Johnny MUST go to school

Let's think about the mechanics of discussing rights.

Rather than talk about education, let's talk about something simpler, inheritance.

Given you are a conservative I'm going to hazard a guess that we both agree that the Federal government has no business taxing inheritance.

Now let's talk about why that is. The founders believed you have the right to distribute your inheritance as you see fit as a check on the government. This is no different than the second amendment. The founders also believed you have the right to bear arms as a check on the government.

When the founders wrote the Constitution they wrote the What without the Why. Which is too bad. Because I think a lot of nonsense that goes on today, liking taxing inheritance, would not exists.

I study early American history and one of the interesing bits of trivia is that the founders spent a lot of time and ink talking about inheritance. Yet it never shows up in the Constitution.

Why? One way for the government to express tyranny over its people is to rule inheritance. That is to say take 100% of a dead person's property and transfer that property to the state. Within a couple of generations the state could own everything and people nothing IF the state so chooses. Sound ridiculous? If so that's too bad because that was a big worry to the founders. No less than the right to bear arms. In both cases the founders were desirous of the people themselves providing a check in the check's and balances scheme of things.

If only conservatives today would use this argument when arguing for the 2nd Amendment. We as a culture believe people have the right to bear arms and form militias as a check on the Federal Government. Unfortunately criminals and crazy people are going to shoot innocent people. But the altnernative is far more dangerous, an unarmed populace when faced with a trannical government.

I believe the Federal government today takes upwards of 50% of people's inheritance under some cases. This is wrong and violates the individual's right to be a check on the government. In my opinion the Federal government cannot tax any inheritance because of the 9th and 10th amendments. In fact the founders felt the same way and heavly debated putting an inheritance amendment into the consititution.

Ultimately they did not. The reason is that inheritance is tied into marriage. Every state in the Union had laws on the books regarding marriage. Marriage has a long common law tradition dating back centurys. So the founders had a conundrum. Chip away at marriage being a State's right by calling out inheritance, or leave it out. They left it out.

But, as with the 2nd Amendment, the founders strongly believe that inheritance was a fundamental right guaranted to the individual as protection against the state practicing tyranny by obsconding dead people's property.

Unfortunately, conservatives today are not making this fundamental conservative argument that was essential to framing the constitution. The system of checks-and-balances involves the people themselves. We provide a check on the Federal and State government by the right to bear arms and controlling our inheritance be passed down to our progeny not be co-opted by the state when we die.

The lesson here is that rights do not live in a vacuum. Arguing that the second amendment should remain strongly enforced is an argument for the people providing a check on the Federal government. Unfortunately conservatives do not make that argument clear enough. Conservatives do not impress upon Americans that Freedom requires vigilance and part of the vigilance is allowing the public to bear arms in a responsible manner. People are going to die because of criminal and crazy people but that the alternative of tyranny like was had in Iraq is much worse. We must provided the viligance over the criminal and crazy people with arms.

One could argue that conservatives are remiss in making that argument to the public with respect to Iraq today. Instead of Bush impressing upon the public that sacrifices of American and Iraqi life is necessary for securing our Freedom, Bush told Americans to "go about your business as usual."

Anyway, with respect to education, there was a time prior to the 20th Century where States did not treat education as a right. Parents were allowed to send their children to work. The birth to the right of public education came on the heels of child labor laws. The State right to public education did not grow out of a vacuum.

If one is going to argue that parents may elect to choose to send a child to school then one must also argue why parents cannot choose to elect to send a child to work. Both are value arguments. A child that works brings value into the home. By denying a parent the right to send a child to work, you are denying that parent value. By denying the child the right work, you deprive that child value.

The right to education did not grow out of a vacuum. It came out of a national discussion about labor rights. Does the child have a right to take a job? Does the parent have the right to force a child to take a job? Does the parent have the right to keep a child out of school to work a job?

I'll close on a final note about abortion. More than one conservative lawyer has argued that conservatives need to be very careful about declaring life at conception has full rights.

Because if so, liberals will take that to mean things I don't think anyone wants to ponder.

For example, fetal alcohol syndrome is well known and understood. Women should not drink during pregnancy. If the baby's rights trump the mother's rights then where does the line end, and more importantly, WHY? You have to make the compelling case. The lesson here is that conservatives when arguing for laws banning abortion because the baby is a full human with full human rights have to grapple with the legality of the mother's lifestyle during pregnancy damaging the baby.

