Subject:
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Re: Libertarian stuff (Was: Re: Art Debate Was: [Re: Swearing?])
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Wed, 12 Jan 2000 21:58:40 GMT
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Viewed:
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1323 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Frank Filz writes:
> If the kids don't have whatever it takes, they don't have it. No amount
> of government posturing is going to fix it. If people really feel these
> kids deserve a break (and perhaps if this REALY is the case, they do),
> then charity will step in.
This, yet again, sounds like "forget the stragglers" reasoning. What if
"people" (whoever they might be--I'm dying to hear some suggestions, since in
Libertopia a person's responsibility seems to be to himself and/or his family)
don't feel these kids deserve a break? Who helps them then? Or do we just
decide that they don't get help because no one wanted to help them?
> I dispute the thought though that these kids are totally lost. I have read
> many articles on people who have set up some kind of organization to help
> kids like this, and have been successefull (one recent one which comes to
> mind is the grade school teacher who adopted a whole class of under-
> priviledged kids, those kids are now graduating from high school, and I think
> almost all are going to college [assuming I'm remembering right]).
I've heard that story. Not all the kids graduated, and fewer still are going
to college, due in large part to the fact that their benefactor wanted a
larger say in their education than they were willing to allow.
So, in the Libertopia of personal responsibility, we're still expecting
individuals to take care of other people's children out of a sense of
altruism? How many articles have you read, exactly? Or, at least, where are
they? Did these mysterious benefactors fund the entire education, or just
subsidize it? Would these contributions truly have helped a child with
nothing else? What was the family/community structure like for these
children? Did this charitable system work equally well regardless of
individual social/familial/financial situation? Anecdotal evidence aside, the
assertion that children from all circumstances will do well if "given the
chance" is naive at best and deliberately exclusionary at worst.
> "Whatever it takes" is certainly not hereditary or we wouldn't have so
> many rags to riches stories (and the reverse)... Most of "whatever it
> takes" is someone else caring. I see evidence that people do, and with a
> system which actually rewards teachers (I think teachers pay is going to
> rise dramatically in Liberatopia), I expect a LOT more teachers to care.
Where does all this magic money come from in Libertopia? Surely you're not
expecting corporations and charitable folks to contribute without expecting
some agenda-payoff in return. Why would a corporation, for example, fund
education without having a reasonable expectation of a return on that
investment? Likewise, do you really think would individuals fund education
without forwarding their own notions of propriety? This is in fact a major
problem with current school systems funded by local taxes: parents and
individuals who fund the school demand a say in which books are used in that
education. As such, any charitable organization or corporation contributing
its magic Libertopia money to a school or education factory would definitely
demand a say in what is taught. Ideally, of course, this would be altruistic,
but in reality it would forward the political, social, and economic agendas
and value systems of the contributors, regardless of the wishes of the
families whose children are taught at such institutions.
> > > Of course many of the children who are not sent to school by their
> > > parents will end up running afoul of the law. You can bet your booties
> > > that however the justice system works, I'm going to expect that it will
> > > do something to make sure that these kids get an education to make them
> > > sufficiently productive to offset the cost of supporting them.
> >
> > That's quite a trick! What manner of education will the justice system
> > impart to these poor souls? License plate manufacture? And who will run or
> > even fund these education factories? The parents who had insufficient money
> > to educate their children in the first place?
>
> There will be some kind of correctional system, funded by fees to
> property owners who wish to keep the crooks of the street at worst. In
> order for this correctional system to operate the most efficiently, it
> must do more than simply warehouse the crooks. It will (over the long
> term) find the most cost effective amount of education to give to
> produce the most income from the crooks. Those crooks who are not
> "lifers" will leave with a usefull skill, and in many cases will have
> paid off any financial debt they owe.
Who organizes these facilities? Who runs them? Who decides what is taught
in them? Besides which, even in Libertopia the fringe/criminal elements will
adhere to a wildly different set of social values, and you can hardly expect
them to step in line with society's notions of personal responsibility. Short
of a rehabilitative system like none currently in existence on Earth, prisons
will continue to function with their own complex infrastructure regardless of
the idealism of the outside world.
Dave!
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