After the pages long debate on the whole government scholarship issue I started pondering what aspects of my life I wouldn't want to change or were positive for me came from the state:
A) Got a good internship at a microloan agency. Turns out they handn't turned a profit ever and were being bankrolled by the Interamerican Development bank and foreign state pension funds.
B) I really want to be a History teacher but the only real reason people would sit in a room to hear me pratlle on about the crimean war is because the state makes education compulsory and they really have no choice.
C) I've made a lot of good money as a private math tutor. Ditto on the last one, these people are only paying me to teach them algebra because they have to pass their compulsory math exams or else.
D) I could get a really good curriculum-boosting internship at... the local central bank. No explanation needed on that one.
E) Both my parents are public school graduates.
F) Any job I get with my finance degree in a major bank (the kind that pay well) would imply getting a job at an instituion that was bailed out during the Peso crisis of 94 or by the American government in '08.
And the real kicker:
G) My gf currently works at a company that would not exist were it not for government funding, and has serious aspirations of becoming a bureaucrat.
There. The state has distorted capital structure so much a lot of the opportunities being presented in my life are dependent on one way or another on the government. I know a lot is something I can't change, and there are choices I can make, but by the gods, it seems the only way I could honestly make a living without actually recieving state money would be setting up a taco stand... and nowhere near a government building at that.
I don't know. Following the road from libertarianism to ancap has been an enlightening expirience. But I also value practicing what I preach.... and I somehow think I've been left more confused than I started out to begin with.
As much as I hate to admit it, its almost impossible today to avoid the government/corporations that are in bed with the government. THere are some places where its 'worth it' to avoid the government(Ie Homeschooling), but for the most part you are better off working to change the system than trying to avoid the state.
To quote Murray Rothbard:
"I think not. Waters's fundamental error is to confuse accepting a situation none of your making, with actively making that situation worse. In short, there is nothing wrong with a libertarian living in a rent-controlled apartment, and therefore paying a rent below the market. Nozick (or myself) is not responsible for the rent-control law; he or we have to live within the matrix of such laws. So there is nothing wrong with him living in a rent-controlled apartment, just as there is nothing wrong with him walking on government streets, flying from government airports, eating price-supported bread, etc. None of this is of Nozick's (or our) making. It would be therefore foolish and martyrish for us to renounce such apartments if available, to refuse to eat any food grown under government regulation, to refuse to use the Post Office, etc. Our responsibility is to agitate and work to remove this statist situation; apart from that, that is all we can rationally do. I live in a rent-controlled apartment, but I have also written and agitated for many years against the rent-control system, and urged its repeal. That is not hypocrisy or betrayal, but simply rationality and good sense." -Living in a State Run World
http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard63.html
Also, who would you rather be a history teacher, you or a statist? Your students may be forced to sit in your class, but, being armed with that knowledge, you can atempt to make their studies as relevant as possible. And especially to not give them busywork.
I don't know what specifically your girlfriend would want to do in government, and I'm curious now. It's not necessarily terrible that she be employed by the government. If one wants to be a firefighter in this country, one must work for the government. It would be better if it weren't the case, but it is. I would never blame someone for aspiring to be a government firefighter with the current circumstances.
I hope this helps.