm a product of private schooling myself, and I'm fairly satisfied with the result :-) And I strongly feel that if you don't like the way things are taught in public school you should be free to go and found your own private school. But the government should provide education for those kids whose parents can't afford private education.


Regards,

Trooper

[Art Eatman]

Funny how the notions of "public schools" change.

My grandfather went to public schools. He went on to teach in public schools for fifty years. Hearsay, for me, of course, but I like to think I have some notions about how things have changed.

Way back when (okay, only a hundred or so years ago), communities took it for granted that educating the children was a Good Thing. Whether by taxes or subscription, they'd build a building and hire a teacher or three and then have at it. Since it was a local deal, the curriculum was basic: The three Rs, history and geography, and as much science as was feasible.

Worries about societal problems, self-esteem and all that non-education stuff just wasn't part of the deal. You made Cs or better or didn't graduate, or dropped out at your highest level and then went to work. This carried well into the 1950s. And then came 1962 and it all sorta jumped into the high-tax, low-efficiency handbasket with the advent of Federal Assistance to Education.

My take is that when local folks use local taxes for local purposes, many things so objected to by Libertarians aren't enough of a problem for your billfold that it's worth gettin' exercised over...

:), Art

[GinSlinger]

Whenever the subject of dropping public education comes up it seems to be one of the biggest objections to libertarianism. I propose that "free" publicly available education wouldn't just dry up and disappear. I find it hard to imagine that American corporations would want a majority of their potential employees to be un-or under-educated. I envision corporations pitching in with some other sources (limited local investment and user-fees) to keep a public access education system available. Perhaps people would have to sign comitment papers (simular to JR year military schools) to get higher education. (Exchange 4 years of lower paying work for 4 years of schooling.)

GinSlinger

[BrokenPaw]

What you get out of education is directly proportional to what you put into it. A motivated student in a publicly-funded school can and will gain more benefit than a layabout wastrel in the finest private- or home-school environment.

Children are not motivated to learn in public schools largely because (the vast majority of) their parents do not motivate them to do well. Children whose parents pay to put them in private school, or to home-school, are intrinsically more likely to do better, simply because private- or home-schooling is indicative of motivated parents. Motivated parents will find ways to motivate their kids.

I submit that the kids who do better in private and home schools would also do better than average in public schools. Because even if they were in public schools, they are the kids who have been motivated by their parents to do well. They might not do as well in public schools as they do in private schools, because they public schools aren't up to teaching advanced students, but they would still exceed the average.

The masses of unmotivated parents who send their kids to school as a form of tax-subsidized daycare are not motivating their kids to learn, and that is why those kids are not learning. Because the public schools are funded through taxes, and because people are so used to paying taxes, it never occurs to many people that when Junior refuses to care about his homework, it's a direct waste of his parents'[0] money. The disassociation between tax-time and report-card-time allows people forget that the schools are having a real-dollar cost in their lives.

If (all) parents were required to pay for their own children's education (and no one else's), directly, rather than through the nebulous tax system, those parents would: suddenly have a reason to care how Junior is doing in math class, because they know they're paying for that class
suddenly have a reason to consider whether or not they really want to keep having more kids, because they'll have to pay for those educations, too
I believe education is important. I spend money and time on my stepdaughter's and stepson's educations, because I believe that. They're not of my blood, and they're not my responsibility except insofar as I have chosen to allow them to become so.

Altruism is not a bad thing. Giving selflessly to others is not a bad thing. It's necessary if you want to have (or adopt) kids. Because you have to give selflessly to the children.

It is government-enforced altruism that is the bad thing.

Oh, and for those who will say that most parents cannot afford private schools or home schooling: If I were not being taxed to pay for the education of other people's kids, my wife and I could afford for her to stay home and home-school. But because of taxes, we cannot afford this.

How then are the public schools working for the benefit of my kids?

-BP

[0] not to mention everyone else's

[Airboss]

let's see,correct me if I have this wrong-if you have children and lack the funds to educate them thats my fault?Then I should pay for you to have children,if you going to take money from me @ gun point to pay for your childrens education,while your at it why dont you steal some more money for the their food?Oh you doing that through welfare now and oh ok I'll pay for their clothes also.Is there anything else that you and yours want that I have?Just have the nanny state steal that for you too all you have to is sell your vote to them.If I chose to not have children or if I chose to have children then perhaps dont you think it might be the responsible thing for me to do is to provide for them?
I am so sick of hearing it's for the children,its not the childern's fault,we have to do it for the children ect.,if you cant feed them/educate them/put clothes on their backs,shoes on there feet-DONT HAVE THEM-I am sick and tired of paying for someone elses Stupidity

[Oleg Volk]

Read Dikkens for a description of a society without welfare.

