POG Politics Thread

[ackbleh]

Originally Posted by amplify

I don't actually think this is the case. Without governmental controls, anyone who wants to set up a school can do so, and the result of competition will be improved education at lower prices. This idea of children being herded into government classrooms for 7 hours a day from age 5 to age 18 is ridiculous anyway. It doesn't take that long to teach a kid to read, do arithmetic operations, and get along with other people.

But I haven't "created a society". All I have done is live by the simple moral rule of minding my own business. If people want government, they can have all of it they can stand. Just don't kick in my door if I don't join. If your government has reasonable taxes and provides valuable services, I might. The USA did pretty well until 1913 when we got hit with the double whammy of the personal income tax and the Federal Reserve System. At that point, I'd like to leave the organization.

This probably doesn't sound so good to people born to poor parents. One of the big benefits of making education public is that it becomes available to everyone. Or are you arguing that a child born to broke parents should have to take a part time job at age 5 to put themselves through elementary schoo?

[amplify]

Originally Posted by ackbleh

This probably doesn't sound so good to people born to poor parents. One of the big benefits of making education public is that it becomes available to everyone. Or are you arguing that a child born to broke parents should have to take a part time job at age 5 to put themselves through elementary schoo?

Well his parents right off the top have like twice as much money due to not being taxed into the ground. That should cover it. And again, I'm sure that human beings in the 21st century can find a nonviolent way to offer education to poor people.

[fnord_too]

Originally Posted by amplify

I don't actually think this is the case. Without governmental controls, anyone who wants to set up a school can do so, and the result of competition will be improved education at lower prices. This idea of children being herded into government classrooms for 7 hours a day from age 5 to age 18 is ridiculous anyway. It doesn't take that long to teach a kid to read, do arithmetic operations, and get along with other people.

But I haven't "created a society". All I have done is live by the simple moral rule of minding my own business. If people want government, they can have all of it they can stand. Just don't kick in my door if I don't join. If your government has reasonable taxes and provides valuable services, I might. The USA did pretty well until 1913 when we got hit with the double whammy of the personal income tax (so unconstitutional they had to pass an amendment) and the Federal Reserve System. At that point, I'd like to leave the organization.

I do not believe this is how it would play out. I think more likely you would see a bunch of schools pushing agenda's (especially religious agendas and some business agendas where one particular corporation has a large presence in a community).

I am not sure what metrics you are using to measure how well or not the US is doing. For instance, I am pretty sure that in 1913, we were not the leader in GDP, but since we have taken a massive lead (though we are now losing it). I could be incorrect, but I am fairly certain that if we were the leader it was by no where near as much as we became.

Some questions so I understand your position better:
In your system children do not have to go to school in any manner, correct?
Is child labor acceptable?
Is leaving a small child unattended acceptable?
If not to the above two, how do you account for it?

Also, you learn a lot more than how to "read, do arithmetic operations, and get along with other people" up through high school (at least you have the opportunity to). You can basically come out of high school today with the equivalent of a college education from 25 years ago, and probably a PhD from 100 years ago. I know you are old Amp, but I am just as old and I didn't go to some one room school house

[fnord_too]

Originally Posted by amplify

Well his parents right off the top have like twice as much money due to not being taxed into the ground. That should cover it. And again, I'm sure that human beings in the 21st century can find a nonviolent way to offer education to poor people.

I don't know, there is a hell of a lot of violence in the world. People, left to their own devices, can be pretty damn scary.

There is a problem of showing causality, though one can certainly show a lot of correlation between the things you argue against and positive metrics in countries. The US is less taxed than most of Europe. I am not sure where Japan falls, but the place I would want to live all seem to have high taxes by your standards and a lot of government intervention. (Note: I do not like the current trends in the US, which are for more government intervention in a rather negative, imo, way.)

[ackbleh]

Originally Posted by amplify

Well his parents right off the top have like twice as much money due to not being taxed into the ground. That should cover it.

Some kids are burdened with irresponsible and irrational parents. For some, it would just buy more drugs. Or they'd turn fewer tricks. Or their pimp would take a larger share, or whatever.

Originally Posted by amplify

And again, I'm sure that human beings in the 21st century can find a nonviolent way to offer education to poor people.

