are you left,right or centre?

[Rhizomorph13]

[quote='Tiberius' pid='48272' dateline='1262565951']
[quote=Rhizomorph]Back when I was in school I thought I was too smart for it and would have opted out if I could have so the fact that school was mandatory saved me from myself.[/quote]
Attending school was mandatory; doing well in the tests and actually learning stuff wasn't. You *chose* to do that, and however much you think it helps your argument, I put to you that your adolescent self knew how important a good education was despite your claim. I don't know what you were like back then, but I thought similar. However despite me hating school, I knew that an education was important, so I stuck with it.
[/quote]

The main thing I think about was how I avoided math back in school due to "math anxiety" brought about by my father's(a math wiz) showing off while trying to help me with math. The math that I was "forced" to learn has helped me out tremendously as well as much of the social studies, geography, and a whole host of crap I never thought would be important but HAS provided me with some common background that has helped me connect with other human beings. Then again, I probably would have just shorn up my knowledge with Google searchs. I have had to rely on Google searchs often on these forums.

[quote='Tiberius' pid='48272' dateline='1262565951']
As I've argued, it depends on the person. For me, I would have preferred to attend a school that focussed on my strengths. This is the problem with a mandatory education; the only plausible way of doing it is with public school, and public school is useless for a few reasons:

1) The intelligent children are held back as the rest of the class "catches up".
2) The less intelligent children find themselves less interested in various parts of their education, and this lack of interest leads to more of (1).
3) Every child is taught the same stuff, regardless of their abilities. You learn math, english, french, history, geography and aren't able to do anything about it till much later.

Watch this very interesting TED talk on how school kills creativity if you want to know more: http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/ken_ro...ivity.html

A private system would see the smarter kids in a classroom with other smarter kids (or indeed, in 1 on 1 tuition), the less intelligent kids being taught basics and finding out where their true skills lie. Finally, all students are treated as individuals rather than a pack, and they are taught according to their abilities, rather than some government doctrine.
[/quote]

These are all great points that I agree with and school used to bore me to tears while I waited for everyone else to catch up. I was 99th percentile in all the placement tests (except math which I was 15th because I didn't even try) which amazed all the "smart" kids. I was an D+ student so they thought I was a dumby. I was just unorganized and had a burning head full of thoughts that didn't center around the five bits of homework I was supposed to do.

[quote='Tiberius' pid='48272' dateline='1262565951']
If a family is too poor to afford education but wants their child to learn, there is no reason why private charity could not provide the funds, or the classes for the less fortunate. As I have argued before, with less taxes and a free market, people have more money to spend on charitable organisations (and more incentive to do so). Libertarianism shouldn't be seen as a complete scrapping of government programs, but a relocation of them from the public to the private sector.
[quote]

This totally answers my concerns but I lack the faith in humanity that you seem to have. I guess that when people have more rights and freedom with their money it would be an easy sell to get them to expend some of their energy to help other people.

[quote='Tiberius' pid='48272' dateline='1262565951']
Scenario for you. Parents A & B have a child C. Child C doesn't like his parents that much, as they don't give him sweets that often. Man across the street D promises child C lots of sweets, and child C decides to move in with man D because of this.[/quote]

Lol at using sweeties to steal a child from their parents!

So, I convinced for the most part,
Rhizo

[ib.me.ub]

So, you wrote all that^^ to say you agree!

[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).

[ib.me.ub]

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).

Indeed, but this is not a practical solution.

[Violet]

Sae,

Your case would be better without the plea to emotion that the buzzword, "slavery" causes. It certainly creates a strawman argument. Adrian is not supporting slavery but rather supporting parents rights to decide their own way to handle the stewardship of their child. Under his system I would worry that many children would get zero education which would widen the rift between the wealthy and the poor.

Actually, I wasn't aware I was trying to get any sort of emotional response from declaring slavery to be slavery :S I find it ridiculous that others sometimes inflate what slavery means. Slavery (the relevant definition) is simply the status of a person being owned by another person... it does not define anything else about the condition. Nonetheless: I don't have any respect for slavery under any form or 'guise'. But one has to remember that slavery only applies to 'people' (though I find 'personality' to be an interesting and somewhat difficult quality to define)... it is hardly something that we can call owning a fish on (though perhaps we can? It depends on how personality is defined and on what data we have to support that fish do or do not have a 'personality'.

Maybe he is ok with a lower to middle class that just learns specific trades? It could work, I had a high school teacher who was a firm believer that some children would be better off learning a practical skill. However, he wanted to incorporate that within the framework of mandatory basic education. His idea was to have half the day be classic education with the other half consisting of an apprenticship style. It would work for both the college bound AND the laborer because it would provide insight for the college bound into the life of workers and work experience for the laborer.

I hope he can provide some insights into his plan that would assuage my concerns. I see no path forward for a society that does not include mandatory education to at least a basic level.

Rhizo

I agree that a basic level of education is necessary for our progressive society (though I feel the apprenticeship/equivalent should be optional if it were implemented)... though I question just what the 'basic level' is considered to be, and how one decides another has crossed this 'basic level'. However... race, age, specie, style of dress, and other separators that fail to see if a person is yet at or beyond the 'base level' (and only that they have met an arbitrarily set goal): fail for the task they are supposed to accomplish (determining wether an individual is capable and ready to move to a new level), and should be ignored (whilst the relevant factors are considered).

[Tiberius]

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).

Indeed, but this is not a practical solution.

It would be in a free market economy. Supply & Demand. If people are allowed to choose what their child learns, specialist schools that offer those options will spring up easily.

[Meatball]

A lot of things, such as state-run education is hard to imagine as being a wholly private industry because most of us have always known public education, and for most of us, it's been a positive experience.

When you think of government not as 'that big company that runs everything' and more along the lines of 'those legislators that write laws' it seems almost perverse that they might pay our teachers and decide what our children learn.

Don't get me wrong, I think education is extremely important, especially for children. It's also extremely important to get regular exercise and to wipe your ass but most would agree the government has no place providing these services to us.

Things like public education just blur the line of who is running who.

[Eilonnwy]

When you think of government not as 'that big company that runs everything' and more along the lines of 'those legislators that write laws' it seems almost perverse that they might pay our teachers and decide what our children learn.

It seems more perverse to me that without public education common poor children might not learn how to read or write since those parents might not be able to afford private schooling.

[Tiberius]

When you think of government not as 'that big company that runs everything' and more along the lines of 'those legislators that write laws' it seems almost perverse that they might pay our teachers and decide what our children learn.

It seems more perverse to me that without public education common poor children might not learn how to read or write since those parents might not be able to afford private schooling.

Hence where private charity comes into it.

[Purple Rabbit]

It's also extremely important to get regular exercise and to wipe your ass but most would agree the government has no place providing these services to us.

In children care centers and elder care asses get wiped all the time by strangers and not only for-profit. And why should it be only for-profit? You're arguing from a POV that assumes abilities that some lack.

But let's take another example. Have you observed how market parties standardized electric chargers for mobile phones so we didn't need all these variants lying around everywhere contributing to the waste problem? Me neither! Sometimes someone has to step in to organize things that market parties feel no urge to organize.