This argument has already come up. A women tried to give herself an abortion by using a gun on her baby. She shot herself and killed the baby. Did she commit murder? If not, why is what she did any different than if someone else pulled the trigger? Ultimately it was ruled that since abortion was legal that she could not commit murder. But where do you draw the line. What if a depressed woman starts heavily drinking during a pregnancy and the baby has serious birth defects? Can the state sue the mother on behalf of the baby? If not, why not? An argument needs to be applied about a subset of full rights else the baby has full rights.

The point to all this confusion is simply to say that rights have a basis. That basis is the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness environment we the people decided we wanted to create.

People have already decided that children have the right not be used as labor and in addition children have the right education. Fundamentally the right to education comes from the need for a Democracy to vote. An ignorant person cannot make an informed decision.

Voting, as with the right to bear arms and the right to inheritance, provides the people a check on the system.

As a conservative I cannot support treating education as a value because I believe that a right to vote means a right to an informed vote.

However, as a conservative I can support the debate on how best to implement education. Should private schools be allowed to compete? Absolutely. Have private schools been in existence since the founding of this country? yup.

Have private schools shown they can educate the public at large? Nope. That is because private schools will only educate the easily educated, they will not educate the troubled child. Not without charging more money at any rate. This is no different than for profit hospitals denying to take people with prior conditions. The problem is that there are NO hospitials in a capitalist system who will take people with prior conditions an an *equitiable basis*. In other words, people with prior conditions get gouged.

I think nationally what needs to happen is a discussion about how the school system is NOT the parenting system. If parents fail to discipline a child properly, where does the responsibility lie? I know when I was growing up, spanking a child was NOT debated, discpline at home and at school were enforced. The education system needs parents to do their job. In fact most private schools demand this or your child will be kicked out of all modern private schools.

A good focal point on the state of education today is this. Should a public school be allowed to kick a child out of school. Whether it be for truancy, bad discipline, etc. If a public school can kick a child out of school then the public schools will be on more equal footing with private schools. If not, then private schools will take all the easy cases and the problem children will go????

Ultimately even a problem child is a citizen in this country. If they have no path but of crime and poverty, then that is the path they will take.

I agree that the Govt has no business taxing inheritance. I base that on :

* moral grounds - the ostensible motive behind such a tax is that it keeps the wealth from accumulating in the hands of the 'undeserving rich' and redistributes it. Although the heir did nothing to earn the wealth, it serves the intention of the person who created the wealth. If the heir is not deserving of his inheritance (e.g. he squanders it), so be it! If the heir is deserving and capable, then s/he is likely to work hard and use the inherited wealth to invest and create more wealth for his/her generation and heirs, benefiting the overall economy in the process.

* pragmatic grounds - one of the reasons that people work hard, save and invest their money is for the benefit of their heirs & dependants. If that were not true, there wouldn't be much of a market for life insurance. So, if there was an onerous tax on inheritance, it would drastically reduce the incentive to work hard beyond a level that would sustain life for one generation. The effects of a high tax on inheritance would be early retirement and therfore less productivity at the individual level.

* political grounds - I agree with 'drivebyposting's' remarks that a 100% tax on inheritance could eventually lead to Govt takeover of business. Owners of businesses would probably structure their businesses to prevent such an outcome, using whatever loopholes could be found in the law. Needless to say, it would be another millstone around the neck of business owners.

It is a common misconception that without child labor laws there would be widespread exploitation of children.

The historical reality is that it is ECONOMIC conditions that determine whether parents will permit their children to work to augment the family income. The evidence for this is the fact that Child labor is high in poor countries irrespective of whether they have Child Labor laws.

Another misconception is that the Industrial Age (and the advent of Capitalism) led to an increase in Child labor. This point is often made by those who view pre-Industrial Victorian England through rose-colored glasses.

Quoting Wikipedia:
"claims of increased misery...[are] based on ignorance of how squalid life actually had been earlier. Before children began earning money working in factories, they had been sent to live in parish poorhouses, apprenticed as unpaid household servants, rented out for backbreaking agricultural labor, or became beggars, vagrants, thieves, and prostitutes (Nutten). The precapitalist "good old days" simply never existed"[7]
"The pre-factory age was not a time of happy, contented kids. From 1730 to 1740, 75 percent of children in England died before age five. From 1810 to 1829, supposedly the evil age of the factory, infant mortality fell to 32 percent and would continue to drop. Capitalism and the industrial revolution gave youngsters a chance to survive. "[8]
Laws were passed to prohibit child labor in the industrialized countries; however it is unclear whether this legislation is the principal cause of the decline in levels of juvenile employment.[9] Research by Clark Nardinelli suggests that child labor was already decreasing in the United States and Western Europe prior to the passage of legislation, due to an increasing demand for educated and literate adults brought about by an increasing technological sophistication of industry. The demand for educated workers also provided an incentive for children to stay in school to meet the new demands of industry.

