From: isbell@ai.mit.edu (Charles L Isbell)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: Questions about the TEN POINT PARTY PROGRAM.
Date: 5 Oct 92 18:56:23 GMT
	<ISBELL.92Sep30094920@panther.ai.mit.edu> <60777@mimsy.umd.edu>
	<ISBELL.92Oct1105721@panther.ai.mit.edu>
	<9412@ncratl.AtlantaGA.NCR.COM>
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Organization: MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
In-reply-to: mwilson@ncratl.AtlantaGA.NCR.COM's message of 5 Oct 92 16:54:01 GMT

mwilson@ncratl.AtlantaGA.NCR.COM (Mark Wilson) writes:
|>If I could?  I can.  Anyone watching Peter Jennings earlier this week
|>knows that.  So, I guess I've managed to mean something, haven't I?  
|I didn't please post.

Post what?  They discussed how inner city folks paid more for food
that their suburban counterparts and got less quality for the money. 

|>|>As to where you get the students, I'll provide the stock Lib answer:
|>|>"if there are no customers, then the business (by definintion) doesn't
|>|>deserve to survive.  Such is the Free Market(tm)."

|>There is no such thing as a free market if there is any government
|>making any decisions that affect it.  I don't recall difficulty of
|>doing something ever stopping a Libertarian from suggesting it.

|The ease or difficulty of opening a new school is not the issue here.

But you keep bringing it up.

|The issue is finding enough students to stay open.  

Why is this an issue but the difficulty of opening a new school not an
issue? 

|With vouchers any
|student can afford to try the new schools.  

...unless it costs more than the vouchers provide.

|Under the current system
|unless you are rich, or have a mother that works three jobs, you can
|not afford it.  If there is a demand, someone will fill the demand.
|Greed tends to work that way.

Hmmmmmm.

|As I see our disagreement, I have been saying that new schools will appear
|and you have responding, what if they don't.

Well then, what if they don't?

|I claim that history of other markets makes me believe that the market in
|schooling will behave the same way.  If you do not believe it will please
|state your reasons.

Supermarkets.  Lack of demand.

|>|Since you like analogies how about this one.
|>|There are fifty people in the water, unless they are rescued they will
|>|drown.  Now I come by in a boat.  Due to weight constraints I can only
|>|take on 45 people.  If I follow your logic I should conclude that I
|>|should not stop since I would be unable to save all of them.

|>You are asserting my logic.  You infer what I do not imply.  Hence
|>this argument is silly.

|So far your only response to my assertions is to question whether
|vouchers will be able to help everybody.  You specifically brought
|up rural and inner city situations.  I assumed you were talking about
|the old, if we can't help everybody, we shouldn't help anybody argument.

Well not my fault you want to oversimplify my position.

|If you do not agree with my inference, please state why and what the
|correct inference should have been.  Merely stating that I am wrong is
|not sufficient for me.

A straight line....

In any case, it is fairly simple.  If improving the system is the
goal, we must have ways of addressing the problems where vouchers do
not.  I wonder what problems vouchers may not address well and how we
deal with them.  This is an argument against using vouchers as an
answer for everything under the sun and leaving it at that not an
argument for helping no one if we can't help everyone.

|>Look, this whole thing started from a claim that vouchers would
|>improve education.  I'm just asking who it will help, if at all and
|>who it won't help and why not.  There is no leap from there to "if we
|>can't help everyone, we shouldn't help anyone."

|I have already answered that elsewhere. ( I can do this to.)

Fine.

|You have done more than just ask the question.  You have charged that
|vouchers will be unable to help certain people.  I have attempted to
|refute the charge.  So far you have not answered as to why you
|disagree with my refutations.

Sure I have.  What do you say to the New Republic article that
outlined the surveys done on school systems with choice?  Recently,
I've talked to some folx who've been involved in choice (one guy from
Texas).  This seems to buttress those conclusions:  school nearness is
the number one concern.

If this is the overriding concern of parents, I see no "market force"
for improving education.

