COMPARE: War Records - Page 5

AnonCastillo · 05-17-2004, 06:19 AM

Well, the Libertarian philosophy is based pretty heavily on personal responsibility, so there are some aspects of it that may seem self-centered. However, I don't see what's impractical about it - can you give some examples?
I wouldn't say guns and dope are a "positive" thing (actually, the Guns n Dope site is a parody). However, getting the government involved in them only makes the problem worse. Marijuana has been illegal for over 70 years, and during the last 30 years or so we've spent over a trillion dollars fighting it - and yet, marijuana use has gone up, rather than down. In the meantime, because marijuana has been illegal, it's been sold by criminal organizations, rather than businesses - so the money from its sale goes to murderers, gangs, and South American drug lords, rather than going to legitimate American businesses. It's also a lot easier for children to get ahold of because of its illegality - at least to get alcohol and tobacco, you have to have ID. To get marijuana, kids can usually find someone their age selling it through the black market (or just sitting next to them in school).

Jagos · 05-17-2004, 07:12 AM

In terms of between Bush and Kerry, I trust Bush more with our security over Kerry.

I don't know why but I just can't get behind the guy.

Now I would think the government would want to go after something like cocaine which is even more dangerous. But fighting a losing battle with drug addiction is just gonna be a losing battle in the end. No wonder we're in the hole in terms of national debt...

Omega Mage Zero · 05-17-2004, 08:49 AM

I believe marijuana should be legalized, but it's not a make-or-break issue for me. Probably because I don't smoke it. Not through lack of opportunity, but perhaps through too much. I know too many potheads who think they're freakin' Socrates because they smoke weed. Abou the gunsanddope comment; I was refering to your sig more than that site, but I guess you don't mention guns in your sig.

What's impractical about Libertarianism. Personal responsibility. People are lazy and don't want responsibility. This isn't the government's master plan, it's just what our society has turned into. People don't even want to raise their kids nowadays, they want the schools to. Ever heard of character education? Now schools are supposed to teach children the difference between right and wrong, because they're parents are too busy goofing around. The American people couldn't handle a society without a lot of restrictions.

AnonCastillo · 05-17-2004, 10:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Omega Mage Zero

What's impractical about Libertarianism. Personal responsibility. People are lazy and don't want responsibility. This isn't the government's master plan, it's just what our society has turned into. People don't even want to raise their kids nowadays, they want the schools to. Ever heard of character education? Now schools are supposed to teach children the difference between right and wrong, because they're parents are too busy goofing around. The American people couldn't handle a society without a lot of restrictions.

Part of the reason that parents aren't teaching their children the difference between right and wrong is that they don't have time to. How many families do you know where both parents have to work to support their household? How much of that is because half of what each parent makes goes to taxes, so they can't afford to have only one parent work and have the other stay home with the kids? How much of it is because government schools "guarantee" kids an education (that they're generally not very good at providing)? Parents who pay for private schooling (or even parents whose children can only afford to go through scholarships) care a lot more about how well their kids are doing in school, because they're paying for it (or would have to if their children's grades slip far enough that they lose the scholarship). If you want people to be more responsible, you have to give them a reason to be - and if the government is always picking up the slack, they'll slack off even more.

As far as cocaine and harder drugs, just because it's <i>legal</i> doesn't mean it won't be <i>regulated</i>. Again, most kids know someone within their own school who deals drugs. If drugs were being sold by legitimate businesses, there's no profit in the black market, so kids won't be dealing drugs to classmates. By legalizing drugs, we make them easier to control.

Omega Mage Zero · 05-17-2004, 01:59 PM

Libertarian views on society sound more like anarchy to me. A kind of "survival of the fittest", where those that can't succeed for any reason are abandoned. We NEED good public schools for those whose parents are too poor or negligent to give any money or effort for children. Children shouldn't be punished for having bad parents.

And taxes are not the only hardship families face. We need government programs that taxes pay for. Taxes could be lower, yes, but they don't need to be eliminated. Maybe if we didn't spend hundreds of billions of dollars a year on the military, we could actually do more to reduce ignorance and poverty in this country.