My point is not that we shouldn't have Child Labor laws - they are necessary to protect children who are otherwise vulnerable to exploitation.

My point is that Leftists who have a 'feel good' law to solve every social problem would be well advised to understand the positive effects of a healthy economy. Most 'feel good' laws create an additional burden on the economy - e.g. the recent increase in the minimum wage. Such laws often harm those that they were supposed to benefit.

In the Wonderland of Washington DC, political rhetoric trumps common sense.

Drivebyposting said:
"Have private schools shown they can educate the public at large? Nope. That is because private schools will only educate the easily educated, they will not educate the troubled child. Not without charging more money at any rate. This is no different than for profit hospitals denying to take people with prior conditions. The problem is that there are NO hospitials in a capitalist system who will take people with prior conditions an an *equitiable basis*. In other words, people with prior conditions get gouged. "

My response:
Why is it 'gouging' when the troubled child COSTS more to educate? Apply the same argument in the case of medical insurance - a pre-existing medical condition COSTS more, so insurance premiums would have to be higher.

It is no more reasonable to expect 'equitable' treatment for education or healthcare than for an average couple to demand the same lifestyle for their family if they have 12 children instead of 2 or 3.

Since there will always be a scarcity (in economic terms) of 'values' such as education & medical care, costs play a vital role in their proper allocation.

Humans have to deal with different outcomes - either as a result of their choices, or from the fickle finger of fate. Any institutional attempt to 'correct' those inequities requires the enslavement of others!

Quoting 'drivebyposting':
"More than one conservative lawyer has argued that conservatives need to be very careful about declaring life at conception has full rights.

Because if so, liberals will take that to mean things I don't think anyone wants to ponder.

For example, fetal alcohol syndrome ..."

Drivebyposting has a point ..

Clearly, this is a slippery slope for pro-life conservatives who also believe in a limited Govt that does not intrude into people's lives.

If a fetus has full rights from the point of conception, then do child-endangerment laws apply to the fetus in the event that a pregnant mother drinks heavily? Should there be laws preventing the sale of alcohol to pregnant women? Otherwise, isn't it the same as serving alcohol to a minor?

I invite comments from those who can speak to this point based on a legal rationale or thoughtful moral justification rather than emotion or religious fervor.

"Why is it 'gouging' when the troubled child COSTS more to educate? Apply the same argument in the case of medical insurance - a pre-existing medical condition COSTS more, so insurance premiums would have to be higher."

What is Dwarwinism? Survival of the fittest. If people who are difficult to educate or difficult to heal have to pay more for education or health insurance then their handicaps will 1.) prohibit them from competing evenly in the marketplace for average wage and 2.) genetically weed out the troubled and sick blood lines due to lack of funds.

Back before agriculture was a human endeavor, migrating tribes had a standard. Keep up or be left behind. Those to old or infirm to keep up were left behind.

By giving the easiest to educate, the healthiest and easiest to heal the best prices one is practicing economic dwarnism. The strongest are given the best chance for survival.

To a certain extent our society practices this today. It is well known that the homeless are mentally ill by and large. How do we as a race take care of them?

How should our society deal with the those less-fortunate. By less-fortunate I mean in nature, not in money.

Take the elderly. The eldery is a good case to argue because the presumably the elderly were at one time able to make wage and save for those final years where one is less-able to earn a wage. One is also less employable since medical costs (insurance) for the elderly is much higher than for the young.

One could argue that each citizen is resonsible for saving during their "fortunate" years for retirement in their "less-fortunate" years. However, where do you save your money too?

This is where I have strong criticism of conservatives and strong criticism of Reagan. The Savings & Loan back in the late 1980's was due to improper de-regulation. Resonsible people who had saved money for their retirement were ripped off to the tune of billions of dollars.

Today the Airlines and Auto industries all are trying to or have wiped out billions in pensions.

Conservatives have not taken these attacks on the capitilist system seriously. Someone who works hard all his life and responsibley saves money for retirment gets ripped off no different than a thug using a gun at the seven-eleven.

Given that millions of senior citizens have had their retirments ripped off by the likes of Enron and UA, what are responsibile middle-class capitialists suppose to do when it comes to their less-fortunate years and they are no longer employable?

