Liberalism Vs Conservatism

[Admiral]

Do you have any sources proving that any Harvard sutudent with an income under 60,000 gets tuition paid in full by the school itself through private donations? I'm skeptical of this claim.

Harvard Crimson headline, 3/30/06: "Harvard: Free Tuition for Families Earning Under $60K"
http://www.thecrimson.harvard.edu/article.aspx?ref=512382

Harvard Gazette, 3/30/06: http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/daily/2006/03/30-finaid.html
From the Gazette:

Beginning with the class admitted this week, parents in families with incomes of less than $60,000 will no longer be expected to contribute to the cost of their children attending Harvard. In addition, Harvard will reduce the contributions of families with incomes between $60,000 and $80,000.

An additional page, this one from Harvard's financial aid website, about the HFAI (Harvard Financial Aid Initiative): http://www.admissions.college.harvard.edu/prospective/financial_aid/hfai/index.html

I hope that's enough sources for you.

Moreover, Well over 100? Wow..Out of about 20,000 students?

NO, out of 1600 hundred students, which is the size of each class. You should look this up before you post.

I think Harvard is one of the schools where the richest people attend. If only 100 out of 20,000

As I said, it's actually out of 1600,

students get this specific financial aid for not being to afford that school then that's nowhere near enough. Do you know how many college going student's families make less than 40,000 a year? Way more than that.

Incidentally, even the stat 100 out of 1600 is too low- I'm not sure where I read it, my mistake. If you take a look at a page provided by Harvard's financial aid:

http://www.fao.fas.harvard.edu/fact_sheet.htm

You see that out of the 6000 undergraduates, 1000 have a family income under 60,000 (see the graph in the middle of the page). That's about 1/6, or 270 each class, on average.

Now that I've addressed the factual errors you make about Harvard, I'll shut up about that one example and get back to what this means in a libertarian sense. Sure, Harvard's just one example, and indeed an extreme one. But it's an example of the way systems progress in a free market! Even as college tuitions rise across the country, financial aid is also improving.

Do you have sources for this too?

It's a broad point. What specifically do you want cited?

Aren't most private charities international and most govt charities national? Wouldn't that explain how private charities do more?

True, but it seems to me that even if you looked at just the national level, private charities still do more. Here's a question: If you were contributing money to a charity, would you rather contribute it to Habitat for Humanity or to FEMA? How about to March of Dimes or to NIH? Who has done more for the homeless- government programs or private churches and shelters?

You might disagree with me on some or more of these points, and it is a complicated issue. I do, however, hold that private industry is generally better at doing just about anything than the government is.

In some cases purely capitalist Laissez-faire type economics works best. In other cases(like education or social welfare) govt funding works best. Sure, Govt funding can go along side private donations but there is no way our public school system could survive if all govt funding was cut. Pure and simple. It would die out in a few weeks. Nor could our welfare system(If you could call it that) last if all govt funding was cut.

Umm, I don't support cutting funding to public schools, I suggest privatizing them (then, by definition, they wouldn't be public anymore). Understand, the government could then have a program (similar to vouchers today) by which lower-class individuals could pay for schools, I'm not arguing against that (though I feel that as private school systems build and improve, even that could be phased out over time without risking students' education). My point is that government run schools really aren't working well- they trap low-income families into going to the one school in their district, eliminate free competition (which improves performance), and get their funding based on test scores instead of on whether parents want to send their students to the school.

Welfare (in my opinion, anyway) can be replaced by what's called a negative income tax- it would tax people based on a flat rate and also give them a lump sum of money, thereby contributing money to the poor while still taxing the rich. If you want more about this kind of tax, check Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax

Then why have govt at all?

That's a strawman- government serves many, many, many useful purposes. First- enforcing justice. Libertarians in no way think that criminals shouldn't be punished. Police and investigative agencies would therefore definitely have to be public.

Secondly, agencies necessary for the public good, such as national defense. Note that this is a matter of debate among libertarians- almost all, for example, believe national defense and related foreign policy matters, as well as building roads and other infrastructure, to be strictly within the realm of government, while most libertarians believe that education should be privatized. You can make arguments either way on a lot of public programs, so this is an important issue among libertarians. To summarize- libertarians want to minimize the role of government, though they disagree on just how minimal is reasonable.

There are other roles of government, though I'm not going to go through them all. My general point is that many roles that we believe government have are unnecessary. While social welfare and education are indeed complex issues, there are things government does, including restricting free trade, passing "pork" legislation, giving farming subsidies, and protecting particular industries, that simply are economically unsound.

 

[Darth Rotor]

Darth, who's saying that's the only interpretation?

For my part, I already apologized if anyone was offended.

And I'm not going to stop using the term. Now you know about that meaning, hopefully you'll recognize it in context from here out.

I was being sarcastic, and did not intend that barb to fly your way, but rather as a tweak to the nose of russ. I'll knock it off, no point in derailing over a sarcastic barb.

Nothing more to see here.

DR

 

[Piggy]

Kewl.

 

[Marc L]

The reason is that I believe government should not have the power to take the lives of the people it governs.

I admit to not having done much research into the death penalty, but I was under the impression that the actual penalty is decided on by the jury, not the judge. At which point, it would be the people deciding to take the life of another person, not the government.

Again, I'm not well versed in this issue, so please correct me if I'm wrong.

Marc

 

[Dustin Kesselberg]

[/list]You've certainly given me some food for thought, but my point is this: At what point does the benefits of keeping a dangerous, violent criminal under close watch get outweighed by the detriment of risk of escape and harm to innocents?

