Thread: Paying For Health Care

Originally Posted by ephekt

Society's imperative is to ensure that it's members are as well equipped to integrate into that society as possible. Ignorance begets violence, poverty and ultimately over reliance on the government. Your knee-jerk idealism greatly misses the point (as is often the case with big-L Libertarians).

If you have a point then state it.

Originally Posted by UnreasonablyReasonable

If you have a point then state it.

I think his point is exactly what he said: "Society's imperative is to ensure that it's members are as well equipped to integrate into that society as possible. Ignorance begets violence, poverty and ultimately over reliance on the government." He is defending the idea of public education, in response to your suggestion that public education is not a valid role for government.

Originally Posted by Syme

I think his point is exactly what he said: "Society's imperative is to ensure that it's members are as well equipped to integrate into that society as possible. Ignorance begets violence, poverty and ultimately over reliance on the government." He is defending the idea of public education, in response to your suggestion that public education is not a valid role for government.

That quote doesn't at all look like a point to me, but ok.

I didn't say it was my view that public education is not a valid role for government. However, based on government's track record of programs, they are really good at making things worse whenever they control more. If education is to be public (which there's no way the public would even CONSIDER anything else at this point even if it made way more sense), then there at least needs to be some sort of voucher system in place to ensure competition between schools. Competition is what makes things better, but a government monopoly where you must go to a certain public school if you live in a certain district encourages mediocrity. Not to mention the stupidity of teachers unions. Sure they are great for the teachers (or so some would say), but not so great for the kids.

Originally Posted by UnreasonablyReasonable

That quote doesn't at all look like a point to me, but ok.

....If a direct assertion of a principle and an explication of it's merits, offered as a counter-argument to a previous (implied) argument, isn't a point, then what is??

Originally Posted by UnreasonablyReasonable

If you have a point then state it.

You could've just put a little thought into that comment.

Originally Posted by UnreasonablyReasonable

I didn't say it was my view that public education is not a valid role for government. However, based on government's track record of programs, they are really good at making things worse whenever they control more. If education is to be public (which there's no way the public would even CONSIDER anything else at this point even if it made way more sense), then there at least needs to be some sort of voucher system in place to ensure competition between schools. Competition is what makes things better, but a government monopoly where you must go to a certain public school if you live in a certain district encourages mediocrity.

OK, so your argument is that bureaucracy ruins everything. I can agree with that, but it seems to be a necessary evil in most cases. I agree that parents should be able to choose within a district.

Not to mention the stupidity of teachers unions. Sure they are great for the teachers (or so some would say), but not so great for the kids.

Unions are a double edged sword, really. On one hand, lower education has some of the most horrid wages in academia - 30k/yr is generally considered very good for lower education. On the other, you have unions that potentially act as thugs. I don't know what can be done here to actually make progress, rather than simply realigning ideology. Any input?

I'd say stuff like NCLB needs to go first, as does the over-reliance on standardized testing. From what I've seen (family full of teachers of all levels), kids are taught to pass these test and nothing more; they don't learn critical thinking or problem solving - just rote memorization.

Originally Posted by benzss

Who said that's society's imperative?

Well, I did. Look at the evolution of social structures and you'll notice that the one thing they require is complex language (and to a lesser extent the reference that comes from this.) I can't think of any better way to evidence the importance of education than this. Education 'for all' is a social imperative, as it's the only way to make a best effort in assuring that citizens are productive members of said (modern) society.

Originally Posted by ephekt

OK, so your argument is that bureaucracy ruins everything. I can agree with that, but it seems to be a necessary evil in most cases. I agree that parents should be able to choose within a district.

I'd argue it's necessary in very few cases. I linked to a very interesting speech awhile ago dealing with these ideas: http://www.casualdiscourse.com/forum...ghlight=speech

Originally Posted by ephekt

Unions are a double edged sword, really. On one hand, lower education has some of the most horrid wages in academia - 30k/yr is generally considered very good for lower education. On the other, you have unions that potentially act as thugs. I don't know what can be done here to actually make progress, rather than simply realigning ideology. Any input?

Allowing schools to compete (i.e. school vouchers) coupled with getting rid of the unions I think would ultimately make things better for everyone. Competition makes things better. Having teachers competing to get paid based on their performance rather than falling into a lull of mediocrity as is often the case with unions is great for everyone.

Originally Posted by ephekt

I'd say stuff like NCLB needs to go first, as does the over-reliance on standardized testing. From what I've seen (family full of teachers of all levels), kids are taught to pass these test and nothing more; they don't learn critical thinking or problem solving - just rote memorization.

Yeah we studied NCLB extensively in one of my public policy classes, and some of the actual things in it are just ridiculous. I'm not sure if saying that kids are just taught to pass the tests and nothing more is a worthwhile argument against it though. If the tests are designed properly, critical thinking and problem solving will be required to pass them, short of knowing all the answers and giving them to the students. Though the tests are likely not designed in the ideal way, and NCLB is certainly crap that's for sure.

Originally Posted by UnreasonablyReasonable

I'd argue it's necessary in very few cases.

I'll watch the speech later, but I think you're going to have a hard time showing that these ideas will work in practice, given that we don't have a real world libertopia to look to.

Competition makes things better.

Perhaps you haven't heard of the US insurance system.

Having teachers competing to get paid based on their performance rather than falling into a lull of mediocrity as is often the case with unions is great for everyone.

Teachers already have standards to meet for employment criteria, so I'm going to write this off as ideology until you expand. Let's say we remove unions, now what?

I'm not sure if saying that kids are just taught to pass the tests and nothing more is a worthwhile argument against it though.

Good thing that wasn't my point.