Original post is def spot on though.
The modern homeschool movement is born out of an attempt to stop the kids from realizing being traded as brood stock like their parents’ property to make business with their friends over is bullshit.
Also just so parents can choose the “truth” they are teaching kids. That’s how you get uneducated racists and the like
Selective education with extreme bias is dangerous in almost every instance. Usually with a large dose of fanatical religion thrown in.
“Jesus blesses John with a dozen apples. John then gives one-fourth to his unemployed neighbor, who is gay. How many lightning strikes will God send to pumish John for enabling evil?”
As someone who was home-schooled, I absolutely agree with Cosmonaut Star. I dodged the alt-right insanity of modern homeschooling, but I got the “okay sit here and do learning unsupervised for a while” treatment after I turned 11 or 12. Prior to then I feel like my parents did an okay job at making sure I was keeping up with normal kids and taking me to social gatherings and stuff, but that just gradually slipped away the older I got. I feel like I’m still unpacking mental baggage from basically not having a life in my teens.
Thank fuck I got into self-hosting, networking, and Linux/BSD stuff in general as a hobby otherwise I would have zero marketable skills for a job.
My mom wasn’t a alt-right wingnut, thankfully. But she kept me homeschooled despite me asking for regular schooling because she wanted the enabling of abuse. A child who could tell a teacher what she was saying to me was a threat to her. I didn’t go to any schooling beyond some 1st grade, and then she forced me into college when she grew tired of abusing me, until I ran out of support venues and she dragged me back to home.
One homework thing my thought was to just read comic panels from Sunday newspapers archived online. That’s it. I was given old “general knowledge” books but never anything in depth of any study. I had to learn fields from parsing google and Wikipedia, even if she allowed the use of a computer.
I’m sure there’s some legitimate use cases for homeschooling, especially for children who are immune compromised. But I’ve never heard of a happy story of homeschooling, lord knows I’m not one of them. I was held back socially and education wise from my peers, even with my skills.
At the very very least, there should be a way for the state to enforce regular homeschooling standards. Track what grade the kids should be on, how they are doing, and then also economic aid for those who do.
But my personal experience with homeschooling is that it’s never for the betterment of the child, it’s always to enable abuse and submission of the child to the parent. Because new ideas are scary to the parent, and new ideas allow new ways of thinking that the parent didn’t want the child to do.
I’m biased as hell, but when you’re trapped with someone who beats you for a learning disability that would have been accommodated for in a public school that you as a 14 year old asked for, it leaves an impression on you.
I follow a few YouTube channels of people who live on sailboats and travel the world full-time, and some of them have kids. Having a transient lifestyle like that seems like one of the few relatively legitimate excuses for homeschooling, to me.
Having a transient lifestyle like that sounds like you shouldn’t have children, at least to me.
I strongly disagree, for me a transient lifestyle like that can be great for kids. Discovering different cultures, new way of living, new languages is extremely enriching.
I’m a bit biased since I lived in 9 differents places in 3 different countries before I was 12.
However I have never been homeschooled so I can’t give an opinion on homeschooling. There is schools part of the French educational network everywhere around the world so I’ve been able to stay in the French education system even when living in Africa.
But I know that people sailing around the world are able to maintain their kid education. I don’t know for other countries but in France there is the “CNED” that gives material to study remotely, the parents uses the material to teach the kids and there is regularly tests that the kid send back (online now but it was by mail before) to be evaluated by real teachers.
I think this model of education is damaging to kids and the government should do something about it
I’m going to train my kids to fucking kill you
Most normal libertarian response
What’s more libertarian than a good old fashioned southern lynching?
Knowing the age of consent in every jurisdiction.
This is so accurate
Being harassed by bears.
Those wild capitalists were lucky surviving bears.
And later those bears were lucky survining russians.
Maybe not outright illegal, but I think it should be heavily regulated. I’ve heard way too many stories of kids being raised in isolation and barely being taught even basic math under the guise of homeschooling.
Homeschooling is allowed in my country, but they have to take exams in front of a jury to prove they have been properly schooled.
I think you mean invidulator, everyone knows what you mean just trying to be helpful. That’s an officially appointed watcher at exams, a jury is a team of people who give a verdict in a legal case.
And yeah that’s the best way for sure, some places have mandatory participation in community events too which i think is good
No, you seem to be describing someone who supervises an exam. What I mean is a committee/inspection that decides if the homeschooling meets the objectives set by the governments and that the student has a sufficient understanding of the teachings.
barely being taught even basic math under the guise of homeschooling.
yah that was me.
There was no actual “schooling” it was just a cover-story so people didn’t pry and learn that my parents were too crazy/drunk/high/delusional to properly raise children. The first couple decades of my life I basically just wandered in the desert alone around my parent’s “religious compound” a couple hours from the nearest town and tried to get my hands on any actual scientific or rational reading material that extended family members managed to smuggle in.
It had disastrous impact on my adult life. I did go to school later and excelled and soared through AP college classes… but with my life so handicapped from the start, I was unable to continue higher education due to poverty, unable to land a stable career, and worst of all, severe depression and anxiety from the CPTSD of basically spending 20 years of my most important developmental years isolated with two toxic, hateful, abusive parents and literally NOBODY else. I became non-verbal for years, people thought I was autistic. I have been in and out of therapy, on and off meds, and have had long, extended struggles with substance abuse, depression so bad I can’t move some days, and thoughts of self-harm.
My parents were absolutely convinced that biblical prophecy was real and was about to be fulfilled, they saw themselves as actual prophets or chosen ones that would play a part in the coming apocalypse, and for years of my life I was also convinced that I was part of some greater destiny.
