LIBERTY: The FTL boys hit the gubamint skools as why we’re apathetic

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

http://bbs.freetalklive.com/index.php?topic=8549.0

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The real problem with school is not that it is a monopoly, controlled by the unions, or funded by a gang of violent thugs.

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On the contrary, the whole concept of a government funded and run system of public education comes to us from pre-WW1 Germany where the purpose was to train young men to be good soldiers (i.e., cannon fodder). I remember some specific points from somewhere about: discipline; answering to bells; and separation from their families. In the USA, it was championed by avowed socialists who saw it as a way of getting the country to adopt socialism.

It worked.

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The idea that most kids need anything more than the basic skills of reading, writing, and dealing with money is crazy, and even these skills are not best taught by schools Students should be free to learn what they want to learn, based on the opportunities and responsibilities which their parents provide.

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Agreed. But where do they learn all the skills prized by the state like conformity and obedience to the enlightened? Where do they learn contempt for their parent’s religious beliefs? When do they learn the state’s religion — relativistic secular humanism? Where do they learn violence? Where do they learn that they are just powerless cogs?

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I wish I had been taught: political principles, Libertarianism, non-violence, practical economics (financial independence), the Bible (not religion), the science of health (not medicine or biology), committed relationships (not sex-education), gardening, solar power, biodiesel, building, computer programming, practical design (not art), etc.

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I’d throw in: Individual self-reliance, Independent inter-dependence, and the teaching of the meme’s: Christ, Washington, Jefferson, Gandhi, Churchill, Mother Teresa, and perhaps Harry Browne.

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2. The second is that kids are entitled to an education.

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There is no “right” to an education. And there is certainly no “right” that makes me pay for it.

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Want to deregulate the schools? Let students choose teachers, and teachers compete for students. The one thing that would do the most good for education, is to make the whole thing voluntary. Make no student attend any class they didn’t want to attend, and make no teacher teach any student that they didn’t want to teach.

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Repeal mandatory attendance laws.

I wrote a transition plan that says it would take us 40 years to kill the gubamint’s skools.

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If a teacher didn’t have any students, they wouldn’t get paid.

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Sounds right to me.

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Posted by reinkefj

JOBSEARCH: What (moral) obligations does one have to a group

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

I was recently challenged about thinking that a person has an obligation to explain why they are leaving a social networking group. I thought I should capture that answer in my blog.

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> but why in the world would anyone have to explain
>why they were leaving any group, whether social networking

Well, I can think of a few reasons. Some are “why should I”, “why could I”, “why it would be nice if I did”, and one “why I must”.

Let me see if any of this makes sense.

ONE: I think that when one joins a group, even if it is free, and partakes of the benefits of that group, then you OWE an explanation for leaving. If you pay for the group, then you have less of that obligation. The more you pay the less you’re obligated imho.

TWO: I think that it is common courtesy, like saying “please” and “thank you”. It’s a rarity these days in the world of headhunting and jobsearching, which imho constitutes the big usage or big value of LinkedIn. Hence “they” — the hunters and seekers — are bringing that “ethics” of rudeness into the Yahoo Groups.

THREE: It is educational. I’m a big fan of the Johari Window. So, this fellow, leaving, has certain insights (DIKW) that we could benefit from. If he had said why, then perhaps I could have learned in my quest for the “value in linkedin”. By leaving no note behind as he committed virtual suicide, I’m left guessing. (I don’t do well with ambiguity. I r an injineer. I need explicit facts and formulas. I don’t watch the poker shows because I NEED to see the rabbit card (the remaining cards being dealt) to KNOW how the soap opera would have played out.)

FOUR: He may have had friends and acquaintances in the group that would need some closure.

FIVE: It’s always somewhat satisfying to read someone ranting about this or that, as they stomp out the door. Even more satisfying when they sheepishly creep back in admitting they were wrong.

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Comments?

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Posted by reinkefj

JOBSEARCH: Advice from three IT honchos

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

http://www.networkworld.com/careers/2006/
101606-career-cio-tips.html?netht=101606netflash

Create your own career destiny
Three CIOs share tips for advancing in your profession.

Management Strategies By Sandra Gittlen, Network World, 10/16/06

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Bill Leo began his career putting paper in printers at a Fortune 100 firm. Greg Morrison started out as a commissioned officer doing project management in the Army Signal Corps. And Scott Townsend used a background in economics as a springboard into IT.

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It doesn’t matter how you start. It does matter how you finish.

It’s an interesting read.

IMHO if we had more techies in CIO positions and more business people as CTOs, our industry would be better off.

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Posted by reinkefj

LIBERTY: We are all poorer because of our own stupidity

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

http://tinyurl.com/umrgy

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2006/10/25
/should_we_trade_at_all

Should we trade at all
By Walter E. Williams
Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Dr. Williams serves on the faculty of George Mason University as John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics and is the author of More Liberty Means Less Government: Our Founders Knew This Well.

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You might wonder how it is possible for, say, the sugar industry to rip off consumers. After all, consumers are far more numerous than sugar workers and sugar bosses. It’s easy. A lot is at stake for those in the sugar industry, workers and bosses. They dedicate huge resources to pressure Congress into enacting trade restrictions. But how many of us consumers will devote the same resources to unseat a congressman who voted for sugar restrictions that forced us to pay $21 more for the sugar our family uses? It’s the problem of visible beneficiaries of trade restrictions, sugar workers and bosses, gaining at the expense of invisible victims — sugar consumers. We might think of it as congressional price-gouging.

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Doctor Williams has a unique ability to frame an issue so even I can understand it.

Tariffs, taxes, “price supports”, “price floors”, “minimums” are all just things that make us poorer.

Universally poorer.

Every family in Amerika is paying to subsidize the sugar producers in the South, their lobbyists, and the politicians that they have bought and paid for.

When the final history of mankind is written, gubamint will be recognized as the ultimate mental disorder. It will probably be cited as worse than any genocidal maniac who used gubamint. It will be that quain period in human development when, like the Salem Witch trials, Human sacrifice, race wars, and (my particular favorite) genocide, the participant in the era didn’t realize just how STUPID they were being.

Similar to sugar, there are: minimum wage laws, milk price “supports”, minimum cigarette prices, and all manner of other gubamint actions that make us poorer.

What have you done about it?

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Posted by reinkefj