Libertarians for theft and Big Government?
How can libertarians be seriously discussing how "best" to use "tax" money to fund government schooling or even any schooling? I don't think they can.
"Taxation" is theft.
Government schooling is not education. Even if it were education, government has no business getting involved in education and stolen money shouldn't be funding it.
Yet, over and over I see "serious", "credible", "libertarians" discussing how to direct government to spend that stolen money to fund schooling.
Recently some have been advocating tying the funds to individual "students" rather than to the schools. I can see, in a world of false dichotomies, why that seems better. Yet we don't live in that world. Thieves do have the choice to stop stealing. Thugs do have the choice to stop advocating compulsory school and the "Prussian" indoctrination model.
Why does anyone who claims to value liberty gloss over those facts as if they aren't there? My suspicion is that they see this as necessary to try to be politically relevant-- I suspect this is the reason for a lot of inconsistency.
I can't take them seriously at that point. At least, not as libertarians, but only as threats to liberty.
I feel like a SHTF event is imminent. Notice I don't say I think it is, rather it's just a feeling. Possibly triggered by the upcoming election.
I don't have a crystal ball. I'm almost definitely wrong.
If you can see it coming, it's not going to happen. That's almost a guarantee.
Just like the Coronapocalypse came at us out of nowhere, triggered by unexpected government overreactions to a fairly normal virus, a more serious event will also be a surprise. Consider the Coronapanic a practice run. It should have shown you the holes in your preps if you were paying attention.
I lucked out with the panicdemic because I was ready. Well, maybe it wasn't completely luck; I've prepped for years "just in case", and it finally paid off. I was pretty sure I wouldn't see it coming when it finally happened, and I didn't. But it didn't matter because I stay ready all the time-- and I have done so since well before the Y2K fizzle. I intend to be just as ready, if not more ready, the next time something ...
Sometimes it's good to just listen to people's stories without interrupting, even when you know the stories are nonsense.
My 2nd wife used to tell of a ghost that lived in her house when she was a kid. It was an interesting story even though I didn't believe it. I learned quickly that her family was very prone to believe anything as long as it fit with their magical worldview.
Other people tell me stories about beneficial things political government can do. These stories are no more true-- in the sense of being objective reality-- than ghost stories, but they can still be informative if you want to know which particular superstitions a person is living under.
Interrupt and you'll never hear the whole tale. Listen and you might be entertained by some fantastical tales of magical realms. Just don't bet your life on them being true.
My nature is such that I simply can't see government as a solution to anything. This puts me at odds with most of the rest of my species.
Yes, I think "social media" has become a horror. This doesn't mean I want government to regulate it; it means I think people who don't like it (or are too dumb to know not to take it at face value) should probably stop using it.
The same is true of so many other things I don't like.
Litter/pollution, scammers, sexual predators, abortion, animal cruelty, Hillary Clinton, poverty, drug abuse, pandemics, crime, and all manner of awful things.
I may hate them, but that doesn't mean I want government to step in. Look how often that has the opposite effect anyway; making the original problem worse-- or at least not solving it-- while also creating a host of new problems that never would have existed otherwise (anti-gun legislation being a perfect example).
And even if government intervention doesn't make this specific problem worse this particular ...