Similarly in Chicago, it takes a threat of cutting *athletic* programs
to move the populace, not cuts in academic programs.

|>|People who choose to live in rural areas also choose to except certain
|>|limitations, one of these being the lack of competition.  Their choice,
|>|their problem.

|>Arrrrrgggghhh.  I'll remember this next time someone says "you can
|>just leave the country and start your own Libertarian country" and
|>this net jumps all over him/her.

|You infer what I did not imply.  (I can pull this one too.)

I inferred nothing.

|Why do you infer that if I say that someone who chooses to live in a rural
|area has voluntarily accepted the problems of the rural area as love it or
|leave it.  I never said that our rural person does not have the priveledge
|of trying to fix the problems of rural life.  I was trying to imply that it
|is not incumbent upon the rest of us to solve those problems for him.

Sure.  Of course I didn't infer this.

[...]
|>|We have told you before, and I will tell you again.  Because of the high
|>|concentration of people (and therefore also children), the inner cities
|>|will be one of the easiest places to start new schools.  They are only
|>|trapped by your lack of imagination.

|>Actually, it's my imagination that's causing the problem.  I forsee
|>all kinds of ways that this won't happen.  Can you not?  Surely *your*
|>imagination is richer than that.

|None that do not involve government interference, which is what I am
|trying to get rid of.  If you see problems please state them so that
|we can argue them.  Please, I really want to know what you think the
|problems will be.

But I've listed them a million times!

|>|If you could improve the system, that would definitely lessen the need
|>|for an alternative system, but it wouldn't eliminate it.  I would

|>That isn't the question.  If I could, would you still want vouchers?

|As a someone with a libertarian bent, I feel that choice is always the
|preferable system.  Even if you could demonstrate that the public
|schools were perfect, I would still favor choice.

What if they were *better*?

|>Of ocurse I could turn this around:  prove to me that vouchers will
|>improve the system.  Clearly you can't or else you would have inserted
|>more words between "if we go to a voucher system" and "the schools
|>will improve."
|Of course it can't be proven.  Only a demonstration system of sufficient
|magnitued would be able to do this.

Right.

|I'll turn this around again.  I don't need to prove that the current
|system is abysmal and getting worse.  That is self evident from the
|results that we have been getting.  Recent efforts to improve the
|current system have failed.  The system cannot be saved.  So what
|do we do now?

What have these recent efforts been?  How does a voucher system
differ from those attempts?

|>I don't expect a proof.  But I do expect a bit more... imagination.
|Then why do you ask for one?

I don't.  Just a supporting argument, some historical data.

|>|>I'm asking this because I'm curious about the real motivations here
|>|>(someone in emailed asked about the motivation for an opposition to
|>|>choice).

|>|OK, I'll bite.  I favor choice because I belive that it will lead to
|>|a vastly improved system of education.
|>|Now, why do you oppose it?

|>I never said I opposed it.  I just questioned the claim that it will
|>magically lead to improvement.  Why can't you "imaginative" people
|>with such a "grasp of economics" see the difference?

|I and others have stated the means and the mechanisims by which we feel
|choice will improve education.  And as near as I can tell, all you keep
|saying is, What if it doesn't?

I keep saying:  but there's no reason to accept that it will.

But your other question has merit:  WHAT IF IT DOESN'T?  Isn't that a
fair question?  How do you answer it?  What are the backups?

|>I'll try this slowly:
|>I am for choice/vouchers, in general.
|>I do not consider it even close to a panacea and I can see several
|>problems with it.  I am trying to see how some its more outspoken
|>supporters see the problems and their proposed solutions.

|How can we propose solutions until you tell us what you think the problems
|are?

I have.

|>So far, as I've been called a statist, a defender of the system and
|>someone in opposition to choice, I've been quite unimpressed with the
|>responses.

|When you give so little to go on, we have to guess.

That's pretty lame, but it does point out the problems in our
educational system pretty well.

--
Peace.
          "Any Black man who's educated and speaks articulately is not 
           considered 'really' Black.  It's the same reason people think 
           you're a dyke."
"People think I'm a dyke?"
          "Take it as a compliment,  I've learned to."
                                    -Kyle Baker, Why I Hate Saturn
                                   -\--/-
    Don't just adopt opinions     |  \/  |       Some of you are homeboys
          develop them.           |  /\  | but only I am The Homeboy From hell
                                   -/--\-

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