Obama FTW

i wish will smith was president

Whether Obama is half white or not black enough is moot, because he LOOKS black and therefore for a lot of people, he will always be considered black. It's racism, I mean, when he was growing up nobody could give a shit if he was half white, dude looks black so he is black to the rest of the world. No amount of tailormade suits and white smiles (!) will ever make him look different to the majority of people. It's a fucked up thing that people always have to put non-white people into categories, but they do and they will. And now that he is president, now it's suddenly 'oh he's also white' and blah blah. There was this column in the Dutch papers saying that Obama is WHITE, because his mom was white and he came from a well off family. Well, I'm sorry, even with all those things, if he were an unknown and he would get into an elevator and something would've happened and people would have to make statements about who was in the elevator, he would be called nothing else but 'black'.

He was anything but black before he became president, he'll be black when he is president now. You say A, you gotta say B too. Don't call the man white now, after he's president. It's fucked up the world is still THINKING and ACTING like this, but calling him white is as fucked up as reminding the world that he's.. black. Like that's a fucking consideration when it comes to humans.

And I think a woman president would've definitely been possible, just that Hillary wasn't a likely candidate. Obama had much more charisma and star-quality. (besides the fact if those things are what a president should have, but it's appearant those things do matter in voting and the campaigns). If it's any consolation, the black president idea was going on for a few years in popular culture (movies, tv series) and the female president idea is starting to happen in popular culture now/already too. (see Geena Davis in that tv series I can't remember the name of)

Commander in Chief.

If that's true, then you'd make a great capitalist. Function is what people want from the system. Where you see a dysfunction, selling the cure, whether as an idea or a product, makes you muh-nay. And we'd have real money, too! None of this paper fiat crap.

Again, such an assertion is base rate fallacy. You'd want your kids educated, I'd want my kids educated, 98% of families would want theirs educated, so how would that lead to dysfunction?

The only thing that changes in a voluntary society is no more gun in the room. Everything else is based upon what you want it to be for yourself. Enough people want youth education, sobeit, there will be youth education. Only the majority won't have a gun to point at people who don't wanna pay.

It can be childcare for the poor without the threat of violence. I'm not proposing anyone not be free to give children whatever level of care they wish. I simply call for an end to the institutionalize violence.

Which is why people will continue to pay for it in a voluntary society. Desires will not change, unless you want them to. Only the means will change.

How so? Humans always have different interests. You may want to open a restaurant, where I prefer carpentry, someone else, tailoring, etc. The demands exist, the need to fill those demands will continue to exist. Until proven otherwise, I shall then believe that assertion is yet again just base rate fallacy.

I don't know what it is uguise think I haven't figured out yet, that education is necessary? Yes, of course I believe it is, if you desire a civilized society. One must be informed of the moral laws around which that system operates, and must know the skills needed to be productive within that society. I understand this...but please explain to me why the threat of violence is needed to maintain such a system? That's the justification I simply have not 'figured out'. Or rather, I believed it in the past, and no longer do. You don't need force to solve problems, you need reason. Because you can use force to solve problems does not justify that force.

They did not have the resources to have a large scale education system. It does not automatically invent itself when you begin pointing guns at people, it must first emerge from the marketplace. Clearly, it did not exist if the entire nation had 32 college graduates.

Exactly! Force of arms is what held them down, their civil wars, not very volunataryist or capitalist of them. Those people could have been productive within the system when not-macheted to death or shot or whatever.

But no, people want political power, they want to control the gun in the room. I've come to see there is no control over the gun in the room, and I hold eternal war throughout history as proof that trying to control the gun in the room is a futile effort. We must get the gun out of the room!

I noticed that I used the gun in the room analogy often as I ranted here, and uguise may not be familiar with it. It's like the basis of libertarian ideology that we often get caught up in ideological differences when talking with people and forget to explain. More on it:

http://www.lewrockwell.com/molyneux/molyneux29.html

Oh, and I completely forgot to correct this:

It was missing the 'y'.

I think we're lucky we're allowed to express ourselves so freely and to disagree with each other and our government without the threat of being shot in the head and having our organs harvested.

That's what THEY want you to believe, Mirka!

I'm destroying my liver as fast I can just to be on the safe side!

Okay, Garret. Okay. Let's imagine that you have your wish, and tomorrow, we wake up and all the government-funded public schools are closed, and schooling is left completely up to the purview of parents and private institutions, like religious schools. Okay.

Imagine I am a mother of two children, one who is five and one who is 11. I am a professional of some sort (doesn't really matter what kind) and I am married to a man who is also a professional. I'll call him Dave, for my example.

The first thing Dave and I have to do is have a discussion about how the children are going to be educated. It is agreed that since we can't afford to send two children to private school at the same time, one of us should quit our jobs and stay home and homeschool one or both of the children. And most likely, because women earn 75 cents on the dollar that men earn (meaning that my job, most likely, makes less money than Dave's) and probably because at some point I might have already stayed home with the children when they were younger, it is agreed that I will quit my job and stay home and homeschool the kids.

