Posted on 03/04/2005 5:12:44 AM PST by kjvail
Well, now I am confused.
Polly Sci 101 that I studied, (granted, that was a Loonnnggg time ago) generally put forth that statists believed in the omnipresence of the "state", which is central to collective ownership.
Collective ownership relies on statism to exist.
(abstracts like this could cause a whole new thread!)
Oh, I see. Yes, I've been using "conservative" here as if it were interchangeable with the Republican Party as a whole (the leadership and its policies in particular). You are correct to have corrected me. :)
Socialism relies on statism (in practice), but statism does not rely on socialism. You can have statism without socialism.
At the grass root level.
At the national level I think I would put it more into the statist category.
So you believe George W. Bush is a RINO?
If you made that argument in 1992, I would have agreed with you. However, it is no longer true. Socialism was foisted on us incrementally, and it will be rolled back incrementally as well, because it is not politically possible to make the immediate radical break from half a century of socialist domination of our government.
A good analogy is the War on Terror. One possible solution to terrorism would have simply been a nuclear genocide of all Muslims. It would have worked, and quite well too. However, the resulting consequences would have been unacceptable. The incremental strategy, as you can see, works. It doesn't appear to be all that effective in the beginning, but as time moves on it gains momentum and produces changes thought unimaginable just a short time earlier. How long ago was it that Social Security was the "third rail" of American politics? How amazing is it that it's now open to debate and that there are options on the table to break open this foundation of socialism? In my opinion, that's about as amazing as seeing Lebanon revolt against Syrian occupation - and having Arab nations agree. Likewise, even Democrats are now in agreement that Social Securit needs to be changed in the direction of privatization.
Patience is an essential virtue in politics.
I regard the GOP to be a center-left party, myself. But given that the Democrats are far enough left to make Marx blush, it's an improvement.
(1) Could you expand on what you mean by education if it needn't be the exclusive province of either individual families, on the one hand, or public (and private) schools, on the other?
(2) I can't agree with you that education is just none of the business of the state, if by the 'state' you mean the system of laws and institutions that make up a nation such as the United States. It would be the most extreme folly for the leaders of the U.S. to take no interest in the education of U.S. citizens, and to give up trying to insure that a certain level of educational achievement is reached by all citizens (we both know that there's not as much success in the endeavor as there ought to be, but I'm talking about the principle of the thing right now). We no longer live in small groups of a few tens or hundreds of family members and friends who share a world view and skill sets.
(3) You write: "As to who can successfully homeschool, my own experience suggests that nearly every mother with the equivalent of a mediocre high school education is capable of educating her children through at least eighth grade." Maybe. But what happens after eighth grade? Who takes over?
HHmmm,
Let me think about that for a few days.
Like I said, this is the basis of an all new thread! :-)
LMFAO!
Hemlock on the rocks please!
It has always struck me that libertarianism can only function in a Victorian society. A society with a cultural consensus so rigid that fear of disgrace and ostracism are effective deterents to anti-social behavior. A society where people live in fear of scandal and "what the neighbors will say" so there is little need for law and government.
Now for society to have that kind of power you have to have a world where your social welfare network is your friends, neighbors, and church. So you can't do anything that might cost you their goodwill. Like marrying outside their comfort zone or having opinions radically different from theirs. In a world where your security depended on the goodwill of others, their ostracism was to be pitched into the cold, like spending the rest of your life as the high school dork or the fat girl. Indeed, to see to it that everybody knows his place there must be visible outcasts as permissible objects of cruelty. That is why "respectability" was so crushingly important in Victorian times.
But living within that kind of conformist straitjacket, having to suck up to somebody 24-7 be it Father or Miss Grundy or the family in the big house isn't freedom. The total lack of privacy in a conformist culture where everybody knows your business is as totalitarian as North Korea. Father can be Big Brother.
That is why feminism represents an explicit choice of big government over patriarchy. The first legal priority of feminism was to make it safe to be a woman alone by making the government the protector of women. Laws against stalking or sexual harrassment. Changing how rape cases are tried so the victim doesn't have to prove she's a virgin. Changing it so that a woman no longer needs Father or Husband to protect her from that 5-10% of men that likes to hurt women. And I get a real sense that the author would like to go back to an age of veils and chaparonnes and duennas.
