Reinke Faces Life

http://channel-surfing.blogspot.com/2008/11/rutgers-gets-blitzed-by-committee.html

Monday, November 24, 2008
Rutgers gets blitzed by committee

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I graduated from Rutgers in 1988 with a degree in English and have been a backer of the school as an academic institution since before I arrived on campus as a junior, having transferred in from Middlesex County College and Penn State.

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The sports program is another story. It’s history is, at best, uneventful — a couple of good basketball seasons (a magical 1975-1976 season that saw the team make the Final Four, the football team a couple of years ago, and the girls basketball team).

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The result — disappointment on the field after the team’s surprising 2006 season and questions about the impact that spending on football has had on other sports and other programs. (A report issued last week called for tighter controls and more transparency in the department after a sports marketing contract was issued without formal bidding, its stadium expansion failed to gain funding and it extended the contract of football coach Greg Schiano.)

The New York Times referred to the assorted failures as “The Rutgers Mess .”

Rutgers, the biggest and most important public university in New Jersey, has spent millions of dollars furthering its ambition to become a major football power that might otherwise have been devoted to academics. It has done so during a period of rising tuition and budgetary cutbacks in academic departments, and, worse, without any real oversight from the university’s president, Richard McCormick, and its Board of Governors.

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Libertarian at 08824 said…

Might you Rutgers alums explain why I have to pay taxes for Rutgers boondoggles? Or anything to do with Rutgers at all.

I’m sure there must be a reason that the gooferment subsidizes “education” with taxes, but for the life of me I see no benefit to me. Guess I just have that crazy notion that I should pay for things I receive and not pay for things I don’t receive.

It’s sad that a lot of people get to “chip in” for Rutgers, who have better use for their money, who get no conceivable benefit from their “contribution”.

Pass the hat; not rob folks at gunpoint!

12:36 AM

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Anonymous said…

Education is an investment in the future. Ever hear of the GI Bill? Millions of veterans were given tax money to go to college, to buy homes and to open up new businesses. It was an investment in America and it paid off. Of course I would not expect a goofy goofball goooooooooofertarian to understand the concept. In many west European countries, university is tuition free to the qualified because they are investing in the brain power of their youth. I met a brilliant UK biologist who came from humble origins and would not have been able to go to university save for the fact it was free in the UK.

1:01 PM

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Libertarian at 08824 said…

>Education is an investment in the future.

Yes. “Investment” by someone in expectation of a “return”. Unfortunately, the parties that benefit are not the people who pay ther freight and get the return. Depending upon how you define the various roles, the taxpayer is robbed for the benefit of politicians, teachers’ unions, and vast number of beneficiaries. Almost by chance, some people get “educated” and go to make more money that they would have without the “education”. But the “poor old taxpayer” doesn’t participate in the benefits, other than inderectly. Sorry, but I don’t want to “invest” in that. I’d like a Certificate of Deposit please. Or, a something that I choose.

>Ever hear of the GI Bill?

Sure. Socialism at work.

>Millions of veterans were given tax money to go to college, to buy homes
>and to open up new businesses.

Sorry, but just cause there is “good” done with the proceeds of a crime, that doesn’t absolve the criminal class. And, as Basat taught us, let’s look for the many victims of the crime. Many people were taken from. All those small “thefts” precluded people from doing good things for themselves. How many educations, homes, and business were “stolen” to transfer them to the returning veterans.

>It was an investment in America and it paid off.

It was NOT an investment. An investment is made by a person with their savings in search of a profit. Let me and my ten big friends with guns take your wallet and make an “investment”. I could go on and on, but you’re not going to look at it in the “cold light of day”.

>Of course I would not expect a goofy goofball goooooooooofertarian to understand the concept.

And, the obligatory ad hominum attack.

>In many west European countries, university is tuition free to the qualified because they are
>investing in the brain power of their youth. I met a brilliant UK biologist who came from
> humble origins and would not have been able to go to university save for the fact it was
> free in the UK.

And, how many people gave up their choices for that example? You choose NOT to see that “happy example” was paid for on the backs of other people’s preempted choices. And, you assert that there was no other way for it to happen. You don’t know that.