Am I happy about this? Of course not. It fucking sucks. But I can't afford it any other way, and educating children at home is time-consuming; at best, I would only be able to hold down a part-time job in the evenings, and the earning potential would most likely not be fair compensation for the time it detracts from my children.

So now, I'm stuck at home, and I'm unhappy. And then a few years go by, and then all of a sudden, my 11 year old is now 14, and the math skills that he needs to learn for his desired career (say, engineer, or doctor, or chemist) far outstrip my ability. Well, fuck. I totally failed 10th grade algebra, dude. I can't teach my 14 year old anything higher than pre-algebra. Or say he wants to learn Spanish, but all I speak is French.

Well, I guess I'm lucky, because our next door neighbor is an engineer. Or was. She's basically in the same boat I am, career-wise: She USED to be an engineer until the schools closing down forced her to become a stay at home mom, like me. But that's good for me, right? I can send my 14 year old next door to her house an hour a day to learn calc, or French, or Spanish, or whatever the fuck.

Now imagine my 14 year old is a boy. He will most likely go on to college or some kind of higher education, because he's learned this skill set well. He succeeds, he has a family AND a career.

Now imagine my 14 year old is a girl. She goes to college too, but then she decides she wants to have a family. And now she's stuck. She can't work AND educate her children. She's stuck in the exact same boat that I myself and my engineer/neighbor were trapped in a generation ago.

If she makes enough money, maybe she can hire a tutor, or send her children to religious school. IF. But if she becomes unemployed at any point, she's completely fucked, because she can't earn enough money to send her kids to school/hire someone to teach them, and if she can't hire someone to teach them, she can't get away from home long enough to get a good-paying job.

With this system in place, the poor replicate the poor, the oppressed the oppressed. My female children have basically no ability to have everything I had, as a working mother, they would have to make a choice between career and motherhood. How is that fair?

And fucking forget about it if you're disadvantaged and/or a minority. There are not enough hours in the day for you to earn enough money for you to educate your children correctly. So basically you'd be left with unsupervised, illiterate children, while you're working your ass off as a janitor or a bus driver, never able to get ahead, and not having any hope for your children's future, because they can't even fucking read.

Within two generations, we could completely undo the women's movement and civil rights. If people are educated solely at home, things like arcane religious zealotry and racism would be allowed to flourish. Industries often dominated by women, like nursing and pharmacy, would completely collapse. The disparaty between rich and poor would increase exponentially.

You call this freedom, because no one is "compulsed" to go to school. I see it differently.

We don't have a word for mixed except I think in Louisiana where they have 50 to account for how many drops of what kind of blood you have. We use the term a "a person of color" to describe mixed heritage.

Don't get me wrong, I'm happy that we are not such a backwards and redneck nation that we can't vote in a black man, an African American, a person of color or whatever.

Hillary was a likely candidate, she spent 8 years in the damn white house (teehee) already. She just looks like a hag and lacks charisma like you say. That and she's female and this country isn't ready for that. A man, any man is better than a woman. So we are still that redneck any way. Hey, black men got the vote 50 years before woman in the US..

Well said, jane. Emphasis, mine.

I'm excited to see a reply that says something like "misleading vividness" or "parade of horribles."

You see, I, too, can wikipedia the names of different types of logical fallacies.

Okay, I'll admit it. I should have pointed out that I'm glad I'm not in a country that would have had me imprisoned or killed by now. But that doesn't mean I will accept this as 'good enough'. Every progress that ever happened people accepted as 'good enough' and it took a small group of patriots to better the system, slowly but surely. To say what we have now is perfect, or even good enough is to give up on progression. I'm not wishing I was somewhere else, just wishing that here was a better here.

There are no ctizens in this nation anymore because there is no duty of government to protect you. I had this same discussion with hardcandy, about how SCOTUS ruled that police have no obligation to help you, thus, they are not a service, they are just a people with guns who are willing to help you when its convenient for them. Yet we are still subject to the state's laws. In that sense, we are not citizens, we are subjects. We are their pawns. If I cooperate with them, it is not because they have any legitimate claim over my life, its because I don't want to be caged or killed. I don't have an obligation to dance when you shoot at my feet, but if I do, please don't call it voluntary.

And Barack wants to throw me in jail. Does that count as keeping me?

Thank you for putting ideas into practicals in your scenario. However, there are liberties which a voluntary society would give you that I think you'e not seeing.

Money would have quite concrete value. This would prevent such gross market fluctuations which make investments such a lottery.

