Political Theory

Re: The topic for Social Issues, DV, Poverty, and racial inequalities

Novus Zarathustra — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 09:04:29 GMT

Justin Spahr-Summers:
Democracy for Breakfast:

I hate how so many people blindly advocate Government funding, because they see it as a way to gain access to a huge way of funding.

Me too.

Don't troll. Its better then the Government monopolized student loans which would put me in debt forever.

Re: The topic for Social Issues, DV, Poverty, and racial inequalities

Justin Spahr-Summers — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 12:02:39 GMT

Democracy for Breakfast:
I hate how so many people blindly advocate Government funding, because they see it as a way to gain access to a huge way of funding.

Me too.

Re: The topic for Social Issues, DV, Poverty, and racial inequalities

Sieben — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 22:57:36 GMT

Democracy for Breakfast:
Why don't we just convince them the problems of the social aspect? I hate how so many people blindly advocate Government funding, because they see it as a way to gain access to a huge way of funding.

Getting charity from government is like getting a big piece of a shrinking pie. Getting charity from the free market is like getting a smaller piece of a growing pie. Which is a better long term strategy?

Democracy for Breakfast:
A lot of people think it DARE helps though, helps educate kids who have alcoholic parents.

Right. This is a different class of problems for libertarians. I believe that for a lot of things like charity and roads we can make the case from efficiency or long term utility. But in cases where economics doesn't play an obvious role, like drug education or anti-video game violence, we have to make moral arguments.

The first strategy is to concede that these might be good things but that it should be up to schools and communities if they want to have them. The government is too slow and not trustworthy enough to educate our children. For example, the anti-drug propaganda I experienced made me hate the war on drugs because of all the lies and dramatizations in the programs. Obviously this is in need of reform. The easiest way to reform is to take control of your own children and schools. The hardest way to reform is to lobby a government of 300 million people that care more about health care/iraq/gay marriage/gun control than some side issue that only effects 2% of the population. You do the math.

So that is sort of a utilitarian argument. I think they can still come back at you and say "but what if people don't want to learn about drugs" you have to come back and say "well should you force them?". Even if they think people should be forced to do X, it doesn't mean you need government to do it. Remember gov is not only an entity that violates NAP, it monopolizes that right.

The other argument is the NAP argument which you're familiar with. I personally don't like it. I think people are unresponsive to it.

Another point you can corner them on is this: Okay, so the only reason you think government is justified is because of these silly non-economic issues to do with morality like drug awareness and videogame violence. We are on the same page 99% of the way. That's good enough for me.

Re: The topic for Social Issues, DV, Poverty, and racial inequalities

Novus Zarathustra — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 22:11:33 GMT

Why don't we just convince them the problems of the social aspect? I hate how so many people blindly advocate Government funding, because they see it as a way to gain access to a huge way of funding. DARE is funded by taxpayers money, and is mandatory for early childhood education. A lot of people think it DARE helps though, helps educate kids who have alcoholic parents.

Re: The topic for Social Issues, DV, Poverty, and racial inequalities

Sieben — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 15:32:02 GMT

Push that the government is evil and can't be reformed.

Re: The topic for Social Issues, DV, Poverty, and racial inequalities

Sieben — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 15:16:53 GMT

You need to like, realize that even if you through some miracle convinced people that the government was doing a bad job, they are likely to say "well what if government was doing a good job? Lets try for that!".

The topic for Social Issues, DV, Poverty, and racial inequalities

Novus Zarathustra — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 07:58:18 GMT

I think a topic like this is important, because a lot of liberals will use Domestic Issues as a stand in their arguments. There is often no reasoning with them, because they refuse to believe in the principles of free market economics, and are more effected by the pathos.

DARE is state funded and mandatory for public schools, it is to educate kids on drugs and drinking. However, it doesn't educate them on "responsible" drinking, it just tells them that its bad and that they shouldn't drink. I find this hard to counter in an argument, because a lot of Liberals hung up on the social issues will be convinced that DARE is helpful, informative and necessary and think that the tax money used to fund it, and statist legislation is necessary.

Censorship is bullshit, and unfortunately they are parents who complain about the content their kids are exposed to, like violent media. I feel bad for the UK'ers and Europeans who might not get to play Call of Duty:Modern Warfare 2 =\ For the "No Russian" controversy.

Onto Child Abuse and Support. Currently the state gets involved in families when a teacher suspects DV or Child Abuse, now in a free society, it would seem to be a breach of property rights if a volunteer group got involved in families lives to ensure the safety of children. If a Child is discovered to live in an abusive home, the parents are then bought to Court, to either change their ways or the Child is taken away and given into foster care.

The Government helps fund Child Adoption, and single parents with a kid or kids who are divorced. However, in my experience child support has fucked a lot of people over, even myself. The parent gets used to depending on it to maintain an income, and then once the child turns 18, they lose the support funding. Primarily because, 18 years old is the time to get a job, and a drivers license so they should be able to help support. My mom has wanted to teach for a long time, but has to complete schooling for a BA. We have lived off of Welfare and Child Support to maintain a living. My parents would argue that without it, they would be unable to maintain a living. I can't argue against that because everyone will say it is an 18 year old's responsibility to get a job, like a grown man. So the "dependency" argument becomes irrelevant.

None of the State programs to reduce Domestic Issues have helped at all, and ahve been a huge consumption of Tax money. However, if you argue that you don't want to pay for it, you will just be called coldhearted and careless. Most mainstream liberals will tell you that you don't care about helping people.

Im against programs like DARE, and High On Life. I think they are stupid as shit. I couldn't take High On Life seriously when they came to my High School years ago. Most kids didn't take it seriously, but Statists still argue that its "mandatory" because they are some people who take it seriously, and it gives them the opportunity to, for those who want to. The High School I went to FORCES you to see it, because they show these programs in the auditorium to the whole school, and if you skip it you would get a detention for skipping. YOu wouldn't be allowed to go home early, unless it was approved by the Nurse.