Besides, I wouldn’t use Europe of the example of what America should do.

I have a novel idea. Why don’t we let people alone to make their own choices without the Gooferment using force to make choices for us?

Yeah, like that’s going to happen. Pitchforks and torches. That’s the only way to stop creeping and creepy socialism.

I don’t want to pay for Rutgers. But I don’t get a choice. That’s fair?

2:46 PM

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Anonymous said…

I am astounded that you are against the GI Bill. Are libertarians against the government being in charge of the monetary system? So who would mint the money? The states, cities, towns, municipalities? Oh, now I get it, the goofertarians would be in charge of the monetary system, the goofertarians would mint the coins and produce the paper money. Libertarians hate government so much, hate everything about government except the military. I guess goofballtarians want to privatize the police, the courts, the prisons, fire departments, libraries, schools, the building and upkeep of roads, bridges and the whole infrastructure, the list goes on and on into bizarro land absurdity. So in goofballtarian world, when you call the fire department for help their first question will be if you have paid your fire department bill to the privatized fire company, if not, tough luck. Burn baby burn. Goofballtarianism is great for a guy like Steve Forbes, it makes sense for billionaires but not ordinary Americans.

There is no successful libertarian run government in the world, not Ireland (with universal health care and free university), not India (which has socialism written into its constitution) and not Hong Kong which is owned by commie China.

3:35 PM

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Libertarian at 08824 said…

>I am astounded that you are against the GI Bill.

Let me help relieve your astonishment. Libertarians, (in general), think that government only has a few proper functions: (1) provide for the common DEFENSE (against invaders); (2) ensure domestic tranquility (i.e., prevent crime and fraud); and (3) secure the blessing of liberty for our posterity. Surly, you will recognize the words of the Founding Fathers. I’ve read the Constitution and, not only is there NO authorization for a STANDING ARMY, there is no provision for Congress to do most of what it did to get to the GI Bill. Sorry, but I’m surprised at your “astonishment”.

>Are libertarians against the government being in charge of the monetary system?

Most “libertarians” are against the gooferment being “in charge” of anything. I’d say especially the monetary system. As much as I hate the Fed, I’d like even less for the Congress or any gooferment to be in charge of any such thing. If you remember your American History, money was whatever the PEOPLE decided they would accept. Spanish doubloons, English pounds, French francs, gold, silver, and script all circulated as money. Common wisdom was that Congressional money was as “worthless as a Continental damn”. The Dead Old White Guys enshrined that gold and silver were money! This launched a period of peace and prosperity with declining prices from 1780 to 1860. There were experiments with central banks and printing press money, but they were discarded as abuses abounded. Then the tyrant Lincoln brought us inflation and printing greenbacks without backing. Can’t fight a war with out paper money. Sorry, but fiat currency allows the gooferment to spend more than it takes in. It allows the Congress and the Executive to escape the chains of “poverty”. Can you envision a war that the people had to pay for in the form of taxes? I can’t. It makes it obvious who are the big losers in any war. The people. Libertarians are generally very peaceful people who will never arress but will defend themselves.

>So who would mint the money?

Anyone who wants to. See you fall into the Socialist’s trap that there is “the money”. It’s that trap. That meme. That locks you into a “central gooferment” paradigm. People could never figure out “money” without gooferment. Why do you think the gooferment objects to e-Gold, the Liberty Dollar, the Lakota dollar, or the Ithaca dollar? Remember that dollar originates from the word “thaller” which was the name of a silversmith that made fine coins and became the standard. In short, money becomes what ever you want to take as money.

>The states, cities, towns, municipalities? Oh, now I get it, the goofertarians would
>be in charge of the monetary system, the goofertarians would mint the coins and
>produce the paper money.

Heaven forbid. We don’t want to be in charge of anything but ourselves. I have enough problems just managing “me”. I can’t possibly mange you, Herb, and my neighbors. I just would give people the liberty to run their own lives. Repeal the “legal tender” laws and you can use whatever money you would like. The FED (the Federal Reserve Bank, which is not Federal, has no “reserve”, and is not a “bank”), which is a private banking cartel unaudited and uncontrolled, would have to figure out what to do with its pretty green peices of paper. Forget centrally set interest rates, forget inflation, forget the 5T$ in FRB that China has. We’d be back in the messy world of lots of competing monies.

