My Daughters Liberal Left education

[amicus]

You be a double dipper, Pure....and I cannot resist...da devil makes me do it...


I said earlier to Svensaflicka...that in an ideal society, I would not force her to educate my children.

I am opposed to taxing the property of all to finance the education of the masses.

I think there should be no publicly supported schools at any level.

Yet I am fully aware of the seminal importance of education for any who can be educated.

Is there a dilemma there?

Not even considering the poor quality of existing education, I offer that the free market would quickly provide a quality education for all who wished one.

Yes...some would have a 'McDonalds' type education....on up the line to the fanciest restaurant you can imagine.

It is called 'freedom' ever heard of it?

A 'Command Economy' wherein a central government owns all the resources and determines what products and services are offered has never worked...it never will.

Any compromise...is like a drop of poison in a glass of pure water, sooner or later...the essence is corrupted.

And then we have a Revolution.

Up the Revolution!

amicus...

 

[Pure]

OK, ami,

one last question of the fount:

ever looked into the little problem of monopoly and oligopoly?

is that not a fruit of 'the invisible hand'?

are they all good? are any of them ever a problem?

 

[Svenskaflicka]

I can fully understand why you don't want your taxes to go to something as trivial as education for the masses, amicus. In the 1800, the upper class was dead against the working class getting any education - if the lowlives got educated, they might be able to turn the tables on their oppressors!

Me, I think schools, hospitals and libraries should be open to the masses - and not just to those who can afford to pay for education, health care and literature.

As for letting poor schools being financed by McDonalds and other companies... may I recommend the chapter "Idiot Nation" in "Stupid White Men" by Michael Moore?

But hey, what am I thinking? Most poor schools are for black people, right? And latinos? The non-important people? It's only good if they only get 20% education, right? Makes it much easier for us to trick them into doing shit jobs for really low vages...

 

[Liar]

Amicus, I'm not going to go into left/right politic debate with you, because that is as always fruitless, but I'd like to focus on the following passage from your original post:

So…she asked me who I thought would win the Presidential election; I said, ‘Bush, in a landslide…Kerry might take his home State of Massachusetts…’

I had to take the phone away from my ear…

I barely got a word in edgewise for the next hour…and then only when I shouted her down and that was just a brief respite.

...to which I can only . If that's how it went down, you didn't even have to state an opinion to make her fly off a tangent. A far better track record than your apparences here. You should be proud.

#L

 

[amicus]

Dr. Mabeuse....just a couple things...and perhaps you will take heed that I do not personalize save for an attempt at humour with the fair sex from time to time...


First off...Corporations...it has been a couple of years since I heard this..but at that time nearly half 48% of adult americans had investments in stocks and bonds and in the markets.

That means the largest corporations...the largest 500...and more provide income through dividends and security through capital investment Those dividends...and investsments also fund college and universities in addition to research and development in the private sector.

So when you wish, as Democrats do, to tax the wealthy, in effect you diminish the income of a majority of american investors. And of course people from all nations around the world invest capital in american corporations...for a good reason...they get a return on their investmets...they make money.

Second....I am sure...as I have said before...that when the automobile replaced the horse...all those unionized harness and buggy makers...horse feed farmers...blacksmiths et al all lost their jobs.

And when the computer replaced the typewriter? Many companies went out of business...many jobs were lost.

To repeat...even the ultra liberal West Wing television show writers..admitted that obsolete, overpriced labor practices have forced jobs to leave the United States.

Mexican and other central american laborers surge in to work the crop fields that americans will no longer work at, and take the low paying housecleaning and labor intensive..hard physical labor intensive jobs that americans will no longer do.

You would have protected the harness makers and forbidden the automobile?

You would have oppressed the computer and protected the typewriter workers and manufacturers?

You would force americans to work in the fields?

It is a changing economy...a free market place will always be that way as capital and labor strive for balance.

Government...you and your philosophy, upset that market by meddling..you slow progress...you destroy initiative...your tariffs to protect certain jobs and industries...raise the cost to the consumer.

Government also upsets the market place with subsidies and tax breaks for favored industries and labor unions and in the end accomplishes nothing and creates fraud and corruption.

