John Stuart Mill, of his own free will, On half a pint of Rand-y was particularly ill. Bullshit. I'd bet every one of them would be tremendously impressed. The country was a pretty much a shithole when they ruled the land. barfo
The quote is the part in italics. The comment about it by me is not. Maybe you should learn how to post quotes rather than just cut and paste entire articles.
I find it interesting that you are both defining the issue as capitalist vs capitalist. When Bill Gates and Steve Job have a dispute, I find it very hard to care. If one of them defrauds the consumer or illegally dumps toxic waste - I DO care. In those situations, who is going to deal with the problem if not the big, bad government? In the absence of law (or morals, if you prefer), capitalism becomes purely predatory.
It's a credit to where we are today as a society that we can focus on making healthcare affordable/available to everyone. Your comparison of today's issues versus issues at our countries founding is irrational. Obviously, there are values that were important to our founders that are still important to us, but to say a current issue is unimportant because it wasn't important then makes no sense.
Socialized "anything" is contrary to Liberty. While many of the founders favored public education, their idea of it was far from truancy laws and govt. run schools. Jefferson, for example, built a public school using his private money. The "public" nature of it was that it was open to "all" to enroll. "All" being free men. They expressly prohibited direct taxation of the people in the Constitution. I don't think they'd like the IRS at all.
This is the sort of quote that makes people think libertarians are extremist nutjobs. They wouldn't like not having slaves, or allowing women to vote, either. The idea that the founders had all the answers is preposterous. Worship of the founders is getting to be very much like worship of Jesus. Pretty soon you'll be telling me John Adams was born to a virgin. barfo
Again, I think it's a stretch to say what the founders would say about the world today. Education is a difficult example because it was not nearly as important at the founding. Taxation is also a very loaded issue because they were reacting against taxes by Great Britain and also the bulk of the power resided with states rather than the federal government. All of which makes constitutional law so difficult...the framers lived in a very different time and it can be difficult to interpret what they'd think about a lot of things that didn't exist then or have changed over time.
So you're saying that we've diverged radically from their view of how things should be. That's my point.
No, but I'm pretty sure you already knew that. It seems like this board is more about arguing for the sake of arguing rather than discussing ideas. It gets tired. Many things in the world have changed since the founding, which should be pretty obvious. In the 1700's, a person trying to earn their way in the world did not need an education to achieve success. In 2012, an education makes it MUCH easier (not required, just a lot easier) to earn your way. So, a framer of the Constitution would have a different view on education than they might if they saw the world today. This doesn't mean we have "diverged radically...from how things should be". It means education was less important in the 1780s than it is now, which would obviously impact how education is perceived, valued, funded. On the education front, are you arguing that we should fund education to the extent we did when the Constitution was ratified because that's what the framers did?
He said "we've diverged radically from their view of how things should be" and you obviously left that part out to make your argument work. Don't do that.
On the education front... Historically the education system rocked, though the segregation issue made that education system not so even. I in no way suggest that we should still have segregated schools, though there are studies that show all girls schools do a better job of educating girls, etc. Ever since the dept of education was formed, the quality of education, as measured against what other nations do, has declined severely. At the same time, spending has increased almost 5x (in inflation adjusted terms), and per pupil spending is up 15x+ (in inflation adjusted terms). So it's clear to me that spending more and spending HOW we spend isn't a good idea.
Fine, but I don't think it makes a difference one way or another as far as my argument is concerned. I was just trying to shorten the quote, not trying to get fancy to make an argument.
Hmmm. Earlier you were talking about the founders and I assume you mean the founders of our great country, which means we'd be talking about how education was viewed in the 1700s. But maybe we should just drop it all and enjoy the last days of summer lol?