Do we just let them die?

Every capitalist society needs to make a statement about how that society is going to treat the less-forunate? Just kick them out on the street? When FDR passed Social Security, 80% of the elderly lived in poverty. FDR got public support back then and now the eldery do not live in poverty.

If a middle-class famiy has a middle-class income that allows them to deal with a health happy child then ok. But what if the child is born mentally disabled? With one of many diseases like cystic fibroris? Does the capitalist public have responsible within the medical system to help care for that child?

Capitalism speaks to competition in the marketplace. It says nothing about compassion for the less-fortunate other than let them die. 40 million Americans today live without healthcare and their life expectancy is shorter than those who do? Should society care?

You're talking about managing risk - and that is actually something that capitalism does better than any other system, via Insurance or the markets.

Capitalism encourages the creation of mechanisms that allow risk to be transferred to those who are best able to handle it. Overall, it reduces the costs associated with such risk.

For example, if you are a farmer, you can purchase a contract for next season's crop at a set price. The commodity market takes the risks related to pricing away from the producer.

Any condition that involves risk is actually an opportunity for some entity to step in and calculate (using actuarial tables, etc) the value of that risk.

Hypothetically, if a couple wants to transfer the risk of their newborn having a serious medical condition, that presents an oppty to an insurance provider, who can assess the risk statistically. The couple would be able to transfer the financial part of that risk to an insurers. The insurance company in turn, might sell that risk to a re-insurance company if they feel that their exposure to a particular situation is too high.

These methods sound impersonal and lack the 'feel-good' sentimentality that other, more compassionate systems might claim. In most other systems, you would be told to adopt a fatalistic attitude towards such risk.

No doubt there are examples of failure as you have quoted - Enron, pension funds. Those cases are anomalous, but do exist. No system is completely devoid of risk.

However, in a macro sense, the system works - and that is why the Enrons are noteworthy. If such failures were commonplace, they wouldn't make the news!

Without making a big deal about compassion, capitalism actually cares for the poor - by reducing their numbers! Most other systems that claim to be compassionate are responsible for the creation of a larger than necessary class of poor people.

You may want to check the facts about the S&L debacle. The single largest contributor was the existence of the FDIC. In simple terms, it lowered the bar for entities to engage in mortgage loans etc with the backing of the Fed.

For a more educated & fair analysis of the S&L crisis, check out:
http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv15n3/reg15n3-england.html
This article does assign a significant responsibility to Reagan era policies, but it goes into further detail, describing the prevailing conditions much better than I ever could ..

Did you read my post where stated that Insurance companies are fixing the game?

Your medical bill will say some outrageous price like $30,000, but the Insurance company pays 1/10 to 1/100 of that price.

I remember once I bumped a post with my front bumper. Didn't dent the bumper but it ruined the paint. I also had some paint damage to the door and driver's side mirror from parking lots.

I took the car into a body shop to get an estimate for a paint touch up.

$3,000.

The only reason body shops can charge such crazy prices equal to 1/10th the price of the car for minor paint job is because Insurance companies rig the prices so you can't afford to pay out-of-pocket to fix up a car and people are forced to by Insurance.

You can trace the current health-care problem all the way to the Insurance companies which were de-regulated by none other than Ronald Reagan.

I'm all for deregulation. We have too much regulation. The issue is enforcement. Insurance companies get away with fixing prices such that individuals cannot compete even for normal, everyday stuff. No everyone has to buy auto insurance, every one has to buy medial insurance, or you can't get bodywork done on your car or go to the doctor.

If an individual payed exactly the same rate as the Insurance company for an operation or what have you, we would not be facing the reality of Universal Healthcare.

We do not need Universal Healthcare. We do not need tons of regulations. What we do need is enforcement of stragetic regulations that guarantee fair and open markets. WE do not have fair and open markets.

There was an interesting book awhile back about an entrepeneur who tried to start a car company in 1990 to compete with GM, Ford and Chrysler who are all crashing and burning.

His life was threatened so he quit.

That is the state of American capitalism in the older markets. In the information age the new markets have yet to become calsified like the Medical and Auto industries and so we see capitalism working.

However, capitalism has failed in the auto industry within the U.S. So much so that Japan is now selling more cars in the U.S. for the first time ever than U.S. car companies. And yet, there are no new car companies starting.

You want to commit suicide? Try and start a car company inside the U.S. borders.

I love capitalism. I love working in the highly competitive are of Software Engineering.

But where is the competition in the auto industry *within* the U.S.?

