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[pmcd9]

Except for police brutality, man that shit pisses me off.

I spent a little time in police custody today.  I didn't suffer any ill treatment at their hands though.

[AugustWest]

OK Paul, you've gotta elaborate on that one.

Anyway...

As a lawyer, I say that New York has to pay for private schooling because the statute says they are required to.  We've made a policy decision that requires school systems to provide a certain level of education for everyone.  They can either do this by providing the program themselves or by "outsourcing" it to private providers.  That's what the law requires -- the financial condition of the parents is entirely irrelevant.  So, I guess I think the court made the correct decision, given the current state of the law.

Do I think this law is good policy?  That's a lot tougher question.

Should society pay for everybody to be educated, regardless of their educational capacity?  Do we really believe that absolutely everybody is entitled to a free public education?  Where do we cut that entitlement off?  Do we make that determination based on need, talent or something else?

What about the cost-benefit analysis?  Maybe it's more cost-effective for the public school system to pay tuition instead of bearing the cost of running their own program.

I'm not very good at answering these kind of questions, although I think I'm pretty decent at raising them.

[Doc]

the attitude of entitlement is pretty ridiculous

Here's why I think it's justified: If you're paying taxes you ARE entitled. The gub-mint don't take our money because they are entitled to it, we give it to them because they are able to provide services that benefit the majority of tax payers in a way that is (theoretically) more efficient/affordable/regulated than if each individual had to pay for it. If   the school district cannot provide education to this child they are not fulfilling their end of the contract.

Is this guy a douche for putting a burden on others that he could easily shoulder himself (we're just assuming he can do this because Mass Media is telling us he is welathy)? Well maybe, but he pays his taxes, isn't he entitled to the same service from his government as anyone else?

[jaydub]

OK Paul, you've gotta elaborate on that one.

My guess is that a brother-in-law who is a cop locked him in a closet once.

[theinevitable]

Well maybe, but he pays his taxes, isn't he entitled to the same service from his government as anyone else?

Well, see, this is the problem. He isn't entitled to the same service. That would mean that his kid was entitled to go to public school. He is entitled to Equitable service, not Equal service. Equitable meaning, roughly, "to each according to his need, from each according to his ability." Equity is based on desert (as in deserving), and in this country we believe that every child deserves a (good) education up to a certain standard. We need people to be educated up to a certain level because, you know, otherwise we'd have a bunch of fools running the country!

Why yes, we did talk about the concepts of Equality and Equity as they apply to the US School System in my political theory class the other day! How did you guess?

Also, Somebody nice, as to the "with enough money" question... I know a few leaders of the Free World who seem to be counterexamples.

[Pedro Picasso]

Just to neaten things up around the edges of this conversation:

1. This guy does not care if the government pays for his kid's education.  He did not take the city to court to save money.  The money he paid his lawyers to appeal this business to the Supreme Court could probably have bought a private school.  This guy took the city to court to fight for the people in the same situation who could not do so. (That situation being a kid with disability shunted into a school system unable to address his needs.)  You might think he's fighting for an idiotic cause (in which case the US Judiciary disagrees with you), but you shouldn't go around thinking he's using the US Government as a half-off coupon.  This cost him a great deal.

2. There are people who pretend their kids are disabled to get benefits.  They are despicable.  It seems unlikely to me that you would train your kid to show up as profoundly disabled in a government doctor's diagnostic test, and then have him try to get the most out of private school once he is shunted into a class of profoundly disabled kids.  Maybe I misunderstand the kind of fraud people are suggesting.

3. Paying for private school for disabled kids (where appropriate) saves the government money in the long run.  While I love the institution of public school, in many parts of the US, it can't serve disabled kids.  It has trouble enough serving poor kids.  Public school officials should recognize when their programs are not effective (I'm not holding my breath here) and send these kids to other programs regardless of the premium cost.  Because if you shove a disabled kid through the school system who cannot benefit from it, you get an adult who cannot provide for herself, often cannot take care of herself.  At that point, you're looking at institutionalization, personal assistance, and welfare all of which end up costing more than private school over time.  Or we may just neglect this person until they conveniently die off.  This sort of thing does still happen in our country. 

For more information about things that are awful, look at Conversations on Institutionalism.

4. Wake County Public Schools, North Carolina, the United States of America, the age in which we live, and you guys are all absolutely nifty.  I've looked around, and these things are hard to beat.

[Arachno-capitalist]

Here's why I think it's justified: If you're paying taxes you ARE entitled. The gub-mint don't take our money because they are entitled to it, we give it to them because they are able to provide services. . .

Maybe you voluntarily hand over your hard earned money to the government out of some benevolent belief that politicians have everyone else's interest at heart, But I do it because if I don't then men with guns will come to my home and put me in jail... a place paid for by people who would join me if they too refuse.

[jay-ell]

Maybe you voluntarily hand over your hard earned money to the government out of some benevolent belief that politicians have everyone else's interest at heart, But I do it because if I don't then men with guns will come to my home and put me in jail... a place paid for by people who would join me if they too refuse.

You could always move to Uruguay. 

Also, for those of you who don't know him, that's my Pedro a couple of posts upthread.  Just so you know he isn't some weirdo newbie who comes in all trying to get up in the kool-aid without knowing the flavor. 