Actually, those books describe a society with low productivity, hence pretty low standard of living for all. As for the inequalities, they are inherint in the way humans and other species are. Unlike animals, we do well enough that even the weak tend to survive, but welfare or lack thereof isn't the reason. Further, real welfare societies, like the USSR and North Korea, are pretty nasty hell-holes.

[MicroBalrog]

Oleg - Funny, never saw Israel as a "hell-hole" - at least not in that respect.

[Oleg Volk]

Being poor is not always a choice

That is manifestly untrue, unless we are talking about inmates of a country-sized gulag like North Korea. I have lost count of the people who, without any help, self-educated while working their butts off. It is amazing how much these people accomplished starting from nothing, not even the knowledge of the language of their new homeland. Giving up TV and other time-wasters works wonders for raising the standard of living.

[Oleg Volk]

Oleg - Funny, never saw Israel as a "hell-hole" - at least not in that respect.

You don't seem very happy about living there, though...
When you give up control over your life to get something short-term (such as education), you find that the control extends into other areas of your life (such as lack of practical RKBA).

[trooper]

Hmmm, let's see...

There's this old lady who slips on the stairs. She tumbles down, has multiple fractures and the neighbour calls the paramedics.

The paramedic is employed by the government and paid with YOUR taxes. Using your logic, the old lady makes the government's jackbooted thugs "steal" your money and pay for her healthcare with it...

Seriously, I would like to see a lot less governmental intrusion into our lives. Certainly there is an enormous potential for downsizing.

But IMO a certain level of education/healthcare/welfare should be provided by the state. Yes, I know that it costs me money. I also know that I probably won't ever get any of it back. But the existence of such a system ensures that in case of me being unable to provide for my own anymore, I won't die of starvation or a disease that can be cured. In some way it's like some sort of insurance.

Right, it can be abused by people. It most certainly will be by some. I'm willing to pay anyway because I support the idea that living a good life also brings some responsibilities with it.


Regards,

Trooper

[trooper]

Take a guess why crime stats in Germany and, more important, in the Scandinavian countries (all of which have rather high taxes and a very generous social security system) are considerably lower than in the US...


Trooper

[MicroBalrog]

You don't seem very happy about living there, though...
When you give up control over your life to get something short-term (such as education), you find that the control extends into other areas of your life (such as lack of practical RKBA).

Which is why it is Israel's Left that tried to repeal gun control altogether in the 1980's. I see.

[Oleg Volk]

One might also say that the hypothetical old lady's welfare depends on her own privately purchased insurance, willingness of voluntary charities to pay for the health care for strangers, and existence of friends accumulated over a life-time who would be willing to help her should the first two options be unavailable.

If she is a person without any means of her own (common enough), and has no friends willing or able to help, one would expect that charities, amply supported by trooper, MicroBalrog and me, would fill the gap. If none of us actually bothers to support the charities by either endowing them beforehand or by paying off their debt afterwards, then what makes you think that having a third party force the three of us to pay up at gunpoint is an improvement? If the person willing to order the forcing and to carry out the forcing feels so strongly about the lady's health and life, then why isn't he paying for the treatment himself? Could it be that control over the earning and the lives of others is the goal, not helping the old lady whose plight is merely a handy excuse for practicing coersion?

[MicroBalrog]

Oleg, surely you realize, that taxes are a necessity, because there's some government services charity will not gather enough money to pay for (nuclear ICBMs, for example), or that citizens shouldn't provide privately (courts). Also, we have to finance an organized militia (to be aided by the unorganized one).

So there's always going to be a man with a gun taking your money.

There's that old American joke I remember someone telling me. It ends in the phrase: "I already know who you are. Now we're talking about price".

[MicroBalrog]

Understand that never in human history was charity enough to educate and feed all those who need it. There's only one way to leave no child behind. Education.

[cordex]

I'll not address at length the judgement of someone's philosophy based upon their career choice, but I do seem to recall a lowly carpenter who had quite a following. Not to compare Heinlein with that particular carpenter, mind you ... merely pointing out that just because he wrote science fiction doesn't mean all of his philosophy is bunk. You show me a philosopher who hasn't held another job in his life and I'll show you a philosopher that isn't worth listening to.

I've gone to both public and private schools in my educational experience, but the vast majority of my early learning was home-taught. The vast majority of my learning beyond that was self-taught. Schools were a great place to learn social dynamics. College can be something else altogether.