Also, it's easy to forget the fact that you are paying for schooling now, whether you have kids or not. Most states extort the funds through property taxes. I know in NH, 60% of property taxes go directly to education, and that's a huge chunck of money. In a voluntary system, you're not funding wars, which eat up I don't know how much of the budget exactly, but a whole lot. Basically no more income tax. Roads are mostly paid for through your gas tax, so there's that. But yeah, consider all the extra money you would have, and all the market opportunities that would arise with voluntary schooling. I remember in high school, we did DNA electrofreces (i dont know how to spell that) which costs like 250FRNs per student. (Three kids for 800FRNs, whatever that is, 233.33 or something, i hate math) but what a waste of money! I could have watched a video of an electrofreces test and gotten the concept. Anyways, I'll more than likely never have to see another again in my life, much less do one, so there's money down the drain.

That's just one example. There's plety of others. My point is that the cost of schooling is grossly inflated by the government and keep in mind what the call private schools now have to deal with the burden of funding themselves entirely within this closed system. This inflates their price higher than the cost of what the school would be within an open system. Also, levels of education are non-selectable. I knew home schoolers who took advantage of languages and other specialty related classes that parents couldn't do. Imagine a market which would allow you to enroll your kids only in classes they needed, and none which they didn't. Now, we have gov't mandated lesson plans which include things which parents may not need their children to know, thus forcing them to pay for what they don't need.

I understand arguing the ethical and moral philosophical implications of the system will not solidify them within your mind if the system itself does not 'work' or causes a situation which to you does not seem desirable, so thank you for taking me off the philosophical train of thought and getting into practicalities. It is too easy to forget them.

With your scenario, if this becomes a resounding problem throughout the system, then nothing (no government) is there to stop a free market solution for addressing the problem. Enough people in this situation are free to call on the market for a solution (demand). Someone will always be willing to capitalize on such a demand, thus meeting the needs in the most efficient way. Competition for your dollar provides goods at the lowest price with the best service, viva la market!

Anyways, do you have concerns with such a solution?

One last point, with your allegation that this would have an effect on women's rights/civil rights, I wonder why there would be such a problem. I'm not changing my view that all people are equal whether the system is voluntary or not.

eww are you guys talking about politics?

gross!

I think she made her point clearly. In a free market system, poor people get screwed. Who's poor? Mostly women and non whites.

Your scenario gives WAY too much power to parents. Some would choose to spend their money on crack instead of language classes for their children.

It doesn't screw the poor, or anyone specifically in that they are free to become whoever they want within the market, unlike with a government structure where they are held down by taxes, leaving them just enough to survive. If there is a market for something, it will manifest itself. I didn't understand particuarly why women and non-whites were targeted in particular.

As for power to parents, it gives more power to people, including children once raised, to take thier parents to private arbitration if they were violated in some non-criminal way as children. As long as no one is being harmed, I will not justify bringing harm.

Hills I would die on:

Right to bear arms.

Right to say whatever I want to whomever I want.

NH Income Tax.

Conscription.

Obama is for violating the first and last one. NH might see an income tax in the next year or so based on Dem control and spending. Free speech seems okay for now.

Once the voluntary society arises, it will be maintained by people willing to die on every hill that violates the non-agression principle. Gandhi spoke of how dying on every hill made philosophical sense, but it is too radical based on the times and thus does not convert your opponent as it should.

"I know that it is only my reputation as a worker and fighter which has saved me from an open charge of lunacy."
-his words.

No one is free to become whoever they want within the market without education.

Women and non whites earn less than white men so are less likely to be able to afford the kind of education for their children.

Children are at the mercy of their parents. So you're saying kids should sue their parents to let them go to school? If it's the parents money, how can they be forced to spend it on education if they want to spend it on crack? It's voluntary, right?

Agreed. Which is exactly why education would prosper in the free market. If enough people believe in it to justify promoting it through violence, then enough people believe in it to manage it in the market voluntarily.

The market will take note of demands to non-discriminate faster than a bureaucrat will.

No, I don't feel kids are owed an education as a condition of their existence. Granted charities would likely be established to ensure all kids have the ability to receive an education, and thus is the beauty of voluntary interaction. You're willing to point a gun over it, so would you be willing to donate to such a cause peacefully?

Kids could retro-actively sue their parents or whatever if they were denied an education. Word.

I disagree. I think children are a serious responsibility and that an education is their right once they are brought into this world.

Charities? You have got to be kidding me. There are 1000's of charities trying to feed starving people and people are still dying of starvation and malnutrition all over the world.

Kids suing retroactively is a little late. Their little brains soak up information best in their early years. It's much more difficult for an adult to learn a new language or to read than it is for a 6 year old. Plus, they have just had years of their lives wasted until they are old enough and knowledgeable enough to sue.

You're losing me more and more here. You are starting to sound less reasonable and more fanatical by the minute.

Money would have quite concrete value. This would prevent such gross market fluctuations which make investments such a lottery.

Hopefully. I never contested this in my scenario, so I'm not exactly sure why you're bringing it up. I'm not talking about the market or anything like that; I am not an economist. I am a feminist. Which means I care about things like everyone getting the same educational chance as everyone else, something I can really only envision happening in a system that has compulsory education.

Also, it's easy to forget the fact that you are paying for schooling now, whether you have kids or not.

