Who are these Libertarians, and why should we care?

OK, public schools are relatively new. So what, does that mean they are bad? Women voters is a relatively new innovation, is that bad too? Just because something is new, doesn't make it bad. I don't see the connection and I don't see your point.

Yeah, I guess you could say that the government has a monopoly on public schools. But WE are the government. I keep repeated this because no one has challenged it yet, but there is a DEMOCRATIC process in the public school system. There is no democratic process in the private school system.

You wanna see the dangers of privatizing social services, just take a look at our health care system.

You're a good storyteller plusaf, but the only thing I don't get is your logic. Yes, there are some monopolies the government makes possible, which I mentioned in my other post, then there are some that the government has to fight to stop.

EXAMPLES:
>>> United States Microsoft antitrust case
>>> Sherman Antitrust Act

google those or something.

Are you just ignoring the facts I'm giving you or what?

I like this intellectual exercise but man, hit me with something concrete.

I will definetely check it out. Thanks

Are you serious? Microsoft would love a free market economy. The only reason they don't own the whole high tech industry is because of the United States Microsoft antitrust case. Big brother stepped in a told Microsoft 'no'. Most corporations would love a true free market economy.

Of coarse, the only corporations who wouldn't like it are the one's that receive massive subsidies and/or contracts from the government. These are companies like Haliburton, Boeing, and Lockeed Martin, who are part of the military industrial complex. Which is unfortunately the backbone of our economy. These companies would never survive a free market economy, they get most of their money from the the feds. I'm all for getting rid of them and the current system, but you have to put something in it's place or else America's economy will collapse.

Even Adam Smith, the father of capitalism didn't advocate a free economy. It's setting the the stage for a corporate state. You need a democratic system for regulating corporations, it's the only way they will be held accountable for anything. You need social service programs to support the working poor.

But it all depends on what you want. The facts I wrote down are correct, but if you don't care about things like poor people getting an education, the facts don't matter.

Well, check the sources.

There are a lot of accurate articles on Wikipedia, you just have to check the sources, which is something you should do with every media outlet.

flyingkick, good points. But I think that you may be missing a couple things. Big government is promoting corporatism, not free market economics. Ron Paul points this out in his "The Revolution: A Manifesto" (pg. 72): "Consider a single, almost trivial example of government favortism: sugar quotas. The United States government limits the amount of sugar that can be imported from around the world. These quotas make sugar more expensive for all Americans, since they now have fewer choices as a result of diminished competition. The quotas also put at a competitive disadvantage all those businesses that use sugar to produce their own products. That's one reason that American colas use corn syrup instead of sugar: American sugar, thanks to the quotas, is simply too expensive. (And it's also a reason that colas in other counties taste so much better.)"

Paul continues by citing William Graham Sumner's eloquent explanation of the "Forgotten Man... whose labor is exploited in order to benefit whatever political cause catches the government's fancy": "The type and formula of most schemes of philanthropy or humanitarianism is this: A and B put their heads together to decide what C shall be made to do for D. The radical vice of all these schemes, from a sociological point of view, is that C is not allowed a voice in the matter, and his position, character, and interests, as well as the ultimate effects on society through C's interests, are entirely overlooked. I call C the Forgotten Man... They therefore ignore entirely the source from which they must draw all the energy which they employ in their remedies, and they ignore all the effects on other members of society than the ones they have in view. They are always under the dominion of the government, and, forgetting that a government produces nothing at all, they leave out of sight the first fact to be remembered in all social discussion-- that the state cannot get a cent for any man without taking it from some other man, and this latter must be a man who has produced and saved it. This latter is the Forgotten Man."

I would also like to point out to you that the "inflation" tax that is imposed on all of us by our government is highly detrimental to us and a free market. The abandonment of sound money principles coupled with excessive government spending continues to rob us all blind. And I don't mean to presume, but I highly recommend Nobel laureate F.A. Hayek's "The Road to Serfdom" and Henry Hazlitt's "Economics In One Lesson."

I don't think you understand what I mean by 'free market'. Free market capitalism means no government regulations on business.
That would mean Microsoft owns the entire software/hardware industry and sets the prices at whatever they want. Free market works great for things like Craigslist and the farmers market. In a national economy it would be a bad thing.

