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Politics : Bush-The Mastermind behind 9/11? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lazarus_Long who wrote (1969)	8/14/2003 2:02:53 PM
From: LPS5	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 20039

Have you noticed that areas (such as Africa) where education barely exists, democracy barely exists? Yes. Have you noticed that, despite government-funded education initiatives, American students' math scores are consistently embarrassing on a global scale? Or that home-schooled kids consistently trounce standardized testing by measures far exceeding those of state-run schools? (I also believe that the causal relationship between education and democracy your proposing is somewhat stretched and oversimplified...but that's a topic for a different post.) I don't think that illiteracy is a weighty enough reason to accept governmental redistribution. That's the whole of it. In fact, I think it's a reason to get the government out of the teaching business, even if it means that there will be a small group of those who will, for whatever reason, go without the three R's. I would say the state should NOT do it. I agree. This idea is simply the pet of the teachers' union. And statists, and those with social engineering objectives, etc... What the state should do is collect the funds, then redistribute them to parents with the condition they MUST be spent to educate the kids. To the extent that the above 'plan' contemplates private or community run choices, I'd agree. But the idea of the government taking funds and redistributing them is unabashed socialism in its purest form. What of police protection? If you don't or can't hire your own guards, you get none? Of all the things that government does wrong, it does get a few things right; those things tend to be those few where the private market doesn't work. The training, organization, and maintenance of police and military forces are among those few areas. So you are simply fair game for anyone who wants to kill you? Even despite the above, you are whether or not there's a police force, aren't you? I mean, especially if those wanting to kill you are particularly motivated and you can't afford a few bodyguards, etc. - right? This is the basic problem with libertarianism and why it is not a serious political party: Too many of its believers are really anarchists. If they're anarchists, no matter what they call themselves, they're not libertarians. We discussed that last week, didn't we? People would rather have a tyrannical gov't than none at all. Who said anything about having "no" government? LPS5