This is true, and I gladly, gleefully pay taxes, because I believe in the inherent value of state-mandated education. I don't give people enough credit to think that they would pay for schools if they weren't compulsed to do it. People are stupid, selfish, and greedy, and don't understand how intricate and involved the school system is. Have you studied educational theory at all? You can't just give a kid a stack of books and say, "Here, learn." It just doesn't work that way with normal kids, let alone children with special needs. Which is something else that your system, in my scenario, would completely put by the wayside.

I remember in high school, we did DNA electrofreces (i dont know how to spell that) which costs like 250FRNs per student. (Three kids for 800FRNs, whatever that is, 233.33 or something, i hate math) but what a waste of money! I could have watched a video of an electrofreces test and gotten the concept. Anyways, I'll more than likely never have to see another again in my life, much less do one, so there's money down the drain.

The problem is, you have to be exposed to something in order to realize that it's worthless. Kind of like when you're a little kid and you push your veggies around on your plate, and your mother says, "How can you know you hate it if you never try it?" We have to know what we don't like and know what we fail at in order to see how we succeed. That's half of what schooling is about.

Plus, just because YOU didn't like the lesson doesn't mean other kids didn't. Someone else in your class could have thought it was spectacular, and then next period would have gone in and hated on the grammar lesson. Does hating grammar reduce its inherent value?

My point is that the cost of schooling is grossly inflated by the government

Perhaps. But there's a good chance that universally privatized schooling would be grossly inflated too, much like the healthcare system. Or, say...like college schooling.

Roads are mostly paid for through your gas tax, so there's that.

The healthcare system is one of the largest privatized industries in the US, and it's in complete shambles. The cost of it is far outpacing that of inflation, it's bloated in market competition rather than what is in the best interests of those it serves. I fail to understand how privatizing something as large and vital as roads would improve them at all.

Also, levels of education are non-selectable. I knew home schoolers who took advantage of languages and other specialty related classes that parents couldn't do. Imagine a market which would allow you to enroll your kids only in classes they needed, and none which they didn't.

Homeschooling does benefit a lot of people. Most of my friends growing up were homeschooled at one point or another, and a handful of my cousins. The other side of the coin of allowing kids to do what they want is that a lot of them end up doing nothing. I've seen homeschooled kids come out with warped social skills and not enough knowledge to get into community college. The probability of the situation is that for every 5 people who want their children to excel, there's probably 1 that doesn't give a rat's ass. I guess it sucks to be those kids, huh? That's the consequence of a free market.

And again, you use the phrase "none of which they didn't..." Who is dictating what children do and don't need? I guess the answer is parents. But revisit my example. Suppose my 14 year old wanted to learn calculus, and I told him/her "No, you don't need to know that. It's difficult/improper/immoral/I don't wanna pay for it." Does that really, REALLY mean that my children don't need to learn calc? No, it means I have a personal prejudice against it. Calc hasn't lost any inherent value. As I said before, rampant zealotry and racism, to name a few, would thrive. A lack of common understanding and discipline could easily lead to a breakdown of communication between different groups in society. If I think calc is worthless and my engineer/neighbor disagrees with me, shit could pretty easily start going down.

I understand arguing the ethical and moral philosophical implications of the system will not solidify them within your mind if the system itself does not 'work' or causes a situation which to you does not seem desirable, so thank you for taking me off the philosophical train of thought and getting into practicalities. It is too easy to forget them.

Could we please hold off on the damning with faint praise? I know you think I just don't "understand" where you're coming from. I do. I just think that your idea of what is moral is warped.

With your scenario, if this becomes a resounding problem throughout the system, then nothing (no government) is there to stop a free market solution for addressing the problem.

What about parental apathy and latent sexism and racism? I don't call those "nothing."

Anyways, do you have concerns with such a solution?

lol

One last point, with your allegation that this would have an effect on women's rights/civil rights, I wonder why there would be such a problem. I'm not changing my view that all people are equal whether the system is voluntary or not.

To be honest, and I mean this in a 100% non-snarky way, I cannot think of a clearer way to explain why I think your system would disadvantage women and minorities more than I've already made it. White men have always dominated the Western world and its implicate systems, and just because it's not that way NOW (or not as much as it used to be) doesn't mean it couldn't be that way in the future. Look at WWII: Women did things like go to work in factories and play baseball because there was a need for them, while the men were at war. When the men came back, that free market system need for the women working ostensibly disappeared. But that doesn't make the system any more "moral." Oppressing women because of their gender, I would argue, is the greater immorality, though you and others might see it differently. I guess what I'm failing to understand here is why you equate what you term a "need" as necessarily "moral." What's the logical fallacy name for your "if ___, then ___" scenario?

No, I don't feel kids are owed an education as a condition of their existence.

I guess this sums up the difference between your opinion and mine. In a system where everyone isn't owed an education, the only people who will get educations will be the the privelidged. That's the way it's worked in the past. I kind of don't understand how you can trick yourself into believing it would be different in the future. Those who don't study history are doomed to repeat it.