Glad you decided to join us, papa bear. 

[Arachno-capitalist]

You could always move to Uruguay. 

Uruguay - Great rugby team, no personal income tax, but im not going near south america.

[littlefallsmets]

Government being in charge of the basic things that can only be reasonably provided from a collective buying stand-point... and funding those projects through taxation... are what separate the first world from the third, arachnocapitalist. That's why we ain't in Uruguay.

The logical endgame of liberatarianism is a disjointed and terribly inefficient feudalism.

The logical endgame of liberatarianism is best expressed in the form of Dark Ages Europe.

If there ain't a strong government to protect us from each other, a few assholes who are in the right place at the right time can quickly hoarde resources... and by having a hoarde of resources, using that hoarde to get an even larger hoarde and so on and so forth until... you've got a few dozen families with All Kindsa Wealth and everyone else as serfs.

Because there ain't a government to prevent that.

And, yeah, the local warlord can build his own damn road if he wants but... I doubt he's gonna get to use the other warlord's roads.

There needs to be collective efforts wherein the scale of the entire community, region or state... and indeed, world... are necessary.

And to provide the stability to get the people together to get those things done, certain basic rights and standards of living and health and education need to be maintained... else everyone's so greedy from starving from want or too sick or too dumb or too angry from the inequity to accomplish anything and it's just a bunch of people trying to get each other to do stuff by killing them.

It's not perfect but it's the only human system that's ever come even CLOSE to working on a large scale.

It's this or shoving berries up our noses in stone castles.

And... not to get to preachy here?

But what has always killed me about unfettered-capitalism, about libertarianism, about Objectivists, about anarchists, about strident social-conservatives... is the underlying assumption that if all the rules of civil society were off, oh man, every capaliberobjectanative believes that THEY'LL be the one freed to do everything they want in that Aynrandtopia and all the other weak people will just fail and fuck off.

The odds say that with all the rules of civil social democracy off, nearly all of us are just fuck*ng serfs again.

Either the people who held the most power on Ayn-Day or the people who lucked into advantageous positions just after A-Day... those'll be the only small handful of people who ACTUALLY get to be the unfettered awesome people who can do whatever the hell they want.

Very very few of us would luck into that. Odds tell me, arachnocapitalist, that if that day went down, both your and my necks would be under the same boot of whoever lucked into the position of having the resources and the ability to do to us whatever they wanted because there's no real public services left to stop them.

It's not a perfect system, our governmental system, but it's a damn sight better than what Greenspanvania would quickly become.

[linnea]

I spent a little time in police custody today.  I didn't suffer any ill treatment at their hands though.

Did you go down to the precinct to chat with salinapd??

[Arachno-capitalist]

Government being in charge of the basic things that can only be reasonably provided from a collective buying stand-point... and funding those projects through taxation... are what separate the first world from the third, arachnocapitalist. That's why we ain't in Uruguay.

Sometimes I think you just type whatever pops into your head. Uruguay still has plenty of taxes, just not a national personal income tax. Uruguay, like many South American countries, is a product of socialist regimes. Govt does a lot of things beyond what "only be reasonably provided  from a collective buying stand-point". By your logic, the greatest nation of all time was the USSR where everyone gave everything to everyone and everyone had a job working for the state's goals. And that worked out perfectly. I think if you actually look into history, the success of a nation is a positive relation to its degree of freedom (economic and otherwise) and a negative relation to how much the government took from its population.

[littlefallsmets]

No, man, the USSR took it too far in the other direction. That's my whole point.

The middle path, as opposed to the -isms, is probably what will work best.

Much of Western Europe, Canada and Japan all seem to have stumbled onto shades of what would actually work.

Collective tax-fueled assurance of health care, education, roads, police, army, minimal housing and food... heavy regulation but no direct control of semi-essential businesses such as energy concerns... fair taxation but no direct or indirect control of non-essential business enterprises and small business enterprises.

Ayn Rand was as full of shit and theoretical as Karl Marx was. Neither works. None of the dogmas work.

A middle ground where our individual freedoms are balanced against the debt we owe to each other in our shared humanity.

Both of those concepts are important. Co-equal, even.

Pretending that if you just have all of one or the other, everything will work, well... that's the stuff of bullshit textbooks on all the extreme edges of the debate.

EDIT: As long as it is pretended that everyone involved is a hot lady, make-outs for all! That's something we can ALL agree on!

[jay-ell]

According to Transparency International, Uruguay is the second least corrupt country in Latin America (after Chile), with its political and labor conditions being among the freest on the continent.

But if you want to split hairs, fine.  Go to Hong Kong or Singapore if you have a problem with taxes.  In terms of "Freedom from Government," they do a lot better than the States.  (So does Uruguay, but they're 33rd overall due to low scores in the areas of corruption and financial freedom.)  That's my only point.  There are places in the world where you don't have to give much money to the government, if you're all that opposed to it.  The rest of us, well, we enjoy having the police show up when our houses get robbed. 

Asherdan -- to which "two" are you referring?  LFM and A-CAP?  Because, honestly, I'd sort of dig seeing that, too. 

[theinevitable]

yayyy Chile for beating Uruguay! I knew you could do it, home of my ancestors. I knew you could pull that off.