[Oleg Volk]

Charities are here to make up the gap between what people decide (without coercion) is needed and what they can provide for themselves (or have parents, employers or friends provide). And if educationis a must-have basic, how about food, shelter or sex?

I'd like to use THR as an example: it is a good enterprise and useful. However useful it is, it would have been immoral for me to force anyone here using it or, as bad, all people at large, to contribute to THR at gunpoint. Even if it works out to a cent per person per decade. At issue is personal autonomy, which includes discretion over the use of ALL of your resources. Else we are just "arguing percentages". Moreover, we fund THR privately so that it remains independent. Should we lack funds, we can ask for help but never demand it.

[MicroBalrog]

You show me a philosopher who hasn't held another job in his life and I'll show you a philosopher that isn't worth listening to.

Your opinion of Socrates and Plato is truly surprising.:what:

[MicroBalrog]

Uhm, sex is a wrong analogy, because it, in itself, is at least partly entertainment.

Food, shelter - yes.

In Jewish religion, I must do anything in my power to save innocents, except killing other innocents and engaging in prohibited forms of sex.
How is that relevant? Well, if I held authority, it would be my duty to do everything in my power to prevent people from starving to death. If


In fact, jewish communities forced their members to contribute to welfare long before the Gentiles invented it.

[cordex]

Your opinion of Socrates and Plato is truly surprising.
Plato was a poet and also was in the military for a bit.
Socrates was a fighting soldier - a hoplite, in fact - as well as a teacher.
sex is a wrong analogy, because it, in itself, is at least partly entertainment.
And food and shelter aren't?
Never had a meal you enjoyed, or personalized your home?

[MicroBalrog]

But I would die if totally deprived of food and shelter. Guess what? I've never had sex yet and I'm still alive.

[Dannyboy]

So many people here are dead set against public schooling but nobody answered my question about private and home schooling. Is public school OK when you're the one in school but not when you're the one paying taxes? I really want to know, did everyone do the private/home school thing? Or are you all a bunch of hypocrites?

Having been raised by a single mother, home-school wasn't an option for me. As far as private school, I'll pass. I decided I'd rather go to public school than deal with the proselytizers forcing religion down my throat at the local parochial/private schools.

[pax]

Dannyboy,

That's a silly question, if that's where you were going with it. You am not responsible for choices your parents made in rearing you. You were a minor, after all. ;)

However, now that you are a grown man, you are responsible for the contents of your own mind and the shape of your own character. If you don't think your education was adequate, it is your job to fix that -- not anyone else's. If you do not think your job pays enough to to enable your to rear your children responsibly, it is your responsibility to get a better one by whatever legitimate means is open to you.

It is not my job to provide the necessities of life for children you brought into this world. Certainly you can hire men with guns to threaten me into handing over the cash (such as it is). But that's not moral, and people who do that just show that their own moral compasses are sadly misaligned.

In Jewish religion, I must do anything in my power to save innocents, except killing other innocents and engaging in prohibited forms of sex. How is that relevant? Well, if I held authority, it would be my duty to do everything in my power to prevent people from starving to death.
MicroBalrog,

So you are not obligated to point a gun at the next door neighbors and threaten to kill them if they don't feed the hungry folks down the street. Glad to hear it.

Why are you trying to invent extra thou-shalt-nots? Aren't the ones He gave you enough?

pax

In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, 'Make us your slaves, but feed us.' -- Dosteovsky's Grand Inquisitor

edited to add: Dannyboy, if you wanted to ask a more appropriate question, you could ask how many of those posting anti-public school sentiment do not send their own children to public school. That would give you a better measure of who's a hypocrite. ;)

[trooper]

I have to agree with MicroBalrog on this issue. I think we have established a common understanding that the government is supposed to provide certain services for the citizens. The minimum on which most of us probably can agree is police service, military, courts of law and related things.

All these services need to be paid for. This is accomplished by taxes which are collected from all of us (if necessary, at gunpoint :-)

From now on we're only arguing which services should be included (and paid for by the people). The argument that this is "theft" makes only sense if you want to get rid of these services alltogether.

If you accept that then we can start to think about how self-reliant we would like people to be. And if people decide to care less about self-reliance and more about solidarity than you like, then it's up to you to find a society which caters your wishes.


Regards,

Trooper

[Baba Louie]

Seems to me that we have here a bunch of "altruistic curmudgeons" and "surly idealists".

Or did I get that bass-ackwards?

Who pays for what?

Do we all reap any benefits from enforced helping of our societal brethren? Sometimes.