In a very few years...there will be no steel workers, no auto workers, no coal miners...working in the United States and it will and does and always has cost jobs and required re tooling and facing a different future.

The really obscene aspect of collectivism is that it destroys human initiative and growth. It stifles creativity and attempts to keep things as they are to protect those who have the jobs and do not wish to move into the future.

Ths is not a personal attack upon you, I could care less what you believe. But when the ideas become public...as they are here, THE IDEAS...not the personal...then those ideas are subject to opposing views.

amicus...

 

[amicus]

Collen Thomas....

I appreciate your remarks...

A hundred years of rapid change has forever relegated to the past most of the individual charity and concern on person or one family can express.

It has become institutionalized to a large degree...I am reminded of that by watching the news coverage of the hurricanes in Florida. The Red Cross...drawing on contributions across the country, if not around the world...now does what individuals and family once did.

Although there were many examples of people helping people in Florida and elsewhere when disaster occurs.

I have long wondered about the negative effects of Social Security, the 'sun cities' populated by grandparents who at one time were providing support and a conveyor of knowledge of the past to the next generation.

I do not see the future as a hermetically sealed environment under total control by a central computer. But perhaps that is what is to be.

amicus...

 

[amicus]

Pure....said...


"OK, ami,

one last question of the fount:

ever looked into the little problem of monopoly and oligopoly?

is that not a fruit of 'the invisible hand'?

are they all good? are any of them ever a problem?"


I must confess I had to look up 'oligopoly' (a state of too few sellers)


I suspect both are the 'fruit of the invisible hand...'

It is my contention...and I think I read this in one of Ayn Rand's non fiction works....."A monopoly cannot exist in a free market place..."

She means by that...I think...that even if on supplier cornered the entire market on one product or service and withheld product to increase prices...there is a limit to what the consumer would pay and other suppliers would come on line...

When you have a partially controlled and regulated market place, such as we do...let us say in Pharmaceuticals or even energy production, then government regulations supplant the 'invisible hand' and business functions under the new set of rules dictated by those in power.

But in the theoretical free market place, again with laws enforced against fraud and deception...then a monopoly could not exist.

amicus...

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Collen Thomas....

I appreciate your remarks...

A hundred years of rapid change has forever relegated to the past most of the individual charity and concern on person or one family can express.

It has become institutionalized to a large degree...I am reminded of that by watching the news coverage of the hurricanes in Florida. The Red Cross...drawing on contributions across the country, if not around the world...now does what individuals and family once did.

Although there were many examples of people helping people in Florida and elsewhere when disaster occurs.

I have long wondered about the negative effects of Social Security, the 'sun cities' populated by grandparents who at one time were providing support and a conveyor of knowledge of the past to the next generation.

I do not see the future as a hermetically sealed environment under total control by a central computer. But perhaps that is what is to be.

amicus...

My experience is far different from Flicka's. When our house was flooded out in 1979 the entire family came to help us rebuild it. I will remember till my dying day my two uncles putting up apnneling. One is 7 foot 2, the other 5 foot 4. The tall one drive nails from the ciling to his chest, the short one from the floor up. We were back in our house with all the damage repaird while most folks were still arguing with their insurance and looking for a contractor. Of course my Dad was all over the neighborhood, doing plumbing and carpentry while my other uncle came in after work & did the electric. (dad's afraid of electricity)

The salvation army provided food & water till the electricity was restored and all the pipes flushed and hypoed. I'm just used to community.

My grandfather was rasied in the era of segregation. Long before MLK first stepped on the scene, my grandfather helped rebuild houses for his black neighbors after a tornado. He took some heat for it, because it wasn't accepted then, but he never shirked when a neighbor needed help and he never gave a damn about their color. We were all raised with his philosophy and so I haven't seen a lack of concern among people for their fellows.

Flicka may very well be right, people who have a lot may become callous or greedy. No one in my family ever had a lot, but they are all unfailingly generous with what they do have.

I see the need for some social programs, particularly those that educate people. Relying on your neighbors and family is no substitute for being able to rely on yourself.