>Libertarians hate government so much, hate everything about government except the military.

Don’t leave out the military. Remember the DOWGs didn’t want a standing army or “private army or militias”. (I know Socialists are weak on their history. The three letter “police” gangs that you love so much like the FBI, CIA, DEA, BATF, and things like the “Park Police” are what the DOWGs would call “private armies”.) So, there is no reason for the Federal Government to have such things. State Governments have SOME limited ability to form these things, but that we will leave to the State Constitutional scholars.

> I guess goofballtarians want to privatize the police, the courts, the prisons,
> fire departments, libraries, schools, the building and upkeep of roads, bridges
> and the whole infrastructure, the list goes on and on into bizarro land absurdity.

Yes, privatize everything. Really privatize it. Not this Socialistic public-private regulate privatization. Libertarian theorists predict that Insurance Companies, (true mutual Insurance organizations; not the jokes you see now), would provide dispute resolution, police, fire, and adjudication services. In competition with each other, they would seek to deliver such “services” quickly and cheaply. (Imagine Judge Judy without the cap of “small claims court”. As I understand it, the backlog for Judge Judy type “private dispute arbitration” is less than three months.)

>So in goofballtarian world, when you call the fire department for help their first question
>will be if you have paid your fire department bill to the privatized fire company, if not,
>tough luck. Burn baby burn.

Sorry. But one would envision, what better way to get more customers than to save your house BEFORE you were a customer. Right now, if California, crappy socialistic insurance companies are visiting communities where they have insureds and making suggestions, doing “wood and brush” work, and deploying “funny chemicals” that stop wildfires on houses that they DO NOT INSURE. Why? It’s cheaper than paying off a loss. You are so locked in your current paradigm of “big gooferment good” that you can’t eve see the possibilities of another path.

>Goofballtarianism is great for a guy like Steve Forbes, it makes sense for billionaires
>but not ordinary Americans.

I, obviously, don’t agree with that. Liberty, for EVERYONE, allows EVERYONE to make choices.

>There is no successful libertarian run government in the world

Well, Somalia has no central government. Iceland for about 250 years had no central government. Just because we have not been able to see our way past the concept of “big government”, doesn’t mean that it’s not a good idea. What that means is that “entrenched interests”, the aristocracy, and the blindness of the common man prevents it from forming. Eventually, just as the Kings fell to liberty, so to will the Socialists fall to liberty. See the natual state of human beings is to be free. If you can’t keep your prisons “secure”, what makes you think you can succeed at life. And, remember only Big Governments commit genocide. Big Governments are oppressive.

>

Feel free to drop back anytime for a lesson on liberty.

I would like to make one disclaimer. “Libertarian” is a label applied to a wide swath of folks. I am a little L Libertarian. Currently estranged from the “Libertarian Party” because they abandoned their principles to try to get elected. I’m some where between a “miniarchist libertarian” and an “anarchist libertarian”. At my end of the Nolan Chart, there are no fans of “big government”. While we can disagree heatedly on orthodoxy of libertarianism, we all agree what we have now ain’t it.

I don’t pretend to speak for any libertarian of any flavor other than myself.

:-)

(OK, Fred? We have some other libertarians here in South Brunswick. And, he quibbled about one of my representations about “libertarians”. I am sure that I could live very comfortably in Fred’s world. As he probably could in mine. But, I don’t want to “defraud” anyone by misrepresentation! )

;-)

alibertarianin08824

7:55 PM

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Anonymous Anonymous said…

Ahh, the old it’s not in the Constitution game. Lots of things aren’t in the Constitution: there is no right to travel or marry in the Constitution, no right to vote, no right to privacy, no right to smoke, nothing about a Pledge of Allegiance, etc. The Supreme Court gets to decide what the Constitution means. They got to rule what the 2nd amendment “really” meant. The 2nd amendment is actually kind of ambiguous with its enigmatic wording and odd punctuation and so a different supreme court might have ruled differently.