I don't think libertarianism requires that sort of extreme environment, and I would challenge you to bring some evidence to the table to back that up. I do think some level of social pressure to civilized behavior is necessary in any non-statist society, and that such pressure is healthy, natural, normal, and moral.
For example, I think that people should be able to express whatever they may wish to express, no matter how abhorrent. However, I also think that not a thing should be done to shield any person from the consequences of what they do. Ward Churchill calls us Eichmanns? Fine, let him. But good luck to him finding a job or friends or anyone that wants to associate with him on any level. After all, who wants to be a buddy with someone who thinks you're evil?
That is freedom - both the freedom to express yourself and the responsibility to face the result.
At the national level conservatism isn't statist, it just isn't represented in proportion to its voting base. Conservatives in New York, or Pennsylvania - while there are very many - aren't represented by conservatives on the national level.
Dear snarks_when_bored,
1. Not sure what you're asking.
However, maybe if I tell you a little bit about our own experiences, and those of other homeschoolers we know, I might (accidentally) answer your question. ;-)
We homeschool, and like many homeschoolers, we actually "do" most of the educating ourselves. We purchase a curriculum from a private source, but we do nearly all of the actual teaching.
However, even we participate in cooperative homeschooling activities, such as art classes, science projects, athletic groups, chess club, etc., where our kids receive some aspects of their educational experience other than within the confines of our little family.
Other homeschoolers actually go a bit further. There are several groups of homeschoolers local to us that offer classes in various subjects on a cooperative basis - that is - over the course of time, each family will occasionally teach a class on a subject of interest to the general group. These can be classes that are "enhancements" beyond the traditional core curriculum of reading, writing and arithmetic. Often, languages are offered in this way, as are music theory and appreciation, art, and other "extras." But sometimes, even core subjects are offered this way.
As well, there are folks who are engaged in homeschooling themselves with significant experience and credentials in teaching kids. Often, these folks provide instruction to very small groups of children (seldom as many as a dozen) for very modest fees ($20 - $40 for four weeks' instruction, once or twice a week).
Finally, there are subject-specific tutors who also charge modest rates to supplement the educational experience. My sons have weekly piano lessons with a certified private music teacher. The costs are modest and the level of instruction is very high. My sons, ages 10 and 7, have participated in judged competitions, and received high marks therein. Most of the students in these competitions are homeschooled.
I know tutors who provide similar instruction at similar modest costs for subjects such as foreign language, math, science, history, and English, as well as others.
Thus, while the family, that is, the parents, are in exclusive control of education, they work cooperatively with otheers to expand the educaitonal opportunities of their children.
2. Yeah, I know. It's tough for me, too.
The problem is that a thing cannot both be and not be at the same time.
If the state is permitted to require education, then I can't figure out how the state doesn't get to define education. Once the state gets to define education, then the family begins to cede important authority and control over the education of its members.
The older I get, the more evil that seems to me.
Having ceded control of the definition of education to the state, in principle, one finds it difficult to prevent the state from using education as a means of indoctrination.
Worse, in the long term, it does not seem to be the indoctrination as would be defined by the majority of citizens. That form of tyranny would be somewhat tolerable. But I think the argument can be made that over time, the definition of "education" will be made by those special interests that take control over the state system of education, which in our country, is the NEA and related propaganda groups.
Thus, given the choice of compulsory education that ultimately falls prey to definitions of education by a small unrepresentative elite entirely disconsonant to what I hold dear, and control of education by the family, I'm inclined to go with the latter, not the former.
3. Lots of folks, lots of families, probably most, can provide even the basics of high school education for their children. However, my own perception is that families will need more of the resources I mentioned in point 1. than they need at the primary and elementary level.
However, I'm not opposed to schools, either.
I'm just opposed to government control of education.
sitetest
The author is just a doofus.
There is a difference between a public school and a government school. Government schools could in theory not be indoctrination camps...but why risk it? More importantly, speaking of conservative principles, the govt. does not have the constitutionally mandated power to run schools.
Do you mean by a 'public school' an Edison-type school, run as a for-profit business?
Weren't the American Indians libertarians? They had no foreign policy, no big government programs....
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