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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Thu, 13 Jan 2000 17:54:36 GMT
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Viewed:
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1607 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Frank Filz writes:
> Dave Schuler wrote:
> > > So we should instead have taxes pay for a school system with absolutely no
> > > expectation of a return on the investment?
> >
> > That's an interesting assertion, but it has nothing to do with what I said.
>
> Maybe I need to re-read what you wrote, but perhaps you could expand and
> clarify what you were trying to say.
My point was that I agree absolutely that it is foolish to contribute to
charity without some sense of where one's money will wind up but I don't feel
I can trust a corporation or a single wealthy individual to fund an
educational system without furthering some agenda with which I might find
myself in marked disagreement. And if, for example, I am insufficiently
wealthy to send my children to another school or to instruct them at home, how
do I prevent that corporation from imprinting its agenda on my child?
I see this as distinctly different from simple media commercials because in
a corporate school the children can be fully immersed in the company's
propoganda. Some in this thread have decried the current "liberal" atmosphere
of the educational system; my complaint is similar but deeper.
> It seems to me we are on the verge of corporations running the schools
> anywise. Look at all the product advertising which is starting to go
> into the schools.
This is largely a problem of poor involvement at the school-board-level as
well as a lack of overall funding, so that schools feel the need to seek funds
elsewhere. Hardly commendable, but I understand your point.
> Besides, what's wrong with a few schools meeting some wealthy person's
> agenda? The schools today certainly meet other people's agendas. Why not at
> least have schools with varying agendas?
If they're equally available to everyone, I say bring it on! Once more, my
concern is that certain geographical regions and income brackets will be
unable to choose between schools and will be forced to send their children
either to a low-budget, low-quality school or to some school run by a system
pursuing values unpalatable to the parent.
In the current system, at least, parents who wish to become involved can
interact with the school board to effect change and work toward steering the
course of the schools. I'm concerned that in Libertopia the role of the
individual parent will be subordinate to the goals of the corporation running
the school.
> > This free-market educational system you're describing would certainly offer
> > lower quality education at a reduced price, and many less well-off families
> > would be forced to send their children there, which would in turn make those
> > children less able to attain wealth, which would in turn basically guarantee
> > that whole generations are locked into cycles of poverty and poor education.
>
> For the most part today, poor children don't have much of a chance.
> Sure, they theoretically get the same education that other kids do, but
> the reality is they don't. Some advantages I see in a Liberatopia
> include:
>
> - less waste on money on kids who aren't going to learn
> - tailoring the schools for poor kids to produce poor kids
> who can at least qualify for some kind of job, and probably
> don't even run as long as high school, if they're just going
> to do unskilled labor, why not get them out there making money
> earlier?
I have trouble accepting that you wrote these two "advantages" with a
straight face, and I flatly refuse to believe that these systems won't be
horrifyingly abused, even in Libertopia, along prejudicial lines of race,
culture, and economic standing, among others.
Who decides that kids aren't going to learn? And can you really support a
system optimized as a factory to produce unskilled laborers? What if your
child gets a "non-learner" stamp at an early age--would you accept it? Can
you appeal it? How would this segregation not destroy society, or at least
create irreparable rifts in it?
These are, hands-down, the most terrifying assertions I've heard from the
Libertarian camp.
> I'm starting to get real sick of this "humans are depraved,
> irresponsible beings" crud. If we are so horrible and depraved, how do
> you think we've managed to create a society which does actually manage
> to support most people in it?
Don't use quotes to imply that I wrote something which I did not. I've
never asserted the crud you mention, and if you infer it then you're
deliberately misreading what I've presented. For every example of a
benevolent, charitable individual you can cite, I can name dozens of back-
stabbing, self-interested people who work only for their own ends regardless
of others' well being or needs. Matt Miller pointed out that corporations,
given the chance, have dumped countless tons of dreadfully toxic substances
into the environoment when it is economically viable. Elsewhere I've observed
that the Securities Exchange Commission, a body of the government machine, was
created and empowered to police Investment industry because brokers were
demonstrably unable to resist abusing their clients for the sake of money.
Every morning when I stand on the trolley to work I see very elderly people
likewise forced to stand because young, able-bodied individuals refuse to give
up their seats. Further, every single time there is a large-scale power
outage, society disintegrates to riots and chaos in a matter of hours. Are
these the same people you trust to watch over themselves while simultaneously
considering the good of society at large? This is the reality in which we
live, and it needs policing. I don't mean a cop on every corner, but all
evidence demonstrates that society cannot be relied upon to behave itself all
by itself.
> To some extent the prisoners would be able to bid. One way I see it
> working is that when someone gets sentenced to correction, the judge, in
> conference with the prosecution, victim, and defence, will make a
> determination as to which system to place the prisoner in. The prisoner
> would then have the opportunity to start proving themself. If they prove
> themself better than the system they were initially placed in, several
> things might happen. A system which handles prisoners who are taking
> more responsibility might make a bid to get that prisoner into their
> system. The defence lawyer might make a plea to the judge to move the
> prisoner. In some cases, the victim might even make a plea (for example,
> if the crime was mostly monetary in nature, the victim might want the
> prisoner in a system which he earns more, so is able to pay more
> restitution).
I'm going to get off my high horse for a moment and think about this point,
because I find it most intriguing!
Dave!
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Message has 7 Replies:
 | | Re: Libertarian stuff (Was: Re: Art Debate Was: [Re: Swearing?])
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| Dave, (...) Hmm... going in Ann Arbor (MI), Lansing (MI), and Ohio State (Columbus), there were a lot of hoodlums, trying to pick on the college people. The worst was Ohio State, the East side of the campus, right on the border, were some of the (...) (25 years ago, 13-Jan-00, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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