AnonCastillo · 05-17-2004, 02:43 PM

What we have now is a sort of "survival of whoever can bribe politicians out of more favors." Even if we were advocating "survival of the fittest", it wouldn't be any worse than what we have now.

You say we need good public schools. We don't have them. There was a 97-99% literacy rate in this country before the government ever got involved in schooling. Our literacy rate has dropped since then. The average adult has about a 5th grade reading level.
Before the government got into the schooling business, nearly everyone was either home schooled or went to a private school. Churches offered free schooling (well, paid for by voluntary donations rather than taxes) for children of families who couldn't afford to pay for schooling. For poor families who don't want religious schooling, there are thousands of charities that offer college scholarships - I'm sure plenty will pop up to send younger kids to private schools. In fact, I know a libertarian who runs one. Considering how strong the secular and atheist movements are becoming in this country, some secular groups might even get together to provide free secular schooling.
However, since each of these schools (even the charity-based ones) would need to compete for students, they'd all need to actually offer a decent education in order to get parents to send their students. Government schools don't have that need - they receive funding whether students learn or not. In fact, if students aren't learning, they're likely to get more money. And that's the main difference between government programs and private organizations - when private organizations fail, they stop taking up people's money because nobody will donate to an organization that doesn't know what it's doing, making room for an organization that does, but when government programs fail they're given the ability to waste even more money on plans that already aren't working.

It isn't even just about the money - it's about what each organization has to do to get the money. Politicians have to offer you the moon, but keep giving you a dull rock instead, in order to get your votes and the ability to spend your money. Charities have to actually make headway into solving problems in order to get donations. Government programs simply don't have any reason to work.

Omega Mage Zero · 05-17-2004, 05:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AnonCastillo

You say we need good public schools. We don't have them. There was a 97-99% literacy rate in this country before the government ever got involved in schooling.

I've got to see some kind of source before I'll believe that.

Frankly, charities aren't really answerable to their recipients either. There's a "like it or lump it" attitude with most charities I've been around.

Anyway, WE are the government. Perhaps you don't believe it, but people in this country get the government they deserve. If you could get people to take an interest in public affairs and hold politicians accountable things WOULD be different.
You said earlier people don't vote because they're disgusted with democrats and republicans. People don't vote because they're lazy and apathetic. THESE are the people libertarians are relying on? Private schools are run by people, so are public schools. The problem is PEOPLE, humanity itself, not "the Government". So many groups use "the Government" as some sort of boogeyman, responsible for every evil in the world. The government is just an organization filled with people, like every other organization. In fact, if you got rid of the government, you'd just replace it with another.

AnonCastillo · 05-17-2004, 05:54 PM

http://www.mises.org/fullstory.asp?control=1425
"Massachusetts had reached a level of 98% literacy in 1850. This occurred before the state's compulsory education law of 1852. Senator Edward Kennedy's office released a paper in the 1980s stating that literacy in Massachusetts was only 91%."
Admittedly, the 98% was only for one state - sorry I got the details mixed up - but as you'll see from reading the article, the national literacy rate was high and rising before public schools were widely used.

MFD · 05-17-2004, 10:56 PM

No offense, but Boston schools aren't a good example. I mean, bussing destroyed the school system in the 60s.

AnonCastillo · 05-18-2004, 04:12 AM

And in 40 years since then, the school system hasn't been able to recover? If a private school had a bad record for 40 years, they'd have gone out of business 30 years ago and made room for a better school to replace them.

Edit: Another, better source, from Mary Ruwart's Healing Our World:

In the 1800s, Americans were considered to be among the most literate people in the world. A visiting French aristocrat, Alexis de Tocqueville, claimed that the new nation had the best educated people in history.(13) The complex novel Last of the Mohicans, published in 1818, sold five million copies(14) at a time when the U.S. population was less than 20 million.(15) By 1840, literacy in the North and South, exclusive of the slave population, was over 90% and 80%, respectively.(16) In other words literacy was more prevalent than it is today!