Why? Their parents can't be coerced into providing something the children are not owed to begin with. If they're not "owed" something, how can something be "denied"?

Attempting to make freedom cool again is cool. Using cliched slang from 1991 is not.

By denied, I mean denied access to, prevented from being able to obtain, as opposed to unable to obtain. It gets back to positive and negative rights. You don't have a right to food, but you have a right to obtain food.

To paraphrase Ludwig Wittgenstein, language is a game in which many players make up their own rules.

Jane, you wrote tons, and I am so tempted to read over and respond...but I have been in front of this comp for 5 friggin hours! I must go do something. Response maybe tonight or tomorrow morn.

P.S. I was teasing you about your use of "word".

Edit: Also, I write contracts for a living, and since laws are made up of many, many words, and since words mean things, your society is going to have a shitload of legal defining to take care of before anything can get done. Especially if adult (need a definition) people (need a definition) have a right (need many definitions) to sue (need a definition), which it would appear that they do.

Word, I know.

The edit remains true, people would need a medium to define words and such, and definitions within contracts could be agreed upon voluntarily within the market as well.

i wish there was some sort of simulation to put into effect all of giggan's aspirations. i am curious to see how that sort of society would play out (and i am not being sarcastic or anything, i really am honestly curious) because from what i've read, jane's scenario is a lot more likely to happen than the utopia gigg is trying to assert.

What's the logical fallacy name for your "if ___, then ___" scenario?

This is apparently called If-by-whiskey!

I agree with Jane, Mirka and Giggan.
What?

The education system is broken. Bloated budgets and bad teachers.
Miraks point of a child having a right to education is spot, however, as a parent, I have the right to decide which education she gets. The problem lies in the way education is set up. If my daughter is in a public school and she has a bad teacher, what is my recourse? I can complain to the principal, and maybe she gets moved to another teacher, but does that teacher lose their job? Probably not, the public school system has protected many poor teachers for too long. What about their being a bad school where I live? Most school districts make it impossible to let your child transfer to another school district. Basically, they are dictating which school my child goes to and who her teachers are merely by geographical location.
Now if you saw my property tax bill, you would think I would have a say espically with all the school bonds I have been paying for. I could get involved with the school board, but by then its too little too late, I would literally have to be involved before my daughter set foot in a public school.
I could send her to private school, but they are expensive, and then really, I'm paying twice for schooling.
I cant home school her, both my wife and I work.
Whats the solution?

Jane is right in the fact that too many home schooled kids are not well adjusted and have piss poor education. Most of the home schooled kids I knew growing up had parents that were whack jobs. The kids were bizarre and to this day have never really fully adjusted. the parents did a disservice to their children, but how can we tell a parent they are not allowed to home school their children?

I think the solution is a complete overhaul of the public education system. And I hate to say it, because I too an a union member, but it may be time to get rid of the teachers union. Schools and parents need more say.

Now Gig and I agree on some govt things (2nd amendment being the biggest one) we can not abandon our public school system. Although I hate the fact I pay income taxes that are misused all the time, I would rather pay for a well run public school system and maybe give a kid a chance rather than paying for their welfare the rest of my life because they never got any education and are now living off my tax dollar.

Okay, but what makes education a right?

My issue is, right is a strong word. A right is a natural protection which if stripped breaks down the civility of social interaction. Government (coercive force) is the negation of liberty/civility in social interaction. That's a brief explanation of why natural rights are negative, not positive. I do not deny that education is a good idea and every child should be educated. All I say is education is not a right, and becaue its not a social right, I have no obligation to pay for anyone else's kid to go to school.

Gov't created the 'right', it is not naturally existing. Why is it if I live on the border of, Mass and NH, for example, and live in NH, I have to pay x-amount for everyone else's kid to go to school, yet if I situate myself across the border, I have to pay y-amount for everyone's kid in mass to go to school. It's a fictional 'right' that they extort the money out of ppl to pay for education. I don't owe anyone if I don't have kids.

Think of it this way...if a mormon has 50 kids, and everyone else has one...do you still feel those 50 kids have a 'right' to education, and everyone of the political subdivision owes an equal amount?

You'd be surprised. I'm sure there's better sources, but what I'd recommend to learn about charity vs. the inefficiency of gov't social work is the charity chapter of Ron Paul's book 'The Revolution: A Manifesto'. Gov't actually kills charities, just think of the non-profit workers' conditions compared to the air conditioned offices bureaucrats demand. Plus, private charities de-incentivize people to give to private charities if they think its being taken care of. And there's also Friedman's Law. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedman%27s_Law

So there's the utilitarian argument against gov't as charity in a nutshell...and I didn't even need to get into people having a right to do as they chose with their money, charitable or not.

True, but what's the alternative? The system we have now is less than pleasant.

