Russell Blackford wrote:
>
> Mike Lorrey said
>
> > Well, my personal opinion is that education is the prime problem, and
> the prime solution. The common saying among black kids today is that 'books
> are for whites'. That sort of racial/cultural aversion to
> knowledge and learning to me seems to be the prime contributor to the
> vicious cycle of poverty, crime, and hate.
>
> Mike, that seems a fair enough comment. I think at one point you said that
> you'd be prepared to accept public investment in education as an exception
> to your libertarian views against taxes and public expenditure, but I may be
> misrepresenting you. Remind me what you think about this (it's not a problem
> for me because I don't believe in absolute property rights, but let's not
> get into that).
I said that I think that every kid has an equal right to as much
education as they can obtain (mentally). There are obviously smart and
not smart kids, as well as motivated and unmotivated kids. The latter is
fixable, the former is not (yet).You can't have equality of opportunity
among adults unless they've all had the same opportunities for education
as kids.
Part of this is having standards for parents (i.e. liability for the
actions of their kids) to be responsible. Barbara Lamar's comments about
families having no books in the home to me seems like child abuse.
I don't think that taxation and public expenditures are per se necessary
for equality in education, that each school can be funded on either a
sliding scale tuition or alumni income royalty basis (or a combination
of the two). This is a more market oriented solution that allows schools
to compete for students as well as *real* outcomes (i.e. future income),
while providing affordable quality education to all.
>
> I also tend to think that knowledge and learning is the key, and you're
> right that it's not *just* poverty. It's poverty, under-education,
> partly-justified social resentment, and culture-specific memes about
> appropriate attitudes to society, all in a vicious circle. But how do we
> best turn the key? What limitations do you think your political philosophy
> imposes (I'm not disputing your philosophy at this point, just asking a
> question)?
The limitations my philosophy imposes is that it is wrong to confiscate
people's property to fund things they never use, or don't use to the
level they are paying. My philosophy also says that holding children,
grand children, and great grandchildren accountable for the actions of
their ancestors is similarly wrong. My philosophy also says that the
market, acting without the coersion of government, will always find the
optimum solution.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Oct 12 2001 - 14:40:03 MDT