are you left,right or centre?

[Tiberius]

I think if you were to give an example you should keep it to our sphere of understanding, in regards to the China comparison.

Just because you don't understand an example doesn't mean that it is invalid, or that others don't. Instead of telling me to think of another one, why not ask me to explain what I meant?

Put simply, China is a very good example of an anti-libertarian state (also called authoritarian / statist). They indoctrinate children at school with lies about the country's own history; the most vivd example being the massacre at Tiananmen square. At university, I met a Chinese student in my class, who one day came in wearing a red t-shirt with the sickle and hammer in yellow (international symbol for communism). I started a conversation with him about the subject of communism, and China's censorship of events.

He denied there was a massacre, telling me that this was just "Western lies". Apparently several thousand people just dropped dead of no accord, although of course he denied that anyone had died. That is how powerful Chinese propaganda is. In the year he was born, several thousand people were massacred in Tiananmen square, and 2 decades later, they have covered it all up under the guise of "the west wants you to hate your country".

The thing with private schools is a majority of them are religious based, well they are here in Australia. I still don't understand why you would not want a democratiaclly 'elected' government in control (in a loose sense). If the government is elected by the majority, should not that government be allowed to impose some of their ideas?

Libertarianism is all about redefining what a government does. We see government control as a violation of human rights. If we allow government to control an aspect of our lives, where should it stop? Should they be allowed to say who we can love and marry? Millions of homosexual couples would be in tatters if that be the case. Should they disallow us from taking drugs (some of which are less dangerous than alcohol)? If we allow them to have some sort of control over us, they can legitimately control every part of us.

Democracy doesn't work as well as you might think. Instead of electing a person who shares your ideals, we elect people who lie about their ideals in order to gain majority power. As soon as they are elected, they are free to do as they like, regardless of what the people want. A resolution to this is to take most of the power away from the governments. Governments don't need to have any say in business. Why should they profit from the sales of a company they have no investment in? Why do they get to set up barriers to trade with other nations? At the end of the day, everyone other than the government loses. Same with civil liberties. The government should protect people from other people; of this I am in full support. However, they should not have to protect people from themselves. If a person wants to commit suicide, it shouldn't be illegal to do so (although private counselling might be in order). If a person wants to take drugs, it is their choice.

The alternative? Instead of a people controlled by their government, we have a government controlled by its people. Their elected representative made an accurate representative by simply passing on the votes of their constituents in certain issues (and given the abundance of the internet these days, I see no reason why this shouldn't work). Being a government minister shouldn't be a job, it should be a privilege, capable of being taken away at the will of the people.

The problem with society though is many people do violate human rights. History has shown and continues to show that people must be governed and rules must be imposed to sustain civil order, in regards to the western world and the democracies we live under.

I've never argued against rules; I've only argued against the way they are implemented, and the number of laws in place. If people violate human rights, they should be punished. However, it is a terrible thought crime to think that without government control, people would immediately become disordered. I would argue the opposite occurs; people without government control would feel free for the first time in many years. They don't have to worry about their money being taken from them, or their occasional puff of marijuana, or even their homosexual lover being "discovered". These are no government concerns, and they never should be.

This I can understand. Certain parts of the system need looking at, but in my scholl we had levels. i.e Lower, middle, and upper depending on the childs ability.

But, in the end, considering the number of children in schools and the wide varience in beliefs, what is the right answer in terms of the right type of school?

Lower, middle, and upper don't cut it I'm afraid. You cannot divide people into three categories on their ability. It has been shown scientifically that geniuses are usually very good in one specific area of the brain, but not in another. The usual divide comes between math based subjects and language based subjects. The right type of school would be either a lot of specialist schools (where focus is on one particular subject), or schools that have small group tuition (or 1 on 1).