I don't hide my radicalism...but remember, if you have a problem in the free market, someone else has the solution, for a price. And its also ethical, following the non-agression principle to a t. No guilt tripping over tax dollars.

Then what you want is the utilitarian argument against public schools, which I, as no expert on public schools, cannot provide. I consider myself, as well as everyone an ethical egoist, but if there's a utilitarian argument I can stomach its rule utilitarianism, which I kinda what I live by, but not for the sake of utilitarianism. I think anyone who calls themself a utilitarian is hiding the fact that they're an egoist first, as everyone is, and are often full of shiite.

However, I'd say refer to the rights thing above. Is the action justifiable? If I refused to pay your taxes, would you see it right to throw me in a cage? It always comes back to the gun in the room. Can we disagree without me getting shot?

"If men are good, you don't need government; if men are evil or ambivalent, you don't dare have one!"
-Robert LeFevre

If public education is a great idea, as you believe it is, why must I have to pay for it at the point of a gun? It continues to be a 'great idea' as people pay and life goes on, but what happens when we (the liberty movement) stop paying? Will they have the guts to imprison and/or kill us?

I know you probably aren't going to buy the logic of the gun in the room this time around, but not knowing much about schooling, I can't tell you how perfect it would be in the free market. All I can say is the free market gives you a better service at a lower price, and gov't monopoly does not. If you agree that education fees should be shared, and tons of people agree with you, you can all contract together freely to split costs. But I don't consent. Maybe I'll get married and wanna have 10 kids, and want to join in on your shared fees contract...but the decision remains mine. Pointing guns at people does not make anything justfied, no matter how much cooler society would be with such great ideas implemented.

Again, if the idea is great, you'll have company in it and can market it. If not, you'll have to perfect it until it is shared. Thus is the beauty of the market.

"Force and mind are opposites, morality ends where the gun begins."
-Ayn Rand

If people like CSI, they can research electrofrese crap on their own, and decide if they wanna do it. Literally, it had no value to us, it was just 'cool'.

I was out that day! It was mock trial in Franklin or something. I'm sure I would have enjoyed the thing, but I'd rather have spared the taxpayers $800. It wasn't about liking it, it was about wasting money, and there was no need to show a freshman bio class how to do a gel electrofrece thing, which maybe .2% of the population actually does for their employment.

Those are not 'privatized' in the sense that you mean. They're heavily restricted by the government. There's like 30 feet of bookshelf space just of federal regulation. We do not live in anything near resembling a free market.

It's not 'private', but shambles, indeed.

That's what they tell us, that its the market's fault, that government can save us, so its no wonder we begin to believe it...like the bank failure. It just slips the media's mind that banks are heavily restricted and our currency controlled by a private corporation which sets the value of the dollar.

It's a consequence of sucky parents. The market has nothing to do with that. Sucky parents produce lazy or dumb kids with government, yet I don't blame that on government's inability to act. Foster parents, people given kids by the government from homes that weren't all that bad have molested kids, just a consequence of govt? Kinda. These are problems that exist regardless of the system. Lest we forget human solutions are fallible. All I ask is that preemptive violence not be part of the solution, ever.

When parents do that, it's called bare assertion fallacy, "because I said so..." Either way, humans have to choose for themselves what to cherish and what not to. I hate math. I think beyond the basics, its garbage. But I won't stop people from learning it, and I'm glad they do, the complicated stuff keeps the computers running. People do not want chaos. If something causes a major problem, sell the solution and people will buy. The only thing that is capable of preventing common sense to prevail is government intervention.

Speaking of, all the atrocities throughout history were institutionalized by government. Slavery, women's lack of voting privleges, etc. (I say privilidge because voting is not a right. The system is a human construct, to be allowed participation is a privildge since it is not naturally existing).

I think we're kinda going in circles.

The practical arguments are the utilitarian ones, how things work, greatest good for greatest number, etc. The ethical arguments are rights, what is inherent, absolute, etc. If utilitarianism is also your ethic, then it dismisses people as means to an end. I can never agree with that. The reasoning comes down to one of us changing our perspectives, me cherishing rights less, or you cherishing utility less. My argument is that to preserve rights is utilitarian, but if your goal for society is public schooling over preservation of rights, I don't know where to go with that. I don't feel you have to sacrifice one for the other, all I ask is that no agression be the solution.

One of us is proposing violence against the other to force a payment for something that in no way concerns them, and they feel the other person's objection to this is 'warped'?

I don't get it, and I mean that sincerely. Are you ignoring the violent aspect of such a position? It would make more sense if you approach it as "I agree people have rights, but"....where instead you call the belief in absolute rights warped, I don't know where to go with that. It's everything I cherish, if its warped, I don't know what's going on...my head is hurting...

Government institutionalized all those evils.

While they were instituionalized by government because they were at one time the general consensus, they would have disappeared faster without government prolonging the problem.