(--p. 145)

Notes 13-16:

13. S.L. Blumenfeld, Is Public Education Necessary? (Boise, ID: Paradigm, 1985), pp. 68, 126; S.L. Blumenfeld "Why the Schools Went Public," Reason, March 1979, p. 19.
14. J.T. Gatto, The Underground History of American Education: A Schoolteacher's Intimate Investigation into the Problem of Modern Schooling (New York: Oxford Village Press, 2001), p. 57.
15. J.T. Gatto, "Our Prussian School System," Cato Policy Report 15: 2, 1993.
16. B.W. Poulson, "Education and the Family During the Industrial Revolution," in J.R. Peden and F.R. Glahe, eds., The American Family and the State, (San Francisco: Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy, 1986), p. 138.

05-17-2004, 06:19 AM	#41
AnonCastillo Heathen Join Date: Dec 2003 Posts: 268	Well, the Libertarian philosophy is based pretty heavily on personal responsibility, so there are some aspects of it that may seem self-centered. However, I don't see what's impractical about it - can you give some examples? I wouldn't say guns and dope are a "positive" thing (actually, the Guns n Dope site is a parody). However, getting the government involved in them only makes the problem worse. Marijuana has been illegal for over 70 years, and during the last 30 years or so we've spent over a trillion dollars fighting it - and yet, marijuana use has gone up, rather than down. In the meantime, because marijuana has been illegal, it's been sold by criminal organizations, rather than businesses - so the money from its sale goes to murderers, gangs, and South American drug lords, rather than going to legitimate American businesses. It's also a lot easier for children to get ahold of because of its illegality - at least to get alcohol and tobacco, you have to have ID. To get marijuana, kids can usually find someone their age selling it through the black market (or just sitting next to them in school). __________________ Help control the idiot population; remember to have your idiot spayed or neutered.

05-17-2004, 02:43 PM	#46
AnonCastillo Heathen Join Date: Dec 2003 Posts: 268	What we have now is a sort of "survival of whoever can bribe politicians out of more favors." Even if we were advocating "survival of the fittest", it wouldn't be any worse than what we have now. You say we need good public schools. We don't have them. There was a 97-99% literacy rate in this country before the government ever got involved in schooling. Our literacy rate has dropped since then. The average adult has about a 5th grade reading level. Before the government got into the schooling business, nearly everyone was either home schooled or went to a private school. Churches offered free schooling (well, paid for by voluntary donations rather than taxes) for children of families who couldn't afford to pay for schooling. For poor families who don't want religious schooling, there are thousands of charities that offer college scholarships - I'm sure plenty will pop up to send younger kids to private schools. In fact, I know a libertarian who runs one. Considering how strong the secular and atheist movements are becoming in this country, some secular groups might even get together to provide free secular schooling. However, since each of these schools (even the charity-based ones) would need to compete for students, they'd all need to actually offer a decent education in order to get parents to send their students. Government schools don't have that need - they receive funding whether students learn or not. In fact, if students aren't learning, they're likely to get more money. And that's the main difference between government programs and private organizations - when private organizations fail, they stop taking up people's money because nobody will donate to an organization that doesn't know what it's doing, making room for an organization that does, but when government programs fail they're given the ability to waste even more money on plans that already aren't working. It isn't even just about the money - it's about what each organization has to do to get the money. Politicians have to offer you the moon, but keep giving you a dull rock instead, in order to get your votes and the ability to spend your money. Charities have to actually make headway into solving problems in order to get donations. Government programs simply don't have any reason to work. __________________ Help control the idiot population; remember to have your idiot spayed or neutered.

05-17-2004, 05:54 PM	#48
AnonCastillo Heathen Join Date: Dec 2003 Posts: 268	http://www.mises.org/fullstory.asp?control=1425 "Massachusetts had reached a level of 98% literacy in 1850. This occurred before the state's compulsory education law of 1852. Senator Edward Kennedy's office released a paper in the 1980s stating that literacy in Massachusetts was only 91%." Admittedly, the 98% was only for one state - sorry I got the details mixed up - but as you'll see from reading the article, the national literacy rate was high and rising before public schools were widely used. __________________ Help control the idiot population; remember to have your idiot spayed or neutered.