To my dad I have become to liberal, a nasty consequence of living up here in yankee land, he is always after me to move home. I am to liberal to him, to me he is...Dad. I love him to death and while we may never quite see eye to eye on politics, we are still very close. No matter what arguments you and your daughter have, the important thing is that you are still close.

-Colly

 

[patrick1]

A couple of thoughts from over the water...

We have universal health care here, and nobody had to point any guns to introduce it in 1948. It's become a matter of political consensus. We agree to provide for each other, mutually. We also have a thriving version of late capitalism.

I'm a long time student of Economics, and you will find that among economists of both left and right, the 'free market place' is agreed to be a political myth. As soon as there is a market, there are powerful people and organisations whose best interests lie in distorting it, and it is simply impossible wholly to stop them. The theory of 'imperfect competition' supplanted any notion of the 'perfect market' in the 1930's, and there's no sign of a reversal yet.

You folks obviously have some history here, but I just thought I'd chip in on these two points.

patrick

 

[oggbashan]

I have only two points to make on this thread (until some more rants appear).

If Amicus's daughter didn't feel as she does, she wouldn't be young, she'd be an old fogey in a young body. The young want to change the world, to make it better than their parents made it. So they rebel against their parents' ideology. That is a normal part of a person's development. If (God forbid) Amicus was a radical tree-hugging save the people from themselves Democrat, she'd be a diehard Republican.

'Free Trade' does not exist with the US. What worries me and OUGHT to worry Amicus is that the US is the world's largest debtor and much of that money is owed to the nations of East Asia. If the US's creditors wanted their money back the US would be bankrupt.

The farce of 'Favored Nation Status' for the People's Republic of China is that the US owes China far more than it can repay. China ought to be debating whether they wish to continue to trade with a country that keeps taking their goods AND DOESN'T PAY FOR THEM. If that were to happen the dollar would go into freefall and we might get 10 or 20 dollars to the pound sterling. Instead of demanding visas for UK citizens to enter the US and making them jump through all sorts of 'security' hoops, the US would be pleading for us to spend our pounds visiting Florida to bail out the natives.

The US economy is based on massive debt. Until some of that is repaid by taxes or a better balance of trade the whole is like a house of cards. Touch one element and the whole edifice will fall. That is bad for the US, bad for Europe and the UK, and bad for world trade. The mighty dollar is a shell propped up by the mighty yuan.

Og

 

[amicus]

Well...hello Patrick I....nice to have you aboard...

I understand political census...and I suppose if a general vote were taken here...we would have socialized medicine also.

However...let us suppose I am a medical doctor and I want to part of government telling me what and whom upon to practice?

Would you force me to obey...or allow me to take my skills where they might be more appreciated under a free market (comparatively speaking) system?

Unless in wartime, or martial law...individual rights here, are protected by the constitution and the bill of rights. With strict interpretation of those documents, the government could not legally institute a system of free healthcare for all.

Your second point sounds a little London School of Economics to me...that of a free market place being impossible.

I do not deny that people, as well as businesses and corporations can become greedy and corrupt...but then again, so can government run programs. And it seems I recall a few cases in the British Press and on BBC of the system failing in many ways.

There is a rampant opinion that if a majority approves...it must be right. I challenge that. As long as any one individual does not consent...you have an imperfect compact and must resort to force to force compliance.

There are those who dislike intensely the concept of competition in the market place...but I for one...think it is only through that competition...however corrupt it may be....will progress be made.

Of course a European would never say it...but it seems very little of note...that is new and innovative...is emerging from European society....

amicus...

 

[oggbashan]

However...let us suppose I am a medical doctor and I want to part of government telling me what and whom upon to practice?

Would you force me to obey...or allow me to take my skills where they might be more appreciated under a free market (comparatively speaking) system?

amicus...

A medical doctor in the UK can choose, even if he/she has a contract with the National Health Service.

They can treat only state-sponsored patients if they want, or a mix of state and private patients, or if they want to they can treat only fee-paying (which usually means insurance paid) patients.

If they do opt for private practice, they might still get public patients with the fees paid by the government instead of the insurance company.

Private (fee paying) patients can get treatment in NHS hospitals if that is the most appropriate treatment.