Government is anti-social, in that what society would normally do is thwarted at gunpoint by government. When slavery became shocking to the collective conscience, it would have been repealed at once. But government enabled it to continue with legal protection, an evil air of legitimacy. Government's don't make you free, freedom is the realization that nobody grants you freedom, it is your naturally, as a condition of your existence. It can only be seized by others.

lol indeed.

Okay, I understand your concern about society regressing into less-progressive times. Just because history has moved us away from massive repression, slowly but surely, doesn't mean its gone forever, and WWII is a good example.

However, what makes you believe the existence of government will prevent the collective consciousness from changing for the worst? Government is the ability for a group of people to use force...what if the group in charge uses that force to opress in the ways you specified? There's nothing to stop them from imposing their will upon the rest of us.

In the free market, it's all about individuals. And everyone has absolute rights. Which means there can be no infringments on your life, liberty, or property without your consent. Goevrnment does not need to respect these rights. Therefore, I believe it to be far easier for a government to opress than a free society, where no one or group of people is allowed to repress under natural law.

I hate cutting things up because it removes the context, but apply this to the thing above, yeah.

In order for an action to be moral, it must be grounded what is moral and what is immoral. I base that off of what is justified. I determine what is justified based off of what natural rights people have. I hold those rights to be absolute, because if they are not absolute, they hold potentially no value, then they don't exist. While it would be nice for everyone to get educated and have health care and hi speed internet...these are not naturally existing rights people have. The are privledges that the market provides. Not everyone can afford the best health care avaiable, so it is their right to collect as much capital as they can, and use that capital in whatever ways they wish. They can chose to buy top of the line health insurance and drive a normal car, or buy a hummer and see a doc once every 5 years. When you take away the choice, you take away the human ability to chose.

While the ideas are great concepts, I believe in human ability to chose anything. If they want health insurance, they can buy it. If we all want it, then yeah, we all have a 'right' to it, having contracted to get it. BUt the choice remains ours.

So moral, I define as respecting their humanity to the utmost. I consider it immoral to force anything on someone. Intentions matter little when one is causing harm. So I say, first, do no harm.

I say opressing any one for any reason is equally evil and injust.

??? Have I? I don't equate them, I don't think. 'Need' is need, people find voluntary ways to provide for their needs, then satisfy their wants, etc. Moral, as I said, is doing no harm. It could also be moral to provide for others through sacrifice, giving, etc, but I find the primary moral judgement to be non-aggression, then what you chose to give adds to the moral character.

Equivocation? Basically a false syllogism. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equivocation

To fit with this thread, George Santayana, FTW.

"The history of the world is none other than the progress of the consciousness of freedom." -Georg Hegel

I haven't 'tricked myself' into believing in absolute freedom. It's what existence is supposed to be all about, what humanity is supposed to be all about. I don't feel 'owed' anything by the world, and conversly I don't owe them anything. Is that all that radical? We shall contract freely, and satisfy each others needs mutually and consensually. To force one group to pay for another is retro-oppression. I stand for no oppression.

Since I brought Hegel into this, I'd also say its not a stretch to call our current school system what Marx would label, "Petty-Bourgeois Socialism".

So do I...but in the absence of one, I'd say we give it a try in real life!

Utopia? Nah...I don't know anything about that. All I propose is absolute freedom, that geist that's been dangled in front of our ancestor's faces by politicians since the beginning of time. From there, what we do...is totally up to us.

You can be a high-tech entrepreneur or hippie in a commune. The choice is completely yours.

i didn't read all that but i saved it. i figure i'll read it when you not going to school on free money and got to live in the real world.

Trust me, its not free. I'm chained to the banks at like 13% interest.

Thanks for corrupting the loans in addition to money, federal government.

GIGGAN AGAINST THE WORLD!
its like germany in world war one! squash those ally fucks!

Hey, that's my money! You damn well better pay me back!

I'll reply to your other points later.

Ok, let me back up. I think every child brought in this world has a right to live a happy and productive life. Without an education they will lack choices and the skills to realize their potential. A functioning society benefits from an educated populace. And yes, we need to pay for it whether or not we have children of our own considering we were once children and have most likely already benefited i.e. already went to school at someone's expense.

I agree with Ross that public education is inequitable and needs to be improved, but I wholly support and assert with total conviction, that education is a right. As in, a societies responsibility to it's citizens.

That's a bad example. What about if you live in Mass, but go to college in NH and have to drive using roads I paid for since you don't work thus don't pay taxes. I live in Mass and work in Mass, why do I have to pay for roads that go to NH? Because I indirectly benefit from having that infrastructure in place. Those roads bring in supplies and will be awesome in case I have to evacuate pending a hurricane. (Ok, that was me being funny).

You consider taxes extortion, but I don't. I believe the way taxes are currently collected is inequitable, but that can be changed. I also don't agree with how taxes are allocated, but I can write my govt representatives, I can vote for change etc.