You're a human being and it's the 21st century, so, spell it out. You can't sweep one of the glaring inadequacies of your solution under the rug like this.

I'm with you in a lot of ways, but it's problems like this that keep people from embracing your solution. I care a lot less about 30% of my income than I care about our country going to **** because there's no social services at all. But there are way too many selfish and materialistic people in our country for charity to solve these problems, and charity is frankly an unfair way to solve these problems anyways.

[Zurvan]

I work in an office space that's rented from a consulting firm that works with charities for fundraising. They have a dozen full time staff, and spend more time on trips flying around North America to meet with charity bigwigs, doing conferences, etc, than they do in the office. They charge a lot of money for what they do.

The longer I'm there, the less faith I have that charity is anything more than a way for people to make a lot of money while looking down their nose at people in business who are "just out for profit". Paying somebody $100,000+ /yr to tell you how to raise $125,000 seems a little silly, yet pretty ubiquitous.

[fnord_too]

Originally Posted by Zurvan

I work in an office space that's rented from a consulting firm that works with charities for fundraising. They have a dozen full time staff, and spend more time on trips flying around North America to meet with charity bigwigs, doing conferences, etc, than they do in the office. They charge a lot of money for what they do.

The longer I'm there, the less faith I have that charity is anything more than a way for people to make a lot of money while looking down their nose at people in business who are "just out for profit". Paying somebody $100,000+ /yr to tell you how to raise $125,000 seems a little silly, yet pretty ubiquitous.

Yeah, when you start looking at the amount of money that gets donated to charities that makes it to the task at hand, it can be pretty depressing. I think Gates does a good job, but he doesn't really have to worry about the whole fund raising aspect. Buffet is even more interested in getting the most for the charitable buck.

[ackbleh]

I gave $30 to the ACLU when I was 18. They immediately started sending me materials begging for more money. Reading the materials made me want to barf -- not at whatever injustices they were describing, but at the manner in which the material was written and presented.

13 years later, they still send the same sappy crap to me at my parents' house in Georgia. Every time I go visit them, there's an ACLU letter waiting. Even with the great rates I'm sure they get on printing and mass mailing, I'm pretty sure my $30 donation has easily been spent on sending crappy mailers back to me. So much for contributing to support civil liberties.

[amplify]

In your system children do not have to go to school in any manner, correct?

I don't have a system. I don't tell other people what to do with their children.

Is child labor acceptable?

Forcing people to do stuff they don't want to do is unacceptable.

Is leaving a small child unattended acceptable?

If a monkey made you a sandwich, would you eat it?

[Zurvan]

In Canada, in order to be a registered charity that can distribute tax receipts 10% of donations have to go to whatever your stated cause is. You can still accept charitable donations if you don't meet that requirement, donors just don't get a tax break.

My point for bringing this up is, depending on some sort of charity to take care of important things might just be less efficient than depending on the government. That said, I'd be pretty happy if I was only paying 30% tax.

[Zurvan]

The problem I have with discussions like these: People on opposite sides of the issue look at the world so differently, we can't even discuss things in the same language.

[Hitch]

ham sandwich?

if so, I'd prolly eat it.

[amplify]

You're a human being and it's the 21st century, so, spell it out. You can't sweep one of the glaring inadequacies of your solution under the rug like this.

I didn't say I'm smarter than you and I have figured out how to run the world. I don't have to explicate The Amplified Scholastic Method to your satisfaction in order to be right. I don't have to have prefabricated solutions to all of your objections to be right. It just has to be right not to commit aggressive acts against people.

You are the one who has to justify your violence.

[amplify]

Originally Posted by Zurvan

The problem I have with discussions like these: People on opposite sides of the issue look at the world so differently, we can't even discuss things in the same language.

Interesting. I was thinking that this was a terrific discussion.

[ackbleh]

Originally Posted by amplify

I don't have a system. I don't tell other people what to do with their children.

The children of capable parents are going to be fine either way. I think the folks both fnord and I are concerned with are the children of incompetents. It's pretty damn heartless to look at a child of a ****ty parent and say 'you're ****ed because I don't believe in governmental social services and all your parents are going to do is hit you and be bad examples. Feed you? LOL!"