What about agriculture? All the agriculutre GDP is in the hand of big congolmerates.

I think America needs to undergo a rebirth of Capitalism. The markets need to be de-regulated and re-regulated. Enforcement needs to happen.

Finally, Pension fund raiding is not news. It happens everyday. The fact that you blithely, and in a very offhanded way, brush off the millions of Americans and billions of dollars in pensions and retirement savings that have been ripped off in the last 50 years repeatedly, year-end-and-year out speaks to the very core of why liberals are winning the day.

The capitalists refuse to acknowledge that cheating and raiding happen every day to Americans, to the tune of billions of dollars and millions of Americans.

Every senior citizen who gets a pension raided thanks God for Social Security and Democrats.

That's millions of senior citizens.

Capitialism relies on consumer confidence.

http://money.cnn.com/2001/10/15/companies/bethsteel/index.htm

A classic case of liberal media miss reporting.

Bethlehem actually made money making steel.

What was killing Bethlehem was its pension. So, they ran the company into the ground enough to file bankruptcy and sell the assets to the Internation Steel Group for pennies on the dollar.

Like so many other capitalists companies, Behtlehem "lost money" filed for bankruptcy and was ultimately bought out by another company.

In general, the average American cannot be expected to be a financial expert. That means someone, somewhere has to tell them where to park their retirement money.

That retirement money starts building into billions of dollars that sleazy thieves see as money ripe for the picking.

Until capitalists start admiting the HUGE problems in the existing market place, people will not trust the capitalist system.

Ask any retiree where they can *safely* park their money.

I interact with a lot of elderly people. Nothing, nothing, is more pathetic, more devious or more evil than ripping of the elderly's retirement fund. Where does that leave them?

They have no choice but to rely on the government.

Either the capitalists need to solve the retirement problem or the socialists liberals will win the day.

.. you have stated that: The only reason body shops can charge such crazy prices equal to 1/10th the price of the car for minor paint job is because Insurance companies rig the prices so you can't afford to pay out-of-pocket to fix up a car and people are forced to by Insurance.

Can you imagine why an Insurance company would 'rig' the quoted price of a $300 fender-bender repair to $3000? My guess: there is some Govt law that requires a replacement bumper in such collisions rather than dent-repair. And that law was probably passed for your protection!

Why is it in their interest to make the prices go up? In your opinion, it is to force the population to buy insurance. Wouldn't the extra $2700 be better spent in marketing their service, or on their bottom line?

Are you suggesting that the insurance company is paying LESS than the $3000 that you were quoted? If so, that is against the law - and you would be able to sue them for fraud.

Re: the Auto industry - what has killed them are the Trade Unions and the unsustainable cost of wages & benefits (including pensions) that were extorted. Check out the post titled "Ain't mediocrity grand?" at http://voice.townhall.com/g/80a783b1-010f-434d-9ada-d47eb7e4bdae on this subject.

Social security, despite the rosy scenario that it conjures up, is a Ponzi scheme that relies on the existence of 2-4 workers for each retiree. As if this wasn't bad enough, the social security 'surplus' has been raided unceremoniously by generations of politicians - of both stripes.

If you are a young person today, you can forget about SoSec providing any kind of an inflation-adjusted lifestyle when you retire. Put your money into an IRA or a 401(k) acct.

Supporters of capitalism have no problems in admitting that there are problems in the marketplace. Most of those are self-correcting, however, and do not require elaborate Govt-inspired solutions. Companies (such as the auto mfrs) that have tried Govt-based intervention, e.g. protectionism, have only seen short-term gains followed by long-term corrections.

A Voice of Reason writes:
"In my opinion, this would be a somewhat better system than having the Govt actually own & operate schools - which has been a complete disaster."

Some opinion, not born out by the facts.
Public schools have over time educated more
and more of our populous. The U.S. has gone
from graduation rates of about less than 50%
from 8th to 9th grade at the end of WWII to
70% of 12th graders today. It could do better,
but the improvement is clear.

Surely the education of the black minority has
improved since 1945 or 1954 and there is a new
focus on why they are not doing as well as
other groups - the achievement gap - the
difference other than family background is
that a student in an urban school doesn't have
as good a teacher. The schools could do better,
but the improvement is clear.

I recommend the recommendations of College Board's Teachers and the Uncertain American Future as the best remedy for public education's
current state.
see http://www.collegeboard.com/press/releases/110755.html
Comments on the report, many by yours truly are here:
http://www.ednews.org/community/showthread.php?t=38