[ThePublicOpinions]

Given that some 40,000 people die on the roads each year I am not sure what 'dangerous' roads would look like. This is just another failure of socialism. There is no competition for quality, for safety, and so people die. If any private industry killed so many people every year there would be inquests and congressional hearings and all manner of hand wringing. Because these deaths - like countless others - are because of state incompetence, they are over looked. Taxation is not the cause of economic prosperity - and if it was, then why not raise taxes to 100% on everyone and we could laugh all the way to the bank? Taxes put a damper on economic growth.

It is true that without roads it would be tough for the economy to function. But simply because government currently builds the roads, does not mean this is the way it must be, or that this is the ideal system. It seems strange to me that so many people can be so enamoured with the status quo, as if greedy self serving politicians looting the public for all they are worth could come up with some form of idealized socio-economic system. Yes, health care is necessary (can't have any wage slaves if they all die from measles) but for health care you need doctors and hospitals, not government. It wasn't very long ago in both of our countries that there was no government involvement in health care, and guess what, people still got treated.

In fact, the history of the state on environmental regulation is quite bad. In America, during the industrial revolution, there was a shift by the courts away from the original principle of 'protecting property rights' towards the alternate goal of 'public policy'. Thus it was decided that it was okay for factories to pollute, so long as they were not polluting more than anyone else. How often has the left attacked libertarians for worshiping property rights - yet if we had taken these property rights seriously 150 years ago, so many problems with pollution could have been prevented. And let's not forget the government is usually the biggest polluter of them all. Where was the worst environmental damage of all time? The soviet union. Where the philosophy of statism was taken to it's logical and tragic conclusion.

State monopoly on education and health care have resulted in a stagnant school system where creativity is unrewarded and our children are conditioned towards blind obedience of authority. In my country, where we have the blessed 'public option' in full bore it is ILLEGAL to pay a doctor to heal you. Our politicians fly to America at the first sign of medical problems while passing laws that make it illegal for us to get decent medical care. The government, having already taxed us to around 70% marginal tax rates can tax no more, so it now rations health care, and people die while waiting around for someone to heal them.

Prosperity comes from economic freedom, not from the state. Monopolies (and the state monopolizes every service it 'provides') result in higher costs and lower quality. Taxation does not create wealth, it absconds with it. We are not wealthy because of government, we are wealthy in spite of government.


What abuses have you personally seen in the American health care system? With your own eyes?

[grassroots1]

I really can't bring myself to slog through another one of these misguided, ignorant posts yet again so either I'm going to leave it for someone else or come back to it at a later date. TPO... you have no idea how many times I've had this exact same discussion and it has only strengthened my resolve. Spend some time, cool down, and really listen to what I've said because I can tell you've bought into this ideology fully and that you dogmatically defend these beliefs. I can only argue against this type of dogmatism for so long before it wears on me. Hope to regain my energy soon - peace.

[Kman]

Money is not power in the same way that government force is power, my neighbour can be a billionaire but he still wont be able to force me to do anything I dont want too, if the government tells me to do something then I am forced to comply however since if I dont I get a sent to prison, my billionaire neighbour cant do that.

[lubbockjoe]

Money is not power in the same way that government force is power,

The key phrase is "in the same way." Your statement allows for money being power in other ways.

my neighbour can be a billionaire but he still wont be able to force me to do anything I dont want too, if the government tells me to do something then I am forced to comply however since if I dont I get a sent to prison, my billionaire neighbour cant do that.

The existence of contracts benefits the rich. The poor do not obligate the rich by contract. The rich obligate the poor by contract.

The enforcement of contracts is force. Contracts are legally binding. Contracts can be, and often are deceptive, especially for someone who is not familiar with legal jargon. Billion

[Kman]

The key phrase is "in the same way." Your statement allows for money being power in other ways.

Money is a type of power, the power to offer goods to people in return for their cooperation, you can reject this money if you dont like what the money holder is offering but that still does not mean that money has the same power as a government mandate backed by the threat of jail time or death (if you refuse to abide by said government dictate).

The enforcement of contracts is force. Contracts are legally binding. Contracts can be, and often are deceptive especially for someone who is not familiar with legal jargon.

Then I wont sign any contract that said billionaire creates, you dont have the same option when it comes to laws and regulations created by your government.

[lubbockjoe]

The defacto authority in an anarcho-capitalistic society would be the capitalist.

Ancaps are primarily capitalists who seek to profit from the lack of power of a minimalist state.