Public (tax paid) patients can get treatment in private hospitals if the private hospital has the most appropriate skills.

Many people are like me. For crisis conditions the NHS is best. If I need 'cold' surgery such as hip replacement I have insurance cover. If the NHS cannot provide treatment in a time I think is reasonable, my insurers might pay for earlier care in a private hospital. If I want something in a hurry e.g. a spine x-ray, I wave a piece of plastic and it is done now - privately.

We have choice. The choice we don't have and don't want is the choice to have NO treatment because we cannot afford it. No UK citizen is denied NHS treatment. What they might be denied is expensive treatment that might not help - but medical insurers do that too.

Og

 

[Lucifer_Carroll]

As a lifelong devotee to PUBLIC research universities, I have to say that once again your shit choice of a college major has forever clouded your ability to judge its worths.

But that's a fundamental problem of your brain being hardwired to your ass. No offence, but I think most of us here don't give two god damns what you think on anything. In fact, I've been amused lately by the fact that so many people have you on ignore that a good 50% of your posts and threads have been utterly passed by without comment.

So, I use you for amusement. So you don't want public schools or taxes? Fine, forbid her to go, educate her yourself, buy her equipment for her, see how much she thanks you. Frankly, I don't care. Sure, colleges are liberal. Why? Maybe its all those DAMN YOUNG PEOPLE. Youth rarely stand for preserving the status quo or a return to more moral times.

But I waste my breath. Arguing with you has no bearing, no point and I urge everyone on this thread to stop doing it. amicus lacks all but entertainment value, a viewpoint from which we can feel morally and intellectually superior. That's all.

So stop feeding the troll peoples, it only gives him the hardon he needs to jack off to his gay swag.

 

[amicus]

Ogbashan....

The United States...with the Marshall Plan...and Japanese occupation...a basic rebuilding of that country....underwent massive debt.

US investsments all over the world, by corporations and by financial institutions seem to me to be part of a larger plan to create a comsuming middle class in many emerging economies.

China, as the example you chose, is already competing in the oil market, as demand for energy resources grows.

While this may be viewed as purely economic...it is not. It is in large part foreign policy; to hopefully avert an Asian conflict that might benefit arms manufacturers...but few others.

An earlier post mentioned Saudi Arabian...where women are not permitted to vote...there is also China...with the enforced one child limit.

No advocacy of democracy or capitalism will ever change the social structure of either nation.

What might change...if you view it as a decades long process, is the slow acceptance of property ownership, individual or corporate responsibility and initiative and eventually personal, individual freedom.

The idea is sound, in my mind at least; the uncertainty lies with the American people. I have my doubts, if the coalition of collectivists known as Democrats, manage to gain power and have a saleable program.

If the United States and her Allies do not continue towards equality through the market place, you will see a power structure begin to build that will eventually destroy modern man as the nuclear genie is surely out of the bottle...

regards....

amicus....

 

[oggbashan]

Amicus.

I give up.

If you do not understand that the US does not support free trade and in fact practises anything BUT free trade then you are beyond hope.

'US investments all over the world...'

The world owns more of the US than the US does of the world. You are living in a fool's paradise. China and Japan's investment in the US mean that many of the companies you THINK are American are effectively foreign owned.

Start saving yuan - now.

Og

 

[amicus]

Dear Og...

There were millions of Eastern Europeans under the heel of National Socialism and then Communism.

It would have been unfair to ask them and perhaps it is unfair to ask you...but to attempt one more time to illustrate an idea, I take that risk.

Women have seldom aspired to that much demeaned mail imperative of 'honor'; they think it is silly.

But there was a time...and perhaps it is gone forever...when a man took it upon himself to provide for himself and his family.

And by that...I mean in all ways.

It was only Utopian musings prior to the beginning of the 20th century that a society, 'from each according to his ability, to each according to his need..." became a reality in the Soviet Union.

Portrayed as a truly grand and humane experiment, far surpassing the concept of individual freedom and limited government as practiced in the United States.

Soviet Communism, striving for pure Socialism was to be a panacea of equality supplying all the needs of the people.

The search for security...although again, I think a female thing by and large...is a never ending quest of mankind.