--Don't forget about workers rights. The only reason full time workers get benefits and overtime is because the government steps in and forces employers to give it to them. Do you think businesses would give employees workers comp if the the government didn't force them?
These are all rights the previous generations fought and died for. We need the government to regulate those rights.

Maybe the way the government is regulating sugar import is screwed up. Maybe it needs to be fixed. Maybe it would even be better if the government stepped aside and let the 'free hand of capitalism' work itself out. It might even become more efficient and better for everyone. Sugar is one thing, but things like health care and education are different. There's no profit in teaching or healing poor people, so the 'free hand of capitalism' would cut them out of the equation. No more health care or education for poor people.

A lot of what Ron Paul says is great. Especially his views on Foreign Policy. His economic views are horrible though. The rhetoric is very clever. It makes it sound like you would be more free because the entity holding you back is the government, so, take powers away from the government. It's ironic because the government is the only way the public has to control corporations, which are the real entities limiting out freedoms.

Ron Paul's idea's on the economy aren't new. They reflect the idea's of Milton Friedman and Ronald Reagan. Do you know what Reagan did to this country? He destroyed social services and set of a system of welfare for the rich. You either love or hate Reagan depending on what tax bracket your in.

The funny thing about Reagan and Paul is that they say they want limited big government, but they really mean cut government spending on social services (things for the working poor) while handing out huge subsidies (money) to giant corporations. Seriously, do the tiniest bit of research on Reagan and you'll see the similarities on economic policies.

We need to have social welfare programs to protect the least of the citizens.

flyingkick, in a national economy deregulation would be a bad thing? Like the deregulation of the airline industry in the 70s that resulted in cheap long distance travel and scores of new jobs?

Deregulation doesn't mean that we cross anti-trust laws off the books. Indeed, monopolies allow for little, if any variety, poor performance and higher prices. But the free market is exactly the opposite. (Our government is actually helping to foster some monopolies-- more on this later).

One of the reasons that employees need "compensation" and "overtime" in the first place is because the government (in an almost criminal fashion) robs them of their purchasing power (via devaluation of the dollar). And lets not forget that the average American works 113 days of the year just to pay taxes (74 for federal and 39 for state and local). In addition, in a free market wages and workers benefits are a negotiation between the employees and the employers. In a system where the government forces wage increases (ours does so to allow us to afford a standard of living that they stripped us of in the first place through inflation) then the employers simply raise the prices of their goods and services and/or hire less employees to compensate and remain profitable. So it helps feed the inflation monster and generate unemployment. :-(

As far as education is concerned, my friend, if you'd like a shining example of a "monopoly" look no farther than the public school system. They have virtually NO competition and, SADLY, produce a very poor product. And the sad part is that despite a growing budget (funny how government programs are rewarded for inefficiency-- totally opposite in the private sector) student academic performance stays the same (and in some areas has actually fallen). Also, public schools: are accountable only to the government, not the parents; are designed for conformity and not equality (they lower standards to achieve this equality to the detriment of gifted students); promote status quo information designed by the government (yikes!); promote teachers unions which push for teacher equality (no rewards for great teachers/benefits lousy teachers); act as a haven for neglectful parents. There are alternatives, and you wouldn't necessarily have to dismantle public education either. Congressman Paul proposes that we give substantial tax credits to teachers (incentivizing their much needed profession) and grant tax credit vouchers to parents to allow them to send their children to private schools.

(continued...)

... Ron Paul's economic ideas are not "horrible." Maybe unfamiliar to you, but certainly not "horrible." His ideas are founded in the school of Austrian economics. This school has given us some of the greatest economic minds we have ever known. (I would like to add that we are facing a future that the Austrian economists warned of decades ago). And government is NOT "the only way the public has to control corporations." Each of us controls them whenever we spend a dollar on a product or service. If you don't like company A, then choose company B, C, D or E. Or, to go a step further, promote a boycott of company A's products. Or, go the self sustaining route and provide for yourself entirely.

