| | Barbara, Luke,
Regi & Luke, if the "masses are asses", then Ed's fine arguments for private education are useless, because the masses won't understand them ...
Absolutely. They not only cannot understand them, they would refuse to if they could. Most people do not want to understand that freedom means being responsible for one's own choices and actions, that life is hard, and in a moral (free) society, the "rule" is, produce or perish.
...and besides, even if somehow education were privatized, parents would be too asinine to bother having their children educated. You can't have it both ways.
Right again. I have no illusions about that at all. I commended Ed's article, not because I think it is possible in the foreseeable future, but because the principles are correct. If freedom in any sphere could suddenly be realized, in education, in personal responsibility, or any other, the number of people who would suddenly find themselves incapable of living, much less living successfully, would be staggering. Luther rightly points out that we have produced a huge dependent (parasitic) class of people. They will not easily give up what they have grown accustomed to getting without "cost" (or one they recognize) to them.
If you truly believe people are stupid, it is pointless to fight for a society of personal responsibility; which asses are to take on that responsibility?
I do think people (very many) are stupid, and, in one sense, "it is pointless to fight for a society of personal responsibility." Individual liberty is never secured by creating the "right kind of society." The liberty enjoyed by individuals during the first 150 years of America was due to the fact there was very little government, and most people were self-sufficient. In those early years, the very real fact that one either worked and produced and supported themselves, or went without and died, could not be hidden behind the huge cloud of government social manipulation that exists today.
You'd have to grant that the totalitarians of all kinds are correct: someone has to tell us how to live.
Certainly not! Somehow we've all gotten the idea that everyone must be happy and successful. Given the present mix of people in the United States, if everyone was suddenly thrown on their own wits, ambition, and ability, most would make total wrecks of their lives. So what? (Most do anyway, but it is hidden by all the government and social programs that describe those failures as something else, and support all those who cannot support themselves at our expense.)
Just because most people do not know how to live their lives, it does not follow that someone must therefore tell them how to live them. That conclusion assumes that there is some kind of moral necessity for everyone to be successful and happy. There isn't.
Now Luther's comments are exactly right, here, I think. The point is, to me at least, if those individuals who do know what freedom is, and do know how to live their lives, did everything they can to free themselves from the constraints of government (like educating their own children), those kind of actions would provide two things, reduced base of support for the government (programs) and provide practical examples of how one does achieve success in life.
Most people look to authority and examples for guidance in how to live their lives. For most, that means, their government, their religious leaders, and the media. If you really want to influence, "society," that is, "masses of asses," it is not going to be done by, "explanations," which they are incapable of understanding, it is going to be done by example and demonstration, and by making available to them in the open market, products and services obviously superior and cheaper than government can supply.
Enough!
Thank you both for the interesting comments, and thanks to Ed for starting this thing off.
Regi
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