To know that you have ample food, shelter and clothing and your precious cradle to grave medical care and never worry about going with any of those needs...is something perhaps we all would like to share.

What is never mentioned...is the cost of that security. And I do not mean the monetary costs.

I, of course, have not taken a poll of every British citizen, nor those other social democracies in western Europe. Not have I done extensive scholarly research...however...I do speak with dozens throughout that area and I do listen...very carefully.

I sense a quiet desperation seeping out of Europe. I sense a loss of identity with the EU...I sense a loss of national heritage and a feeling of the loss of personal identity as they try to encompass the 'whole' of this new order.

I sensed it as far back as Michael Caine and a spy movie...the Ipcress Files...a tone...a feeling...a flavor about life that seemed alien to me.

I do not know what really happens to an individual when he gives over the right to make decisions about his own affairs and entrusts it to a social compromise.

I think it is not a good thing. I think it reverts, in a distant way, to a tribal past when the life of an indivual depended upon acceptance by the tribe.

anyway...those are my thoughts....for what they are worth...

regards...amicus...

 

[patrick1]

Ah, I already see my mistake, in the casual insult, that nothing much that is 'new or innovative' is emerging from European society. This, presumably, is the tone that when directed at other targets, has got people fired up. It's hard to see what its place is in an exchange of rational opinion.

I think, amicus, you are confused between 'a free market', which is largely impossible, and the importance nevertheless of competition or 'market forces', which most social democrats agree with. You are arguing with a straw man if you are suggesting that I disagree with competition. I wish there were more of it in the provision of goods and services to the UK and US military, for instance. The relationship between your Vice President and the company receiving most benefit from negotiated, non-competitive contracts in Iraq looks rather extraordinary to our jaded European eyes. I wish there were more competition in the international trade in cotton, in which the US is protectionist, or in many agricultural products in which Europe is protectionist.

I would certainly not compel any doctor to ply their trade in a way they preferred not to. In my experience, however, doctors have largely protected themselves from exploitation by banding together in groups, which they rarely call 'unions', but which seem to wield a certain amount of collective power.

patrick

 

[McKenna]

God forbid either of you understood...it would be the first sign of reason and you would probably sprout a beard.

Hey look everone! This is an example of Amicus not attacking me and/or women in general!


Keep going Ami, the hole you're digging is getting so big, perhaps we can at last bury you and your enormous ego in it.

 

[sweetnpetite]

Damn those (damn) Liberals!

 

[sweetnpetite]

Fancy multi-syllable words don't hide the fact that you're speaking like a conservative male-chauvnist, who calls everyone who doesn't agree with your own views stupid - and to top it off, you insinuate that women are "deluded" when they voice their opinon.

You say that you defend freedom - not something I usually associate with republican politics, but for argument's sake, I'll let this slip - but you start the Hurt-Virgin-act when other people use THEIR freedom to object to your rant!

Come out clean, will you? The freedom you want is for yourself and your friends to decide what the rest of us should say!

Oh SF, you are my new hero! You hit the nail so squarely on the head, that all I can say is: that's gotta smart!

 

[sweetnpetite]

My ditzy daughter called me the other night;

'nuff said.

 

[Couture]

Tuesday, October 12, 2004 11:24 am…

Bush Bashing and Terrible Americans
This father hopes that one of his children might see the mind as Plutarch did, “Not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be ignited…” Perhaps one, somewhere, will recognize that greatest of all pursuits and endeavors….the enlightenment of the closed mind of medieval thought that still yearns for a Monarchy…a strong ruler that tell others how to live.

Poor bastard....

It probably kills you to think of her there at college - her long college girl legs braced on top of some long haired - earring wearing - pot smoking - social work majoring - college boys shoulders . . . getting her vessel filled and her fire ignited, screaming "Four more years!" but meaning something entirely different than daddy.

 

[sweetnpetite]

God forbid either of you understood...it would be the first sign of reason and you would probably sprout a beard.

 

[amicus]

Yeah...there is some trash around here...where is the garbage can....sniff...sniff...hmmm baaaad...

 

[sweetnpetite]

Will someone *please* tell me

How do you pronounce Ayn?