[extropy-chat] No Joy in Mudville

Emlyn emlynoregan at gmail.com
Thu Nov 11 01:06:50 UTC 2004


On Wed, 10 Nov 2004 07:04:02 -0800 (PST), Mike Lorrey <mlorrey at yahoo.com> wrote:


>
>
>
> --- Emlyn <emlynoregan at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Adrian Tymes wrote:
> > > "America is the worst democracy in the world, except
> > > for all the other democracies in the world."  (For a
> > > slightly incorrect/outdated definition that includes
> > > republics.)
> > >
> > > I.e., it does not seem like anyone else has yet
> > > implemented a far better solution.
> >
> > Hey big fella, that's a substantial claim. There are a LOT of
> > democracies outside the US, and, living in one of them, I can tell
> > you
> > that your statement is not obviously true from the outside. Care to
> > back that statement up?
>
> 1) What percent of the aboriginal population of Australia is either in
> jail or has been in jail, compared to the anglo population, and compare
> and contrast that to the US?

Patrick answered this well. Our jails are not overfull.

>
> 2) What is the fine for not voting?
>

A couple of dollars. Certainly low enough that conscientious objection
is cheap & easy.

> 3) What limitations are there on  right to speech, rights to bear arms,
> to be secure in one's home against search and seizure, takings, and
> what authority do parents have to educate their own children?
>

See Patrick's reply. For speech, things seem pretty good, maybe that's
changing but it used to be the case at least that civil suits don't
deal in the orders of magnitude of money changing hands that they do
in the US, and the government rarely suppresses things; people jump up
and down when they ban a movie or something of that ilk.

Right to bear arms? I certainly hope not. I don't have a
constitutional right to fart in elevators or bear nukes either. The
last thing I'd want is suburbs full of small arms.

Search, seizure, takings, well all these seem to be eroding in the
midst of the war on terror, with our spy agencies and whatnot being
allowed a pretty free hand if you are suspected of being a terrorist.
Like in the US.

As to educating your own kids, we just started doing that recently,
and it turns out it's surprisingly easy. Disconcertingly so. Once you
decide to home educate, there's a small amount of bureacracy to
navigate, all under the auspices of one very helpful but
extraordinarily overworked public servant in South Australia, and then
you are on your own; she has a chat with you once a year to see how
it's going, but basically you have a free hand. I'd like to see the
public school funding for our child come our way to help with books
and stuff (we are now a one income family again after all), but that's
a totally different story, and in the end I do prefer we struggle by
on our own rather than take government subsidies if we can, so it'll
do.

Quick note; are there any other extro homeschoolers out there?

>
>
>
> =====


> Mike Lorrey
> Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH
> "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom.
> It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves."
>                                      -William Pitt (1759-1806)
> Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism
>
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--
Emlyn

http://emlynoregan.com   * blogs * music * software *



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