05-17-2004, 10:56 PM	#49
MFD THWIP! Join Date: Feb 2004 Posts: 1,626	No offense, but Boston schools aren't a good example. I mean, bussing destroyed the school system in the 60s. __________________ And The Lord did curse Caine for his sin, for by The Lord blood may only be repaid in sparkly glitter. - DFM 11:30

05-18-2004, 04:12 AM	#50
AnonCastillo Heathen Join Date: Dec 2003 Posts: 268	And in 40 years since then, the school system hasn't been able to recover? If a private school had a bad record for 40 years, they'd have gone out of business 30 years ago and made room for a better school to replace them. Edit: Another, better source, from Mary Ruwart's Healing Our World: In the 1800s, Americans were considered to be among the most literate people in the world. A visiting French aristocrat, Alexis de Tocqueville, claimed that the new nation had the best educated people in history.(13) The complex novel Last of the Mohicans, published in 1818, sold five million copies(14) at a time when the U.S. population was less than 20 million.(15) By 1840, literacy in the North and South, exclusive of the slave population, was over 90% and 80%, respectively.(16) In other words literacy was more prevalent than it is today! (--p. 145) Notes 13-16: 13. S.L. Blumenfeld, Is Public Education Necessary? (Boise, ID: Paradigm, 1985), pp. 68, 126; S.L. Blumenfeld "Why the Schools Went Public," Reason, March 1979, p. 19. 14. J.T. Gatto, The Underground History of American Education: A Schoolteacher's Intimate Investigation into the Problem of Modern Schooling (New York: Oxford Village Press, 2001), p. 57. 15. J.T. Gatto, "Our Prussian School System," Cato Policy Report 15: 2, 1993. 16. B.W. Poulson, "Education and the Family During the Industrial Revolution," in J.R. Peden and F.R. Glahe, eds., The American Family and the State, (San Francisco: Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy, 1986), p. 138. __________________ Help control the idiot population; remember to have your idiot spayed or neutered. Last edited by AnonCastillo; 05-18-2004 at 04:27 AM.

05-17-2004, 07:12 AM	#42
Jagos FRONT KICK OF DOOM! Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Howdy pardner... Posts: 6,399	In terms of between Bush and Kerry, I trust Bush more with our security over Kerry. I don't know why but I just can't get behind the guy. Now I would think the government would want to go after something like cocaine which is even more dangerous. But fighting a losing battle with drug addiction is just gonna be a losing battle in the end. No wonder we're in the hole in terms of national debt...

05-17-2004, 08:49 AM	#43
Omega Mage Zero Troopa Join Date: Feb 2004 Posts: 53	I believe marijuana should be legalized, but it's not a make-or-break issue for me. Probably because I don't smoke it. Not through lack of opportunity, but perhaps through too much. I know too many potheads who think they're freakin' Socrates because they smoke weed. Abou the gunsanddope comment; I was refering to your sig more than that site, but I guess you don't mention guns in your sig. What's impractical about Libertarianism. Personal responsibility. People are lazy and don't want responsibility. This isn't the government's master plan, it's just what our society has turned into. People don't even want to raise their kids nowadays, they want the schools to. Ever heard of character education? Now schools are supposed to teach children the difference between right and wrong, because they're parents are too busy goofing around. The American people couldn't handle a society without a lot of restrictions.

05-17-2004, 01:59 PM	#45
Omega Mage Zero Troopa Join Date: Feb 2004 Posts: 53	Libertarian views on society sound more like anarchy to me. A kind of "survival of the fittest", where those that can't succeed for any reason are abandoned. We NEED good public schools for those whose parents are too poor or negligent to give any money or effort for children. Children shouldn't be punished for having bad parents. And taxes are not the only hardship families face. We need government programs that taxes pay for. Taxes could be lower, yes, but they don't need to be eliminated. Maybe if we didn't spend hundreds of billions of dollars a year on the military, we could actually do more to reduce ignorance and poverty in this country.