My dear old dad always said that there's two kinds of people... Those who work and those who'll let you work. So I work. Hopefully others benefit from my work and pay me. I provide a service they desire, price my service accordingly and hope they receive the perceived value for the money spent.

But, I do like the idea of "Less is More" in the realm of governing bodies. Taxes usually equal governement services.

Lately, it seems that money spent by government on Education isn't giving back the perceived value for the money spent. Public education is only one aspect of a person's route to knowledge.

Like other points in life, Some take to it and rise to the challenge, others sit and waste oxygen.

Public or private, curmudgeon or idealist, chocolate or vanilla... you live, you learn, you work, you pay taxes, you die.

Bunch of idealistic curmudgeons ;) I'd say.

Adios

[BrokenPaw]

In Jewish religion, I must do anything in my power to save innocents, except killing other innocents and engaging in prohibited forms of sex. Not that this is on-topic or anything, but I'm very curious as to why this particular stricture was put into place.

Like product safety warnings[0], one would rather expect that unless someone had done this, the subject would never have come up.

"I'm going to kill these innocent people unless you do something deviant!" ?

-BP, honestly confused.

[0] Hair curling iron: "Not to be used internally." :what:

[Baba Louie]

Ah the Sodomites...

Hard to replicate a tribe if too much of that particular goings-on occurs, ya know? Don't waste any seed kinda thing.

Adios

[Tamara]

If you accept that then we can start to think about how self-reliant we would like people to be. And if people decide to care less about self-reliance and more about solidarity than you like, then it's up to you to find a society which caters your wishes.

I think the problem some of us have on the other side of this debate isn't with the concept of solidarity, but rather the concept of enforced solidarity. I've needed help before in my life. I've needed to be kept fed by friends. I've slept on other people's sofas. But nobody put a gun to their head to make them do it. Favors from friends I'll accept, but I'm too stinkin' proud to accept the anonymous stolen loot that is government 'charity'. Friends I can pay back; how would I recompense someone I've never met in Walla-Walla, WA for money the IRS had stolen from them? Which brings us to the point that Government Welfare isn't Solidarity, it destroys Solidarity. Once upon a time, community, family, church, civic associations; these things were all important, because they were your safety net. If your house burned down, the folks from your church would help with the repairs. Your family would let you stay with them if times were tough. Your neighbours wouldn't let you starve. If your business was robbed your fellow Kiwanis or Knights of Columbus would make an effort to patronize your shop a little more than strictly necessary. This has all been diluted or completely destroyed now, as Solidarity, true solidarity, has been replaced by an offer to suckle at the anonymous teat of a faceless government. This in turn damages one of the biggest controlling factors in any society: the opinion of your neighbours. Face it, you had to behave well because the opinion of these people mattered, should you ever need help in time of crisis. It was important to keep your lawn mowed and not acquire a reputation as a drunken spouse-beater if you were going to be able to rely on these people's generosity in a pinch. Now, though, who cares? The welfare checks come no matter what. The small business loans will show up even if your kids are running around in dirty clothes and you beat your wife. Heck, if you kill someone, you still get three hots and a cot. Where's the consequences in society any more, now that Big Brother is in the Solidarity business?

[Byron Quick]

Hear, hear, Tamara.

[cordex]

Well put, Ms. Tamara.
"Solidarity" as dispensed at arms-length by faceless government functionaries funded with money taken by force doesn't encourage any sense of the much-vaunted "community".

[trooper]

Interesting point, Tamara.

However, I think you got the chain of events wrong. Government welfare didn't destroy community welfare, it simply was the logical consequence of the failure of the latter.

Community welfare worked great in times when most of the people lived in small, rural communities where everybody knew their fellow citizens. But with the beginning of industrialization people moved into urban areas, hoping for a well-paid job but very often ending up on the streets. Many of the old, grown communities fell apart or simply shrunk. Old social and family values disappeared and were replaced by other ideas. Economical achievement became much more important than taking part in a community.

Community welfare doesn't work so well in today's anonymous big cities where few people actually know their neighbours.

It is not just a coincidence that government welfare and organized social programs for the poor really got started at the end of the 19th century; it was then when a lot of changes happened that still influence today's society.


Regards,

Trooper

[Dannyboy]

pax, don't you think it's hypocritical to say that it was OK when your parents did it but now that you pay taxes, nobody else can do it because it will be done with money "stolen" from you? The system isn't perfect so bash it all you want but to call for the abolition of the system after you got yours, regardless of why you went there, is hypocrisy.