When the number of dangerous, violent criminals who break out increases to a point we need to change the system. At this point in time the number of prisoners who break out among the entire prisoner population in the United states is very low. The risk they pose is too small to warrant a drastic change of the way prisoners are delt with.

I did not mean to imply that all criminals would be sent - that's just immoral, I agree. I'm talking about serial rapists, serial murderers. The really dangerous people.
Evidence also must be concrete and not circumstantial for any conviction. Appeals must be allowed.
My 2 cents.

It's not far fetched to assume that someone could be convicted of being a serial murderer or rapist and be totally innocent.

You say appeals must be allowed? How can criminals confined to 'death island' where they kill eachother for food possibly be eligable for appeals? What..Only the strongest most powerful criminals who survive get appeals? I think such a system would actually make criminals much more violent and unable to live in society.

 

[Dustin Kesselberg]

NO, out of 1600 hundred students, which is the size of each class. You should look this up before you post.

I did.

Students
[SIZE=-1]For academic year 2005-06[/SIZE]
Undergraduates - 6,613
Graduate and professional students - 12,243
Extension - 988
Total - 19,779
(minus 65 dual-degree students)

http://www.news.harvard.edu/glance/

The student body of Harvard for the academic year 05-06 totaled 19,779 students.

Incidentally, even the stat 100 out of 1600 is too low- I'm not sure where I read it, my mistake. If you take a look at a page provided by Harvard's financial aid:

http://www.fao.fas.harvard.edu/fact_sheet.htm

You see that out of the 6000 undergraduates, 1000 have a family income under 60,000 (see the graph in the middle of the page). That's about 1/6, or 270 each class, on average.

I looked at that source and I can't find where it says 1/6th of all harvard students make less than 60,000 a year. Post where it says that.

Now that I've addressed the factual errors you make about Harvard, I'll shut up about that one example and get back to what this means in a libertarian sense. Sure, Harvard's just one example, and indeed an extreme one. But it's an example of the way systems progress in a free market! Even as college tuitions rise across the country, financial aid is also improving.

Your Harvard example really doesn't work for the reasons I’ve pointed out and many others. Harvard is one of the most prestigious schools and the country and should expect to get much much more donations than most other schools. Using Harvard's financial aid plan as proof all schools or even most schools could function the way Harvard does is absurd. If other schools could do it they would be doing it. The schools that are able to function this way and offer some students financial aid, I.E. Harvard are already doing it. And still many more students require financial aid from outside sources.

It's a broad point. What specifically do you want cited?

All of it.

True, but it seems to me that even if you looked at just the national level, private charities still do more. Here's a question: If you were contributing money to a charity, would you rather contribute it to Habitat for Humanity or to FEMA? How about to March of Dimes or to NIH? Who has done more for the homeless- government programs or private churches and shelters?

Since when are FEMA or NIH charities?

You might disagree with me on some or more of these points, and it is a complicated issue. I do, however, hold that private industry is generally better at doing just about anything than the government is.

That's not an argument that govt funding to schools or welfare programs or many other things should be ended.

Let's assume Private schools do better than public as an example. So what? So we end all funding to public schools as a result? Ok then what happens? Then 90 some odd percent of students are out of free schooling? How many do you think could afford private schooling? Maybe 20% of Americans tops? Then what of the 80% without a school to go to?

Umm, I don't support cutting funding to public schools, I suggest privatizing them (then, by definition, they wouldn't be public anymore).

Explain "privatize". Do you mean no more govt standards? What? Be specific.

Understand, the government could then have a program (similar to vouchers today) by which lower-class individuals could pay for schools, I'm not arguing against that (though I feel that as private school systems build and improve, even that could be phased out over time without risking students' education).

I don't understand what you're saying here.

What do you mean by "lower-class individuals could pay for schools"?

What do you mean by "could be phased out"? What could be phased out? All public funding?

My point is that government run schools really aren't working well- they trap low-income families into going to the one school in their district, eliminate free competition (which improves performance), and get their funding based on test scores instead of on whether parents want to send their students to the school.

Firstly, I support govt funded voucher programs for all students. However I don't support getting rid of public schools or privatizing the education system for that matter. There still needs to be schools for which the govt controls and there still need to be govt standards for ALL schools.

Welfare (in my opinion, anyway) can be replaced by what's called a negative income tax- it would tax people based on a flat rate and also give them a lump sum of money, thereby contributing money to the poor while still taxing the rich. If you want more about this kind of tax, check Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax

Doesn't this make people not want to work? If they could get an income from the govt regardless if they worked or not or had health issues or not?

And what about those who break even but still need govt help? Such as those with big families? Those who get sick? Etc. Etc. Etc.

That's a strawman- government serves many, many, many useful purposes. First- enforcing justice. Libertarians in no way think that criminals shouldn't be punished. Police and investigative agencies would therefore definitely have to be public.

Secondly, agencies necessary for the public good, such as national defense. Note that this is a matter of debate among libertarians- almost all, for example, believe national defense and related foreign policy matters, as well as building roads and other infrastructure, to be strictly within the realm of government, while most libertarians believe that education should be privatized. You can make arguments either way on a lot of public programs, so this is an important issue among libertarians. To summarize- libertarians want to minimize the role of government, though they disagree on just how minimal is reasonable.

There are other roles of government, though I'm not going to go through them all. My general point is that many roles that we believe government have are unnecessary. While social welfare and education are indeed complex issues, there are things government does, including restricting free trade, passing "pork" legislation, giving farming subsidies, and protecting particular industries, that simply are economically unsound.

One more of those things govt needs to do is provide education to the public for free and to provide healthcare for everyone as well as welfare for those who are in need.