In 1939, the S.C. ruled in U.S. v. Miller that a sawed-off shotgun transported across state lines by a bootlegger was not what the amendment’s authors had in mind when they were protecting arms needed for military service.

An Earl Warren court would be very different from the present supreme court. In June 2005 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Jessica Gonzales had no Constitutional right to police enforcement of her restraining order against her estranged husband who killed her 3 daughters. They decided that there is no right to police enforcement in the Constitution. If libertarians hate government so much why would they like the Constitution which is the underpinning of our democratic republic.

The more I hear about libertarianism, the less I like it. It’s a scam run on the gullible who think that they can live in a civil and civilized society without paying any taxes. Libertarianism is a cult, an unbending hide-bound sect-like ideology.

1:05 AM

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Blogger Libertarian at 08824 said…

>Ahh, the old it’s not in the Constitution game. Lots of things aren’t in the Constitution:

Yeah, that dog gone old scrap of paper. Your big gooferment purports to be “bound” and “limited” by it. (What a joke!)

>there is no right to travel or marry in the Constitution

So that means that the FEDERAL GOOFERMENT should have ZERO to say about those issue.

>no right to vote, no right to privacy, no right to smoke, nothing about a Pledge of Allegiance

So, there are no defined FEDERAL interest in these things. And, the Pledge! Written by a Flag Salesman who was a NAZI. And, we tolerate this intrusion.

>The Supreme Court gets to decide what the Constitution means.

It’s no surprise that the GOOFERMENT COURT decided that it has the power to DECIDE what the limits of GOOFERMENT POWER is. Then it’s a surprise that it expands GOOFERMENT power. (Please stop making me laugh!)

>The 2nd amendment is actually kind of ambiguous with its enigmatic wording and

>odd punctuation and so a different supreme court might have ruled differently.

It’s really clear. IMHO! Similar to the First Amendment? When you read it in the terms of the DOWGs, “well regulated” means hitting what you aim at AND “the Free State” is the ideal government entity. First Amendment says you have free speech; Second gives you the tools to protect your rights.

>In 1939, the S.C. ruled in U.S. v. Miller that a sawed-off shotgun

Miller is a good example of the GOOFERMENT making rules for itself. It was an unopposed adversarial proceeding. (The defendants never showed up.) And, it was flawed in its findings, during WW1, American troops used sawed off shotguns in trench warfare. (Some were even sent from home.) So that decision was and is flawed. AND, the Constitution is very clear “shall not be infringed”!

> no Constitutional right to police enforcement of her restraining order

SO you are arguing for a GOOFERMENT that has no duty to protect its citizens?

>If libertarians hate government so much why would they like the Constitution

YOUR GOOFERMENT asserts that it follows the Constitution, us Libertarians would like YOUR GOOFERMENT to leave us alone. The only tools we have to do that is to demand it follow its own rules!

>The more I hear about libertarianism, the less I like it.

So we’re even. The more I hear about YOUR GOOFERMENT, the less I like it.

>It’s a scam run on the gullible who think that they can live in a civil and

>civilized society without paying any taxes.

Absolutely right! No one should pay TAXES! You should buy “services” from truly competing service providers. Exactly how much “service” (i.e., police, fire, garbage, education, etc. etc.) I want to buy and at a mutually agreed price. I don’t want or need GOOFERMENT SERVICES, that I have to pay for, that I may or may not want, that are “offered” at a price I can’t afford, that are just oppressive. Sorry, keep your GOOFERMENT. I’m happy to allow you to do whatever you want. Just don’t impose it on me. Keep your GOOFERMENT to yourself.

> Libertarianism is a cult, an unbending hide-bound sect-like ideology.

Yup, it’s a principled movement. Unbending, yup! Driven by an idea that human beings should be able to make choices as they see fit free of force or fraud which don’t impose on others by force. If you don’t like “libertarianism”; how about “voluntarist”?

:-)

Drive by comment anytime.

8:07 AM

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