Ancaps are not anarchists in principle. They are anarchists because it is expedient for achieving their capitalistic goal of personal profits.

Kman,
Do you agree with those statements?

[Kman]

Kman,
Do you agree with those statements?

No I think they are ridicilous.

[lubbockjoe]

No I think they are ridicilous.

Do you care to elaborate?

The existence of contracts benefits the rich. The poor do not obligate the rich by contract. The rich obligate the poor by contract. The enforcement of contracts is coercive force.

[SecretSquirrel]

"Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all. We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain."

[lubbockjoe]

"Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all. We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain."

No need to shout.

Why are you injecting socialism into this thread? You are off-topic.

Make your post in the socialism forum.

[grassroots1]

Besides, it's wrong. Just because you're opposed to universal government-provided education of course does not mean that you're opposed to EDUCATION in general, that would be absurd. You just erroneously imagine that the market could effectively take the place of government in terms of providing decent, quality education to American people.

[ThePublicOpinions]

The error is assuming that if you have a government monopoly on education you won't suffer from lower quality. The public school system is a horrible failure; it does not teach people how to think creatively but rather it conditions pupils for obedience towards the state.

[grassroots1]

I went to public school. Public schools do not do any one thing because they are composed of teachers with varying opinions and teaching styles. There is a certain curriculum of course but the teachers have leeway and can interpret and add their own thoughts onto this curriculum, develop their own lessons, etc. There is actually a relatively high degree of freedom in the American public educational system in terms of the ways things can and cannot be taught. Under a democratic system a public educational system can be a place of open discourse and learning and is definitely not necessarily a place of indoctrination. So I'm afraid you're incorrect...

[ThePublicOpinions]

I went to many public schools. 8 or 9. They were all the same. You sit down in a chair for 8 hours a day and listen to some idiot lecture on about things they don't really understand. The curriculum is dictated to school boards by the province. Private schools are forced to teach the same stuff. You couldn't design a worse system. There is no creativity, no ingenuity, just massive expensive bureaucracy.

[grassroots1]

I don't know what to say except that I had nearly the opposite experience. My teachers were generally knowledgeable about the subjects they were teaching, and they wanted to engage the students. But that's the whole point: it's not just some formless institution with mechanical teachers and braindead students... maybe this is the experience you had and that's a shame, but I did not. There are unique people who make up these institutions and can use their own creative license, to a degree (which is a good thing), to own the curriculum and the system. So don't condemn all of public education because of your bad experience. I've pointed out before that you should look to the Finnish educational system which is fully state-owned and has 100% unionized teachers for an example of a near-ideal system. They top the list in evaluations of educational quality by nation.

And ultimately without a universal public educational system we would undoubtedly see a hierarchy of educational quality arise where the wealthy who can pay top dollar for a good education get a good education and the poor who cannot, don't. Either that or kids would go uneducated entirely, and we decided long ago in this country that this was an unacceptable situation. I'm glad we made that decision and I think we should defend these systems. If you differ in opinion, fine, although I think you're severely misguided.

[ThePublicOpinions]

Yes, a free market in education would mean higher quality education for the rich than the poor. But I don't see what is morally superior about dragging everyone down to the same torrid level. Nor would the poor be without access to great education in this system, just as today, the poor's children do not die of malnourishment despite having unequal exposure to food.

Every school I went to was the same. All the classes had the same format, all the schools taught the same subjects, all the teachers taught in the same manner, teaching the same material year in and year out. Kids would furiously scribble down what teachers taught, never really thinking about it or questioning it. Then there were the tests. Everyone would cram to study for the test, trying through rote memorization to get the right answers. This system is wonderful for teaching obedience but terrible for promoting independent thought.

It saddens me to think of what our society could be if we only allowed the creative energies of a free people to be unleashed to solve this problem. If schools could compete, if they had to compete, there would be an avalanche of ingenuity. Different teaching styles, different classes. You could have a high school for people who wanted to work in the trades where they taught every trade and you could apprentice from a young age and enter the market learning valuable skills. Or a school for artists, where they could sit around and be lazy and wax philosophical and make pretty pictures. You could have teachers that taught and students who learned entirely from kinesthetic methods or auditory methods. There is no telling what, through purely self interest, we could come up with. Parents would decide how and in what manner their children are educated. Instead of trying to fit every unique child into the same damnable round hole we could unleash the creative capacity of every human being. We could all be Mozarts. Everyone an Einstein.

