"He who is not a liberal at 20 has no heart. He who is not a
conservative at 40 has no head."
Old saying
Kevin Sanchez wrote:
As a democratic socialist I must correct you - if schools were
socialists they would be very intellectually creative. Instead, schools
are totalitarian.
Bob replies:
"Democracy" is majority rule. Mob rule. Might makes right. If two people
vote to kill and cook the third, that is democracy. The only thing
stopping it is a belief in absolute moral law, such as "Do not murder."
Democracy, being based on might makes right, is a biological value and
therefore an inferior form of government.
Socialism is based on envy, a biological value, and is also an inferior
form of government.
Socialism can only be enforced by government violence. Violence is a
biological value, thus adding to the inferiority of socialism as a form
of government.
Bob wrote:
They also don't teach any values. Whose values would they teach? What
interest group would they offend no matter whose values they teach?
Kevin wrote:
It is a common misconception that schools don't teach values. After
reading Lila, we should all understand that nothing can be valueless.
Bob replies:
You're right. I misspoke. Schools teach values, whether they know it or
not.
Bob wrote:
Students form cliques, little biological tribes. Some get a biological
a pleasure from tormenting and bullying others, the outcasts.
Kevin wrote:
The observation you just made has roots in a long history of age
discrimination. Since I have only lived for 17 revolutions of the Earth
around the sun, I believe that adult society oppresses youths. One
tremendously powerful instrument of oppression is segregation. Before
the industrial revolution, youths and adults worked together in large
myriad-aged families.
Bob replies:
The reason why is because they had no choice. Until a few hundred years
ago, most families slaved 12 hours a day, six days a week and died at
40. Almost always it was working their farms. The tremendous
advancements of the free market freed people from this.
Kevin writes:
...the same reasoning behind slavery (i.e. slavery was first economic,
then racist - not vis versa.)
Bob replies:
Slavery is a violation of a person's natural rights (society.) It can
only be enforced by government (biology.). Therefore it is a kind of
socialism. Slavery cannot exist under capitalism--the FREE market. It's
a contradiction.
Kevin writes:
Cliques only relate to biological tribes because society segregates us
from social realms.
Bob replies:
Everybody joins their own little biological tribe. Friends, family,
neighborhood, country. The difference is whether you choose voluntarily
or if it's forced on you by government--such as public schools.
Bob wrote:
Competition is a very Dynamic thing. The best, ultimately, wins.
Kevin wrote:
I have already written my most fervent dissent to statements such as
these but I am sure your aware of them. So I will only repeat that
competition is immoral because cooperation and individualism always
provide more Dynamic alternatives.
Bob replies:
Just wait until you get out in the job market. I have owned my own
business. Most "cooperation" is between people trying to exploit someone
else. Competition is what prevents it.
Bob writes:
Government is slow and stupid. If something doesn't work it gets more
money and gets bigger. Like the public schools.The free market is fast
and smart. If something doesn't work it disappears. Private schools have
to Dynamically compete, with the best winning.
Kevin writes:
Common misconception. It cost government a lot less money to fund the
same activity than the private sector. Government is a lot more
efficient.
Bob replies:
There's no such thing as 'government money.' It's all 'taxpayer money,'
extracted by the threat of violence.
Kevin writes:
Competition only leads to a race to the bottom; quality doesn't
increase.
Bob replies:
Competition leads to a race to the top. The slowest horse doesn't win.
The fastest does.
Kevin writes:
Quality costs too much money for the private sector so instead they
improve aspects of their business that don't cost as much - adverstising
expecially.
Bob replies:
The cost of advertising is astronomical. I used to be a newspaper
editor. The paper came out once a week and the cost of a full-page ad
was $600--ten years ago. Business would prefer not to advertise.
Competition makes them do it.
Kevin writes:
The private sector is all about the appearance of quality like a Used
Car salesman.
Bob replies:
I used to sell used cars. Since I sold quality cars, I had no problem
selling them. I was able to beat my poor-Quality competitors.
Kevin writes:
Lets say ten private education facilities are competing for the same
territory. One spends all its money improving the school and the other
nine spend all their money on advertising. Who gets the most customers?
Ah, but you say once the customers get angry at the other nine they will
go to the better one. Assuming that the first one doesn't go out of
business first, the other nine will do everything to keep the students
at their school, except pay more out of its profit. And since there is
so much competition, none can have the resources to truly pay for
quality.
