Æsahættr said:
My argument is that liberties are sometimes stripped for reasons that I am sure you will not disagree with. You said earlier that order is one of the necessary parts of society. To maintain order, personal liberties are sometimes suspended. To prevent excess stripping of liberties, we have very clear laws. Would you agree that good welfare is another necessary aspect of society? If so, why is it unfair to take away some of people's liberties in order to help the welfare of others? You don't even need to take away as many liberties as you do in the name of order. Taking some of some people's money is less of an intrusion on their liberties than putting them in prison. Both are justified under the right circumstances.
Both political and civil liberties are often suspended when an individual takes it upon themselves to use either force or fraud against another citizen. It is a reaction in order to maintain the public trust. Welfare is something different.
Welfare is not, in my opinion, a necessary aspect of society. Now, to be clear this is not because I do not value the lives of the poor or have no respect whatsoever for the conditions within which they live. Democrats (and many Republicans Senators) believe that Welfare is a solution to poverty and I don't believe that. We've been working and reworking welfare since FDR's administration, how has it been working so far? Poverty rates have been relatively static and it took Katrina to remind many of us how real poverty still is. I think welfare creates dependency and an attitude of helplessness. I think it is counter productive, even if it comes from a good place in all those bleeding hearts on "The Hill".
As almost everyone here can attest to, my solution is education. I believe that education, not welfare, is the solution to inequity, poverty, bigotry and political apathy. Now, as a libertarian, the question is, how do I justify the use of government force to take money from citizens, specifically those who own land, to pay for the education of not only their children, but all children? To this I have one good answer and one really hypocritical one. The good answer is that I don't think property taxes should pay for education. The result is that the wealthy get better public education than the poor and those who choose to sacrifice their time and effort teach the poor (my dream job) are paid less than teachers who teach in wealthy areas where there is already a great deal of opportunity. (not to mention that internet access is also the lowest in poor rural and urban areas where students only access to education and information is in their schools.
The bad answer is that the government is the only institution capable of providing a diverse and pluralist education (which they do not). I think taxes to pay for roads and bridges are meaningless if our people aren't capable of getting a job because they lack the skill. The won't have to drive to work. Chances are they won't own a car. They join gangs. They steal. They use a gun. I'd rather the government use their guns to give us the kind of education that will allow us not to need them. I can't make the same argument about welfare.
The question is, am I a hypocrite for believing that the government has a right to tax the people for education, but not for health care and welfare? The reason why I think my second answer is bad, is because I think it makes it very hard for me to claim that Im not being a hypocrite. I would prefer a country that was capable of privately schooling everyone, but like Flappycat, Im forced to be realistic and hope that my government does what it has to do until we can find a better way.
But Welfare doesnt solve any problems. Its simply makes the problems chronic. We dont solve the real problems, we just try to make sure that the poorest amongst us can live with them. Well, I dont think they should have to live them. I think we need to solve them and I believe that education is the silver bullet.