Instead we have settled for mediocrity. For a style of teaching so boring it kills the innate love of learning we all felt. Weren't you ever asked, by your classmates, "why are you reading"? Didn't you ever see the listlessness in their eyes?

[grassroots1]

But I don't see what is morally superior about dragging everyone down to the same torrid level.

No one is being dragged down. A rich person can enroll their kid in the private school of their choice and get basically whatever form and whatever quality of education they desire for their child.

Nor would the poor be without access to great education in this system, just as today, the poor's children do not die of malnourishment despite having unequal exposure to food.

There is malnourishment and hunger in this country and the levels of hunger have been increasing during the recession.

Every school I went to was the same. All the classes had the same format, all the schools taught the same subjects, all the teachers taught in the same manner, teaching the same material year in and year out. Kids would furiously scribble down what teachers taught, never really thinking about it or questioning it. Then there were the tests. Everyone would cram to study for the test, trying through rote memorization to get the right answers. This system is wonderful for teaching obedience but terrible for promoting independent thought.

Rote learning in math, language, grammar, and science is necessary. I did see many people who were uninterested in thinking about topics we discussed in school independently, but I don't think this was a result of the system itself. There were teachers who were open to kids who wanted to learn more about the subjects for their own sake, and from time to time I would take advantage of this. I would go and talk to teachers after class, ask them questions about their areas of expertise, and learn from them outside a classroom setting. I mean, I'm not sure what the complaint is here. Education in general will involve rote learning and memorization, the motivation to think independently and develop your own ideas has to come from within. Regardless I had teachers who encouraged it.

Instead of trying to fit every unique child into the same damnable round hole we could unleash the creative capacity of every human being. We could all be Mozarts. Everyone an Einstein.

This can be done in a public system, it's only a matter of OWNING that public system and guiding it in the right direction.

The Finnish philosophy with education is that everyone has something to contribute and those who struggle in certain subjects should not be left behind.

A tactic used in virtually every lesson is the provision of an additional teacher who helps those who struggle in a particular subject. But the pupils are all kept in the same classroom, regardless of their ability in that particular subject.

Finland's Education Minister, Henna Virkkunen is proud of her country's record but her next goal is to target the brightest pupils.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8601207.stm

I'm afraid that doing what libertarians desire--and you are the winning "trend" in the modern world, mostly because of the fact that privatization plays directly into the hands of the elite in this country (a fact you should pay attention to--cui bono)--would set us back a century. Kids would be left behind and wouldn't get decent educations, there would be, like I said, a hierarchy of educational quality, there would be concentration of wealth and power, and there would generally be a reinforcement of the upper class and lower class dichotomy. This is basically inevitable. Like I said, before you fully buy into this ideology I encourage you to examine the reasons that certain regulations (safety regulations, the minimum wage, the weekend, public systems of education and health care) exist in your country, because there are very good reasons that they do, in my opinion. I can't fully disprove your argument that competition would offset this, but given historical lessons I am highly doubtful that it would. Like I've said a few times, I believe the social services that we have ensure the level of social mobility that we have. Without them, we would see a dominant upper class, the extreme minority, and a subservient lower class, the extreme majority.

You asked me at one point what I've witnessed from the American health system. I've witnessed people who don't have insurance putting off going to the doctor because they couldn't afford to deal with the problem, and then having that issue blow up in their face, putting them into the hospital and into debt. I've witnessed people who DO have insurance go through major health problems and become saddled with thousands of dollars in debt regardless. The fact that the BEST quality health care in this country might be slightly better than the BEST quality healthcare in Canada does not outweigh the fact that when you are ill, you can see a doctor, and when you have a health problem, you can check it out early on instead of wait for it to get SO BAD that you can't stand living with it anymore.

As another anecdotal bit of evidence I heard a story on NPR recently about a guy who refused to go to the hospital despite extreme abdominal pain because he knew he couldn't pay for his treatment. It turned out he had appendicitis, and finally his appendix exploded. He then was rushed to the hospital, barely survived, and a week later got a letter in the mail--"a white envelope that looked just like all the other ones," except this one had a bill for $40,000 in it. Bam. Pay it off the rest of your life. These are the merits of a private health system.

Instead we have settled for mediocrity. For a style of teaching so boring it kills the innate love of learning we all felt. Weren't you ever asked, by your classmates, "why are you reading"? Didn't you ever see the listlessness in their eyes?