Bob replies:
You're assuming everyone is so stupid they fall hook, line and sinker
for advertising. If a private school is good, it'll prosper. If it's
bad, it'll go out of business. The fast horse beats the slow horse. If a
government school is bad, it doesn't go out of business. It gets more
money and stays bad.
Kevin writes:
The reason people think government has failed in education is becayse
they're still using totalitarian teaching methods which never
really motivate students.
Bob replies:
The reason they use totalitarian methods is because there is no
competition to force them to improve.
Bob writes:
I've always thought a good idea is for schools to have student courts,
for violations of student law (like bullying or making fun of somebody.)
Who would be the judges? Heh heh--the outcasts.
Kevin writes:
Perhaps. Definately constitues student empowerment - which I am for. But
to the extent courts are an instrument of static revenge, and not a
method of fostering Dynamic love, I cannot support "student courts."
Peer mediation perhaps?
Bob replies:
Revenge is a biological value. I mean courts for law and justice. The
idea that everyone in the world is going to love everyone else is
uttlerly unrealistic. We're lucky if we love the people in our families.
Bob writes:
This is why I believe the MoQ supports a small, mostly Static
government, with a huge, competing, Dynamic free market.
Kevin replies:
The "free markert" is the largest destroyer of quality society has ever
invented. The Randian-type system you propose would muder the poor and
make the rich richer and richer and richer. Capitalistic materialism
isn't quality. Killing the lower classes isn't quality. Only socialism,
where we all work together, cooperating to improve society and
ourselves, is the most Dynamic option.
Bob replies:
Socialism, a static biological value, has in its various manifestations
(Communism, Fascism, Nazism [National Socialism]) killed about 200
million people in the last 100 years. Socialism makes the rich richer
and the poor poorer by using the force of government to extract money
from the masses and give it to the ruling classes. A lot of people like
'capitalistic materialism.' I happen to like my a/c and my furnace--very
materialistic!
As for Ayn Rand, she was, like Karl Marx, a vile human being who
produced a vile philosophy. Take away her belief in capitalism and
you've got Nazism.
Bob wrote:
There has to be certain stable, easily understood, universal laws (don't
murder, steal, rape, etc.)
Kefvin writes:
If I punge a knife into a person's chest or I move a business away from
a poor place when I know that the population I am leaving behind will
surely starve, what's the difference? When the most profitable course of
action involved raping the ecosytem? When the capitalist elite
effectively steal from the lower classes because they got lucky in
hereditary lottery?
Bob replies:
Most business have to move because of the crushing government
regulations and taxation, not because the owners are evil. Businesses
pollute because the government lets them--again, government is the
problem. The capitalist elite? You mean like Bill Gates, who 15 years
ago was a college dropout starting his business in a garage? What you
mean by 'capitalist elite' are socialists who use government to protect
their weath from competition.
Bob writes:
I still think when government expands it can only expand by destroying
society.
Kevin writes:
I too disagree with a strong centralized government and instead adovcate
> decentralized, small communities. Gandhi's adhram. The early Christian
> churches document in the Acts of the Apostles. Aldous Huxley's Island. I am not a communist - Marx definately underestimate the extend greed is coupled with power. But this don't mean capitalist greedy elites are any better than communist greedy elites. It means a neighborly socialism and
communitarian decentralization provides the best alternative. We need to
break down the power structures which have gotten too out of hand for
the common person to control.
Bob replies:
A neighborly socialism? Nazi mean 'National Socialist." How about a
neighborly Nazism? The 'power structures' are the ones who control
government and use it to exploit others--socialists. Hence my belief in
liberty and not in government.
Kevin writes:
In America expecially, there was no large market for education before
mandatory schooling.
Bob replies:
Completely untrue. Before public schools and mandatory schooling, all
schools were private. For students who couldn't pay, there were charity
schools, so many in fact some closed because they couldn't get enough
students!
Bob wrote:
The government expanded and destroyed society.
Kevin replies:
Not because it stepped in, but because it stepped in with the same
capitalistic mindset which private schools step in with too.
Bob replies:
Governments aren't capitalistic. Governments are socialistic. The free
market is capitalistic.
How do you justify socialism with the MoQ considering Pirsig considers
socialism inferior to the free market?
Bob
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