The assumption that Ron Paul wants to subsidize anything is just plain wrong. As he writes in "The Revolution: A Manifesto" (pg. 77): " Whatever its moral and philosophical attractiveness, the free economy... in which no one is allowed to use government power to loot anyone else, is sometimes criticized as a 'pro-business' philosophy that favors the well-to-do. This criticism could not be more off target. As I have said, businessmen, too, want special favors from government and lobby energetically for all kinds of wealth transfers to themselves. Very rarely does a business owner come to my congressional office to congratulate me on my fidelity to the Constitution. They come by because they want something, and what they want is usually not authorized by the Constitution... I do not claim that businessmen as a class are underhanded or wicked, since I do not believe in making prejudicial generalizations about any group. I am saying only that they are just as likely as anyone else to favor government intervention on their behalf."

I am glad to hear that you agree with Paul's stance on foreign policy. And I think that you might also find reassurance in the fact that Paul opines that we might use the funds that we would save by abandoning our interventionist foreign policy to help fund certain domestic welfare programs while we search for ways to fix our flawed system. I'm not sure if you've heard the warnings from the former U.S. Comptroller General David Walker, but we have spent, promised and borrowed ourselves into such a deep hole that we are on the verge of bankruptcy if we don't act very soon.

Taxes aren't a bad thing. The problem with taxes isn't that regular people are paying too much, it's that rich people aren't paying enough.
We need taxes to fund social services, like public schools.

The reason we need social services to be run by the government is because there is still a DEMOCRATIC process going on. There is NO democracy in the private sector. You can't vote on how you think Exxon should do business. Sure there is boycott power, but that power is only as strong as your bank account.

>>For example: Say I don't like the way Exxon is doing business, so I boycott Exxon. That would be 1 less customer buying gas. Then, the owner of a taxi company decides that he loves Exxon and mandates that all his taxis use Exxon. That would be, let's say, 10 more customers for Exxon. The Taxi owners decision has more power than mine, because he has more money than me. That's how the private sector works. Whoever has the most money, makes the decisions. There is no democracy.

The public school system is far from perfect, but that's not because it's a government monopoly. It's because there is a lack of funding.
Public schools ARE the government and the government is accountable to it's people. There's still a DEMOCRATIC process going on.
If you privatize schools, they will become even more hierarchical than they are now, with the rich going to the best schools and the poor will be lucky if they get to go to school at all.
The only reason the lower class gets to go to school is because school is non-profit and publicly funded.
In a free market economy there would be no profit in sending a poor kid to school. The only reason I'm in college is because of government grants and scholarships.
In a society with nothing but private education, I could see corporations opening free schools to train poor kids to work in a service industry like Wal-Mart for the rest of there lives, while the rich kids get to earn P.H.D's if they want. This will further separate the gap between rich and poor.

You're right, deregulating the airline industry made it cheaper and more efficient. But that's the airline industry. That doesn't mean it will work for all industries across the board. Let's take a look at something more essential to life, like the Fire Department. The Fire Department used to be a privately run industry. Which was great, if you had a contract with the Fire Department. But if you had no contract, your house would burn down. Who were the people who were more likely not to have a contract? Poor people.
This isn't something we should go back to.

The most powerful way to introduce competition would be to give parents a choice among schools. Take a look at the situation in the private school market. Private schools do, of course, face a competitive market. If a private school does not deliver high-quality education relative to price, parents will withdraw their children and their dollars in favor of one that does and the offending school will find itself kaput. Thus, private schools face lethal incentives to produce superior student performance. Moreover, competition keeps costs down. On the whole, private schools offer better education and superior student performance for less money than do public schools. Consider: Currently, the cost of public school per pupil averages $7,316; that is about double what private school costs.

There is happy evidence that when public schools are confronted with competition coming from private schools, they improve. Professor Caroline Minter Hoxby, at Harvard, studied counties that enjoyed a substantial presence of private Catholic schools. She found that this competition "significantly raises the quality of public schools, as measured by educational attainment, wages and high school graduation rates." Plus--here's the icing on the cake--costs at public schools did not rise significantly. Why? Because competition also cuts out the amount of bureaucratic infrastructure in schools. Simply put, competition reduces the amount of monopoly money that would otherwise be captured by administrators..."

I so agree with flyingkick.
http://www.sethf.com/essays/major/libstupid.php

That was very cool. Thanks for posting it.

Yes, very cool. Thanks, pressrecord.