If they are listless and unmotivated, that is a shame, and I did meet some who were unmotivated at times. I was unmotivated at times. But this is not a fault of the system. In my public high school there were a few different Spanish teachers. Two were easy As and one was incredibly hard, but he was a grammar master and despite how tough he was I realized that I was learning Spanish in this class, whereas my counterparts in other classes were learning basically nothing. I decided I would take the Bs so that I could learn Spanish, and guess what, it worked. Ahora puedo hablar espanol suficientemente bueno para conversar con latinos. I'm not a master but I can hold a conversation. The potential to learn is always there. I guess what I'm trying to say is that motivation is something that can't be taught, but can only be inspired. Great teachers can inspire that motivation, regardless of what kind of system they're in. My Dad was probably the guy who did it for me.

There was one thing I felt that was worth responding to in the post at the top of this page:

In fact, the history of the state on environmental regulation is quite bad. In America, during the industrial revolution, there was a shift by the courts away from the original principle of 'protecting property rights' towards the alternate goal of 'public policy'. Thus it was decided that it was okay for factories to pollute, so long as they were not polluting more than anyone else. How often has the left attacked libertarians for worshiping property rights - yet if we had taken these property rights seriously 150 years ago, so many problems with pollution could have been prevented. And let's not forget the government is usually the biggest polluter of them all. Where was the worst environmental damage of all time? The soviet union. Where the philosophy of statism was taken to it's logical and tragic conclusion.

First of all, the USSR was an entirely non-democratic system so comparing the "statism" of the USSR and the "statism" of American social services is beyond apples and oranges. It's like apples and dog shit, or something. A democratic system is fundamentally different and this is what you can see when you compare America, a flawed democracy but still a democracy, with China, who have a free market system in certain areas but have some of the most egregious environmental and human rights violations in the world right now. Their free market is resulting in these sorts of abuses:



The reason these abuses can exist is because there is no democratic structure to prevent them from existing, and the state is more interested in looking out for business than it is in protecting working people. This is why there are protests popping up in China periodically, because of the various forms of abuses and because this is the only way voices can be heard. The courts cannot prevent this entirely because business has too much influence over the courts: people can be bribed, intimidated, or influenced in other ways, and often lawsuits aren't brought until the situation has reached such a point of urgency that it can no longer be ignored. These are insufficient checks. Government in these cases MUST step in to test air and water quality and ensure they match up to certain standards. This is a way that we can check externalities before they occur.

The concept that the free market would somehow take care of these problems itself (the fact that a company can secretively dump their waste in public lakes or rivers or the ocean, for example) is just false and this is proven through historical examples. Government regulations on these things exist precisely because the market was not a sufficient check on these behaviors by itself. You've bought into the one ideology that threatens to destroy the very foundation of our democratic system and again, I highly recommend you reconsider these perspectives.

[Kman]

No one is being dragged down. A rich person can enroll their kid in the private school of their choice and get basically whatever form and whatever quality of education they desire for their child.

What about a working class or middle class person? They often cant afford private education because they are already getting robbed a large amount of money to pay for public schools and that makes it impossible for them to afford private education, I calculated the costs of the danish public school system in another thread and it came out to around $15500 dollars per student per year that has to be paid via the tax system, that is a huge cost that has to come out of households that dont even want to use the system and that greatly prohibits working class and middle class families from being able to afford a non-government run school.

That is what I despise so much about statists like you grassroots, you end up forcing innocent people like me to adopt your preferences in life because you force me to pay for the things you like, if education was 100% privatized then people would only have to pay for school systems and education methods that they agree with.
People like you like to talk endlessly about how you dont want other people's religious preferences to be forced upon your children but you have no issues with forcing your education preferences on other people.

[lubbockjoe]

The defacto authority in an anarcho-capitalistic society would be the capitalist.

Ancaps are primarily capitalists who seek to profit from the lack of power of a minimalist state.

Ancaps are not anarchists in principle. They are anarchists because it is expedient for achieving their capitalistic goal of personal profits.

Kman,
Do you agree with those statements?


No I think they are ridicilous.

What makes those statements ridiculous?

[ThePublicOpinions]

You asked me at one point what I've witnessed from the American health system. I've witnessed people who don't have insurance putting off going to the doctor because they couldn't afford to deal with the problem, and then having that issue blow up in their face, putting them into the hospital and into debt. I've witnessed people who DO have insurance go through major health problems and become saddled with thousands of dollars in debt regardless.

Your friend was too lazy to go the hospital, OMG WE NEED SOCIALIZED HEALTH CARE.