Again, good work, sir.

Rarely do I get such well thought out comments on my blog. Thank you for sharing your opinions, even if they are different than my own. You raised many great points about services that the government does perform well, such as fire and police protection. I agree that the government is best suited to provide courts, police, & military. I also think that either local/state/federal governments are best suited to manage access to certain types of resources like roads and air travel. In most other areas, especially in goods & services though the private industry has proved time and again that it is far more efficient.

Joel

Second, you seem to be getting your literacy stats from Kenneth Lockridge’s study of literacy in colonial New England. He extrapolates his literacy numbers based on a study of the total number of wills that contained a signature rather than just a mark. Using that sample group – generally wealthy whites – it would seem as if there was something close to universal literacy in the colonies. Other scholars criticize his numbers as clearly skewed because his sample in no way represented the average colonial American.

Third, your assertion that public education was a post-civil war social experiment to educate newly freed slaves is a flat-out lie. From the inception of our nation, the founding fathers argued that education was absolutely neccessary for the survival of a democracy. In 1779 Thomas Jefferson proposed free education for all the children of Virginia. He also founded the first Public University in America – the University of Virginia. And it was his wish that even university level education be free. In fact, his proposals were the basis for education systems that later developed. The American public school system actually originated in the 1830s and 1840s – created by Horace Mann in Massachusetts and Henry Barnard in Connecticut – some 30 years before the civil war. And by the way, public schools were for whites only. In fact, it was illegal to educate Blacks during this period.

There are some things that the private sector is unwilling or incapable of doing. Yet, for the better good, for the more perfect union, government must step in and accomplish those things. Contrary to Ronald Reagan’s scandalously incorrect statement, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are – I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”, our government does so many things so well that we take them for granted. But the idealogues fight against their own best interests every step of the way. In the 1840s and 1850s fire houses were for profit. Your house would burn down if a fire wagon pulled up from the wrong insurance company. There were even fist fights between competing insurance companies in front of burning homes. The solution – a single payer system – the modern fire department. Now, no matter who you are, if you dial 911, dedicated, competent firefighters will arive in a matter of minutes to save your home. Or as some people call it – socialized fire protection. If private security companies had the political power of the healthcare insurance industry, we would be paying insurance premeiums for police protection, and any attempt to move to the single payer system that we now have would be decried as moving towards socialized policing. I’m old enough to remember the fire storm about adding floride to the nation’s water supply. Compare the average American child’s teeth to that of the average British child. Catch a flight from New York to L.A. Government regulated jet fuel quality, a single payer, government run air traffic control system, planes built to government safety requirements for airframes and powerplants, maintained to government mandated service intervals, government regulated runways, government certified pilots, government operated cross-country radar sites, government owned GPS and weather satelites all work together, SEAMLESSY, while you sleep on the flight – confident of your arrival. And let’s not forget that grand socialist project – the interstate highway system. Go to the grocery store. Why do you trust the milk, meat, butter, cheese? The government forced the industry to label for purity and expiration. How do you know your doctor is not a quack? His government license is right on his wall. Why does the U.S. have the safest workplaces in the world? Government intervention against unsafe working conditions.

America is a capitalist nation and will always be such. Don’t fall prey to the sophistry of those that play fast and loose with so-called definitions, as if this one is all good and the other is all bad.

Born: October 28, 1955, in Seattle, Washington.

Education: Attended Harvard University, 1973–1975.

Family: Son of William Henry Gates II (attorney) and Mary Maxwell (teacher); married Melinda French (Microsoft manager), January 1, 1994; children: three.

Gates had access to resources tha allowed him to springboard from and to.

However, we must be reminded that even the elites have inequality within their own families in which a lower or middle class person (in reproduction) can overcome.

From my observation, the pooer and rich are very much alike–they both depend on favors.

Socrates is right to presume that “knowlege is recollection.” My life is evident of it. However, the general public is very misinformed to think socialism is “bad.” For the lazy, it’s wonderful!

For example, after a sociology research, we find that Russia Rock musicians were star-strucked during Glasnost–they never realized how difficult it was to earn your own cash rather than a state stipend. Those rock musicians struggled so much for russian money during glasnost that they took off to western Europe to perform to earn thier cash then trade it back on the back market for the Russian ruble.

Macroeconomics suggests that per capital income should be change to median income since the higher elite income distorts the average–this is truth.

In our haste, we must not forget that inequality is a social phenomenon like in-group and out-group. It will never go away!

Athens fall was its currency.

A simple mistake could also follow Athens.

Remember, American can and will only remain a leader if it excels in innovation and research. Once we lose that, we have lost. Ask the question: is America better equipped to run research and innovation under Welfare Capitalism or Socialism?

–not only should we control our borders in, but going out as well! Speaking of innovation and resarch, if the 50% of holders of Ph.Ds and Master degreees who are asian decided to leave our country to return back home (maybe paid to return??), we would have a crisis on our hands, with our “future” leaving in the form of ideas and knowledge.

There is a thing called social and human capital–let’s not forget this!

I’m not religious, but I’m fine with YOU paying less taxes, in the way of tax deductable donations to your church. Churches do good work. I don’t have kids, but I am happy to pay school taxes so YOUR kids can have a better education. I could go on and on about the benefits of USA social “ized” programs SUBSIDIZED by me that benefit the common good. I am happy to do so and our world is a more compassionate world my way than yours.
Your view is some sort of survival of the fittest nazi world, where we step over bodies instead of offering a helping hand.
You chose to step over the few bodies who MAY abuse the system, in order to defend an unrealistic principle.

You seem to center your whole argument around pursuit of material wealth and completely leave out the rest.
You seem to think giving people an equal footing somehow destroys their incentive to learn and grow and contribute to the world.
You have an old time bigotted view of people. The same view people did in the 50’s when they spoke of minorities.

Your definition sounds like US republican propaganda.

Socialism is the phase between capitalism and communism. It is the phase where the “government” and all other bougoisie implements are removed. China and the Old Soviet Union and North Korea (At least in the latter days) were/are not Socialist countries, defined by the fact that they turned into to Totalitarian dictatorships which also retained/developed a class structure again, they are defined as social capitalism. Socialism advocates the road to having no government at all, at least in the traditional sense. The country and the business’s would be run by the people who work in them. Socialism does not necessarily mean very high taxes taking your money to give to other people. This is a myth projected by people like the republicans, because they and there friends are “business leaders”. The only people who would “lose” in socialism would be the select few at the top – 80 % of the wealth on this planet is in the hands of about 220 people. Unless you are own of these 220 then your standard of living will increase!

Alot of people I have spoken to have also said “Yes, but everyone should be allowed the opportunity to get into that top 220, if you work hard you can make it.”. This is essentially a myth projected by these same people as ‘the American Dream’. Although there are a few people now and again who make it big (Bill Gates), your chances of doing this, even if you worked really hard, are slim and none. Just by the definition of capitalism – a couple of big winners with a lot of small losers. Also, just because Bill Gates came from the working class does not give him the right to exploit them.

If you have any questions please leave a comment.

Comradely,
REDRABBIT101

Lately, I have actually been leaning towards your position on public education, but I am still working out many kinks in my theory. I would love if you emailed me @ (joel02078@yahoo.com) or used a comment here to further expound upon your theory. If your comment/email is well enough written & reasoned, I would publish it as a full article on the front page of my website citing you as the author if you wish.

Basically, here is the question I would most like answered- what is the ideal form of education in America? Public/private/vouchers/what? Why? What rights should children have in an America with a small government? How do we protect the pursuit of happiness while balancing the other issues?