Debate: Should students be allowed to choose to be taught creationism?
Side: Yes

Just skimming the wikipedia, it seems like the government had a case. The point was to drive up wheat prices and he was growing his own so he did not have to pay the inflated price. He was cheating, regardless of his intention to sell it or not. The federal government had no jurisdiction, without MAJOR stretching of logic for the commerce clause to include ANYTHING that ANYONE does. He was not engaging in commerce, nor did he act across state lines. where the government did the right thing.Again, disagreement on rights, and if it is ok to sacrifice the rights of one, in favor of another. The government acted where it had no jurisdiction. This set a precedent where more action by government , where it has no jurisdiction, was considered legal. It is the definition of the slippery slope. It is the justification for the drug war (alcohol prohibition required a constitutional amendment). The latest try was forcing commerce with Obamacare, under the same clause, with the same rationale. Gladly, it failed , under that aegis, but not (in the SCOTUS opinion) under the taxing power.Fair enough. Now what if it's your child starving to death in the worst depravity.... Appeal to emotion. Irrelevant in a logical discussion.It's very easy to have a steely, logical view on the world as long as you have convinced yourself that you won't end up on the wrong side of the equation.It's very easy to say "we must sacrifice" as long as you are never the one who has to sacrifice anything you value.You do realize that it's partially just "luck" that your not that starving child right?This is the big fallacy. It is not "luck". This is why I don't use the phrase "less fortunate". It is a scam. It is whether you wish to do what it takes (and the thing you do that others value) to succeed, that greatly determines your success, not luck.Luck is the cop-out of the lazy and the rally-cry of the looter.Society is not an emotionless thing? Are you saying that when you build a society, you should ignore emotion?Using your premise, yes. But I disagree that we "build" society. Society grows from the actions of the individuals within that society. Every single human action is in part driven driven by human emotion. True, which is why we should keep as much emotion as possible OUT of government.I think it would be hard to prove that welfare programs caused greater poverty than if we had done nothing. Maybe you can?http://www.economicsjunkie.com/us-poverty-rate-how-the-great-society-programs-reversed-its-decline/ http://www.intellectualtakeout.org/library/chart-graph/poverty-rate-was-fallinguntil-war-poverty-began http://news.firedoglake.com/2012/07/23/national-poverty-rate-approaching-pre-great-society-highs/ (took <5 minutes on Google)Maybe if we did nothing a large portion of people in poverty would have died off (social Darwinism) and poverty would have gone down as a result. Is that success?This assumes that people will just sit and starve, instead of attempting to find some productive activity to support their life."Social darwinism" implies that the competition is for existing wealth, instead of competing to create new wealth.Even if you could prove scientifically that the program was "not that great" then by definition you must have also discovered what it did wrong so why not fix it instead of throw it out? The intervention is the problem.Lets say it's proven that, all things being equal, generous unemployment befits cause unemployment to rise by 30%. Lets also assume that some unemployment benefit is beneficial (statistically) in preventing an otherwise productive person from falling in to poverty or resorting to crime (helps 1% say). So the societal cost benefit may not be worth it. All you have to do is adjust the program until unemployed only goes up by 1% but preventing poverty and crime in the target group goes up to 30%. Now you have a working program. Why not learn and improve instead of start over? This is the "scientism" of economics. It tries to apply only equations to economics, ignoring the incentives of the people acting within the economy, and the possible unintended consequences of interfering in the economy.There is nothing "inherently wrong" with medicare or social security, ......aside from the fact that it violates the property rights of some, to fund a ponzi scheme that marginally benefits others, to a lesser degree than if the money had stayed in the economy, instead of going to the government.This also ignores the fact that money taken out of the economy, in the form of taxes to pay for unemployment benefits, causes more unemployment (broken window fallacy). leave the money in the economy, there is less unemployment and less need for benefits.This also implies that the government is the only way to help people from starving to death. It is not. "Socialism, like the old policy from which it emanates, confounds Government and society. And so, every time we object to a thing being done by Government, it concludes that we object to its being done at all. We disapprove of education by the State — then we are against education altogether. We object to a State religion — then we would have no religion at all. We object to an equality which is brought about by the State then we are against equality, etc., etc. They might as well accuse us of wishing men not to eat, because we object to the cultivation of corn by the State."--Bastiat, The LawYou really should read some of the arguments (rationalizations) made by the statists in "Atlas Shrugged". It is a good book, if you ignore the BDSM/rape-fantasy fetish Rand apparently had.