FTC continues to make me laugh.

[gbeenie]

okay, the department of education basically runs the public schools here.  Even if not everyone uses it, education's a pretty important thing to completely privatize (although if it lead to teachers being paid what they should be it'd be worth it)

The foundation of America's governmental structure is that roughly 95% of government should occur at the state and local level, with maybe 5% coming from federal. Unfortunately, this important principle has been in the process of being eroded longer than anyone reading this has been alive. A frightening majority of the laws that govern Americans' lives now come from the federal government.

[ScottotD]

why is that frightening?

[Hobbit]

okay, the department of education basically runs the public schools here.  Even if not everyone uses it, education's a pretty important thing to completely privatize (although if it lead to teachers being paid what they should be it'd be worth it)

It's too important not to privatize.  For an example, let's take a look at what is definitely a more important commodity, food.  Let's say the government decides that everyone should be given equal access to groceries, so it takes control of all grocery stores.  Every town is divided into store districts.  A food tax is levied against everyone, and that tax goes directly to the store in their district.  Each person is given a food allowance per month, which can only be redeemed at the grocery store in your district.  If you don't like the grocery store in your district, you may purchase your groceries in another district or at a private grocery store, but you must pay the list value of those groceries out of your own pocket, and your food tax will continue to go to the store in your district.  Under this system your local grocery store will be paid the same amount of money, no matter the quality of the store (unless it's so fantastic as to attract out-of-district shoppers).  A government beauracracy (and a labor union) will be in charge of the hiring and firing of employees, meaning the jobs will be incredibly secure (in New York City, it takes, on average, 2 years to fire a teacher, which can be cut back to 1-1/2 years if that teacher committed a felony on the job).  Now, given that the grocery store will never have to worry about a decrease in funds, and given that employees will have to be grossly incompetant to get fired, what do you think will happen to the service?  Do you think your groceries will be fresh and plentiful?  Given the nature of government beauracracy, do you think the money collected through the food tax will purchase as much food or food of the same quality as the same dollar amount in private funds?  Given that shopping at quality, privately owned stores involves paying a double food budget, will this not move quality groceries out of the reach of the poor?

Now think about government schools.  No matter how much the school sucks, they still get property tax from their entire district.  Teachers' unions have ensured that no raises or pay cuts will actually be based on merit (there's a mathematical system that takes into account nothing but years of experience and level of education), and that it is nearly impossible to fire a teacher, even if you go through the 2-year ritual.  This has given schools and teachers no reason to excel except the goodness of their hearts, which isn't really a very good motivator except in the most noble of people.  The only way to escape this system is to pay tuition on top of property tax to go to a private school (which, by the way, spends less than half per student and produces vastly superior results to the government school).  Either way, you lose, and the school wins.  Now, if school were privatized, or even if you were allowed to choose a school and take the majority of your tax money with you when you switched, schools would have an incentive to excel, and would also be more motivated to flip the teachers' unions the finger every now and again.

Then there's the fact that a government controlled school is beholden to the principles of political correctness, leading to a system that rewards mediocrity and never gives anybody a sense of individual worth.

Before I finish, let's look for a second at a good example of a government enforced monopoly and what was caused by its breakup into competing companies.  I speak of the Bell system.  Used to, a single phone company controlled all phone service in America.  It was illegal for anybody but them to provide that service, or to sell phones or phone-related devices.  All the phones were black.  All the calls were expensive.  The service was terrible.   Over the decades of this monopoly, the only phone innovations were the 'princess' phone and touch-tone dialing.  The answering machine was invented, but was immediately outlawed (with similar penalties to owning a 'black box' cable descrambler).  In 1984, the Bell system was broken into multiple companies.  In the 23 years since then, we have developed phones of all shapes and sizes, caller-ID, call waiting, a cellular system that allows phone use nearly everywhere in the country, the internet, conference calling, and more, not to mention the fact that using a telephone now costs a mere fraction of what it once did.  Competition can improve anything.  If national defense and law enforcement were privately owned, the combined military might of the rest of the world could probably be defeated by a single man at a computer console (ok, maybe that's an exaggeration, but you get the picture).

And ScottH, it's frightening because the larger any governmental power is, the more corrupt and less efficient it is.  For the federal government to run localized matters, there must be, in addition to all of the same infastructure meant to run in locally, a mammoth beauracracy of district, state, regional, and national offices that not only costs loads of money, but is also horribly slow and innefficient, and allows a few people (535, to be exact) to have large, sweeping powers over the entire country.  Right now, there is exactly one teaching postion per administrative position in the government school system, as opposed to 5 in private schools, not to mention that the school down the street is now another pawn in congress' power struggle.

[gbeenie]

why is that frightening?

Our country's founders understood all too well the danger of vesting too much authority in a federal government. Larger federal government is, by its very nature, clumsy, bureaucratic and intrusive. ALL government derives its power from the consent of the governed; the more isolated a governmental body becomes from those it's supposed to serve, the more prone it is to waste, arrogance and the abuse of power.

[ScottotD]

You guys (as a populace) have this weird relationship with your government where they largely go unquestioned and yet a lot of your constitution seems based around the fact they can't be trusted.

[Hobbit]

You guys (as a populace) have this weird relationship with your government where they largely go unquestioned and yet a lot of your constitution seems based around the fact they can't be trusted.

For decades, politicians have extended their power beyond that which is given by the constitution, then use it to buy more votes to secure their power.  Be it by votes or by armed uprising, there will either be a revolution in the country within the next few decades, or we will slip into tyranny.

[RobtheBarbarian]

Be it by votes or by armed uprising, there will either be a revolution in the country within the next few decades, or we will slip into tyranny.

We'll rebel as long as there's nothing cool on TV at the time... 

[Hobbit]

We'll rebel as long as there's nothing cool on TV at the time... 

With the way political correctness is going, I can see that happening very, very soon.  I mean, 24 is already a huge target, and it's one of the best things on.

[sarcasm_made_Easy]

Be it by votes or by armed uprising, there will either be a revolution in the country within the next few decades, or we will slip into tyranny.

i think ive heard this warning every year of my existance that i can possibly remember.  it still seems silly.

You guys (as a populace) have this weird relationship with your government where they largely go unquestioned and yet a lot of your constitution seems based around the fact they can't be trusted.

no one goes unquestioned.  People often feel like they do, even while the questioning is going on. 

[ScottotD]

So how is that whole 'ever changing reasoning for attacking Iraq and STILL looking for Bin Laden' thing going?

[sarcasm_made_Easy]

eh not bad?  hows doubling the size of your military in afghanastan to help us look and help out in the war on terror going?  or should i just ask the aussies stationed here with me? 

ps if you think bush isnt being questioned on a daily basis you are VERY far removed from whats going on over here. have you seen what our congress is doing?

[ScottotD]

Doubling the size? If I had my way there'd be no Australians there at all.

I'm talking about the public.

[sarcasm_made_Easy]

i know who your talking about, but the public voted in bushs opposites this time around, and there are all sorts complaints and other things going against bush.  I dont think the concept of an unquestioned government can stand in the face of the facts.

Doubling the size? If I had my way there'd be no Australians there at all.

and where is the questioning of your gov?

[RobtheBarbarian]

Doesn't Bush have something like a 30% approval rating now?

I tell you, it's silly when people act like experts on other countries based on what they pick up from news networks.

[sarcasm_made_Easy]

yup cant trust the news to be unbiased anymore.  which makes me want to cry really