Personally, I had a choice and I went to a public high school that was rated higher than most of the private schools in the general area and I think I got a better education than most of the kids that went to those other schools. That whole private school education is better than public school education thing is crap. As someone else said earlier, you get out of it what you put into it.

[Oleg Volk]

Desirability of something is a separate question from the ethics of forced funding. For example, it is a good thing to have babies born but even preservation of the species would not be a loft enough goal to justify forcing even one person to submit to unwanted reproduction process. College education, pedicures, dental work are all good things, too -- but they best be privately funded.

[pax]

pax, don't you think it's hypocritical to say that it was OK when your parents did it but now that you pay taxes, nobody else can do it because it will be done with money "stolen" from you? The system isn't perfect so bash it all you want but to call for the abolition of the system after you got yours, regardless of why you went there, is hypocrisy.
Nope, I don't think so.

I do think you are doing an awful lot of assuming. First of all, you are assuming you know whether or not I went to public school. You haven't heard me answer that question yet. Second, you are assuming that I say it was OK for my parents to make the choices they made. You haven't heard me say that (and you won't). Third, you are assuming that I pay taxes like a good little rich girl. You have no data about that, and never will.

Most of all, you're assuming that one human being is responsible for choices made by other human beings. That is so wrong-headed I can hardly find words to express my distaste.

To answer your question, however: I went to public schools through 6th grade. After that, I went to private schools. My experience, with 5 different public schools and 3 different private schools, is that public and private schools are much the same, and are equally bad places for children to spend their valuable growing years.

As soon as I was old enough to make my own choices, I did so -- and you will not find my children down at the local public school.

BTW, in case it isn't clear yet: I consider myself the victim of my parents' school choices, not as the benefactor thereof. What little I have learned in life is mostly in spite of what the schools did to educate me, and very rarely because of it. I learned to read before I went to school and learned far more, and far more useful things, through my own efforts than I was ever force-fed in school.

pax

I don't want my children fed or clothed by the state, but I would prefer that to their being educated by the state. – Max Victor Belz

School days are the unhappiest in the whole span of human existence. They are full of dull, unintelligible tasks, new and unpleasant ordinances, with brutal violations of common sense and common decency. -- H.L. Mencken

[Baba Louie]

Goodness me, it's beginning to sound like an Ayn Rand convention here (and thats a good thing methinks). Before she developed her Objectivist committees (LOL and shaking head... do as I say, not as I do).

Definitely a curmudgious bunch.

Never gonna get away from helping out Uncle Sam and Uncle Governor helping out whoever good old uncle wants to spend our/their money on.

Cest la vie (can I still say that?... oh well I said it anyway).

I'm glad I had the public schooling I had. The neighbors went to a parochial school and their parents still paid property taxes AND footed the bill for the private school. They were no smarter except in that they could quote the Bible better than my sisters and I.

I just thank the lord that we don't get ALL the government we pay for.

I'm waiting for the day when over 50% of the population work for the gov't and get their paychecks from the other half (or 49%) who are churning out product and services and paying taxes on it all.

Eventually Atlas will shrug.

Won't be pretty.

Adios

[Seminole]

trooper: However, I think you got the chain of events wrong. Government welfare didn't destroy community welfare, it simply was the logical consequence of the failure of the latter.

Do you have any empirical evidence to back up that assertion? I would assume not, since the truth is precisely the opposite. As Charles Murray pointed out in his In Pursuit: Of Happiness and Good Government (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1988), the evidence shows that relying on government does indeed substitute for private charity. From the 1940s to 1964, the percentage of American income given to charity rose. "Then suddenly, sometime during 1964-65, in the middle of an economic boom, this consistent trend was reversed." Although incomes cont inued to grow, the percentage of income given to charity fell. Then, in 1981, during a recession, the trend reversed itself, and contributions as a percentage on income rose sharply. How can this sequence of events be explained? Well, in 1964-65, with President Johnson proclaiming that the federal government would launch a "War on Poverty," people seem to have figured their own contributions weren't needed so much. In 1981, Ronald Reagan assumed office, promised to cut back government spending (to the wails of liberals, who complained that people would be starving in the streets), and people began once more to assume personal responsibility for those who truly needed help.

Of course, the effects of government involvement in the misnamed "social welfare" (including education) are most pernicious not on third parties, but on the recipients of this "government" largesse (in reality the hard-earned money of tax payers). The values of work, thrift, sobriety, prudence, fidelity, self-reliance, and a concern for one's reputation developed and endured because they are the virtues necessary for advancement in a world where food and shelter must be produced and people are responsible for themselves. As David Boaz once wrote, "government can't do much to instill these virtues in people, but it can do much to undermine them."