Why the Mormon bashing? I guess you don't believe that we have a right to religious freedom, either? But to answer, yes, those 50 kids deserve/have a right to an education. Are they responsible for their parents having more children than other people? I suppose we could, as a society, put laws into place that fine parents that have more than one child..

You tossed off that charities would spring into place to educate children whose parents wouldn't pay. My point is that charities have yet to eradicate starvation, so I doubt strongly that that would be the case. I'm not arguing about the govt being a charity. I'm talking about practical realities.

Sure, it's less than pleasant. It's not perfect, but kids are being educated even if their parents are crackheads.

Sure, if you can afford to pay for the solution of whatever it is you want. What if you can't? Should your children be punished for it? Or, what about me paying for you to go to school? I disagree with your views and I think you should get a job instead of my tax dollars going to support your radicalism. (I don't really) The beauty is you're a smart kid and you're get the education your intelligence deserves.

Sorry to pull a parka, but one last comment:

Maybe instead of radical, overly idealistic? Do you really believe that all individuals are ethical enough to make this work? Or as Jane suggests, will we return to a drastic inequity between haves and have nots. Where are the safeguards for the truly needy or oppressed?

Charities, Mirka, duh. If people aren't FORCED to give their money up, they will just do it voluntarily out of the goodness of their hearts!

you guys wont be laughing when giggan wins and oppresses your faces just to show he can

Emphasis mine. I guess this is where we truly part philosophically because I think we have a right to food. Being that we come into existence with physical bodies that do require food to prevent death, how can this not be a right?

these 'rights' are all senseless, i think. you call giggan an idealist, but is that so bad? in believing that we have these rights, you, too, are being an idealist. and whats wrong with idealism? without it, where would we be as a species? if no one hoped for more for us humans, wed still be a savage and brutish breed, which, im sure, people still think we are.

that took a lot out of me, i fear. maybe i should stick to just plain dickery and literary hob-nobbery.

Don't you think that your definition is too much of a simplification of what a right is, though? Shouldn't a right include the idea of something that is due to a person by moral principle? It seems like it's a moral principle that people should be able to do what they want with the money they make, and not have the government take it away. Of course, the government does; I think it's stretching it to say that taxing people is breaking down the civility of social interaction. Then again, it's a little wishy-washy what that means, exactly.

But I maybe misunderstanding you. I'm not even sure what you mean by natural protection. (If it's a natural protection, then why do you need a law to enforce it?)

Not at all. You make some good points. My basic point is: If a person exists, than they have a right to exist and they do require food for that hence they have a right to food. If they don't have food, is that a violation of their rights? Yes, in the sense that their right to exist is threatened. We are social animals that take care of each other whether on an individual level or on a larger scale through a government. Most of my convictions are based on Manfred Max Neef's ideas so let me insert a link here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_human_needs

So if certain needs are considered fundamental to existence, how can they not be rights?

My right to food is animals or plant's right to die? I am an animal and part of the food chain. I feel lucky to be a human one.

Your questions about what am I doing about starvation and what I am going to do is none of your business. I can express an opinion without having to back it up with a solution. I don't mean to be rude, but unless you were being rhetorical and you was directed to the world at large, I don't think I need to back it up with proof that I am fixing the world's problems.

Yes, I am idealistic about some things. I didn't say it was a bad thing. I don't claim I have all the answers, I just strongly disagree with Giggan's opinion of what society would become if his ideals were practiced on a large scale.

yeah, sorry. i wasnt literally asking you what you were doing about it.

Mirka:

Let's say that we created a law that said everyone has the right to food. Now let me paint a scenario.

Farmer John works hard all summer raising crops and storing food for the long winter ahead.

Lazy Steve spends the entire summer tanning on the beach.

Come winter, Steve doesn't have any food, so he comes knocking on Farmer John's door. "I have the right to food. Give me some of yours."

This doesn't seem fair.

***

I must also touch upon the comment, "My right to food is animals or plant's right to die? I am an animal and part of the food chain. I feel lucky to be a human one." I interpret this to mean that since you need food to live, that you need to kill animals to live. But you don't need meat to live, as a vegetarian diet is a perfectly health one (if done right, of course). The eating of animals is more of a want, than a need, IMO.

I must also mention that meat, especially beef, is a highly inefficent use of crops, and because of this meat eaters are driving up the price of food worldwide, which is resulting in starvation for people in impoverished countries.

you don't have a right to food. you have the ability to work for food. either by working at a job to earn money to buy food or by hunting and farming on your own.

No, I'm saying the Govt buys the food from Farmer John and has a system in place to feed Steve, who by the way wasn't tanning, he was at the beach because he's homeless.

I may not need meat to live, but depending on their geographic location, some people do. Offhand I can only think of Tibet because of the altitude.

Yes, I know that about cattle farms. Also the methane they produce contributes to the greenhouse effect. I'm not sure that it's the cattle farms that are currently driving up food prices, I thought it was the switch to corn for ethanol away from food crops?

What about children?

ive a modest proposal. would ye like to hear it?

Sure!