Fast forward through my adult life, and I’m clearing out my parent’s belongings after they drank themselves to death, wondering what the fuck happened and what my real future is going to look like. Do you think AI is going to replace grocery baggers? Because I fully see myself at 80 bagging groceries.
My brother and sisiter-in-law briefly did “homeschooling” with their kids. I put the word in scare quotes because it wasn’t what people normally think of when they consider homeschooling. It was actually a private school which the kids went to four days a week and then one day a week the parents guided the kids at home through a lesson plan prepared by the school. The only point of this was that it allowed the school to hire non-accredited and non-union teachers since it was ostensibly homeschooling and not a normal school.
At least it saved the parents money, right? Ha ha nope! Still expensive as shit - like $30K per year per kid.
Ha ha nope! Still expensive as shit - like $30K per year per kid.
Right, universal education is not a thing in
USSAAmerican Empire.huh? public school is free
And underfunded
That comes with the territory of not being relevant to short term corporate profits and also being paid for by taxes. Though if and how underfunded depends on the county, since it’s usually paid for primarily by local property taxes.
I mean it’s not free – it’s funded by property taxes in most US states.
States have different ways of adding more cash to funding; CO and WA for example put a ton of their weed tax money to roads and schools
Free as in freedom. But underfunded.
At least as not as bad as healthcare
Homeschooling can be great if you have the time/ability but the parents do need to take it seriously and hire tutors in areas they’re less familiar with. There definitely needs to be proctored testing to make sure kids aren’t just being taught weird religious doctrine and nothing else.
Facebook groups for homschooling moms are fucking wild. To be fair you never know who’s trolling there, because if you want to fool someone, you fool someone that is very easy to fool.
And honestly, that’s the most important reason for public school: it makes kids less naive
There’s a family I saw on Facebook who had their ten kids apprehended and adopted out for beating them with a switch and not actually educating them in home school. Thankfully the kids are doing well.
Haha well I have 9 brothers and sisters and we were homeschooled and in a cult. Crazy shit. We are all out and doing well now thankfully
Oh wow. What kind of cult?
Yikes on bikes. I’m glad you got out.
It should be child abuse to home school autistic kids. I’ve seen what it does to them.
Instead of public schools, we should have school choice.
Hanging, for an opinion? That seems pretty un-libertarian, doesn’t it?
No no, they just mean that people like that should have large penises. Extremely libertarian.
They’re about as “libertarian” as the Nazis were “socialist.”
Exactly about. There is no such thing as a socialist Nazi in exactly the same way there is no such thing as a libertarian capitalist.
Conservatives just make, and have made, a deliberate strategy of stealing terminology from the left to trick idiots, and the left lets them do it to not be associated with them.
Reminder that one of the biggest think pieces of libertarianism also created the infamous fourteen words chanted by white supremacists, one other just thought it was a neat idea to capture a term from the left.
What a delight to find oneself among those who still quote scripture
Came to say this. 9 hours late I guess
I wish twitter would hurry up and die.
I can’t help but notice you got quite serious in last few days
I’ve always been serious.
X*
Twitter.
I’ve often wondered what libertarian parents talk to their children about between the regular abuse and the sexual abuse
Probably that children are property and they are lucky to be working at home instead of sold on the free market.
I saw one on Facebook who had their ten kids removed by CPS for beating the shit out of them.
No no no, it’s my rights stop at the end of my fist and the start of your face! (Unless they’re my kids)
:(
Wonder no more… They start early and often using any free moments to convince their children that ayn rand wasn’t a hypocrite for living off social security when she died.
Often they don’t, since save for a small number of moderates among them that are actually mostly decent on this topic or even have somewhat progressive views on the subject, they either believe children are property thus the parents can do anything they wish to their children, have all sorts of excuses and conspiracy theories about why people with common sense doesn’t let them abuse their kids (won’t go into it, I’m already mentally scarred by reading about it, curiosity killed the cat), or limit their interest for teens under the guise of all sorts of excuses (supposed enough mental maturity, thinking the issue stems from “undeveloped bodies”, etc.).
Verbal abuse.
“I don’t want a way to abuse children.”
Liberatarians: YOU HATE MY FREEDOM TO DO WHAT I PLEASE WITH A MINOR!
Every time without issue, libertarians prove why everyone laughs at them and no one takes them seriously.
As libertarian is someone who knows the price of everything, the value of nothing, and the age of consent in every jurisdiction.
“people like you deserve to be hung”
This is a mentally damaged individual. I’d like to see elaboration on what “people like you” entails. But I would guess it’s anyone who makes them feel angry or stupid.
A libertarian type told me I was subhuman because I want literal Nazis blocked from social media.
I love the libertarians who think you have the right of free speech on a website that isn’t run by the U.S. government.
Freedom of speech is also a principle. Generally speaking, the operator of a forum should strongly value that principle, and refuse to censor any natural person’s speech.
You are correct that an individual’s right of free speech isn’t infringed by by private censorship. The right to free speech is infringed by incarceration or other official sanctions. You absolutely should have the right to free speech on that private platform, as you should not be jailed for your statements made on it.
Note: not all forms of expression qualify as speech. CP and death threats, for example, are forms of violence, not forms of speech.
The operator of a forum should absolutely remove delusions when they’re aware of them, even if they are not CSAM or overt calls to violence. There is nothing of value lost by excluding Nazis from “just asking questions,” on the contrary, society is better for it.
No, those delusions should be rebutted, so that when others arrive at a similar hypothesis, they learn where they went wrong.
Why are people arriving at delusions that are in actual conflict with reality? Because there are mountains of content debunking all that shit. There are already hundreds or thousands of rebuttals. Why do delusions persist? Is it perhaps that people spreading them are successfully able to radicalize others by “just asking questions?”
They are getting banned from public spaces any time they bring them up. So instead of learning why they are wrong, they are instead sent off to find similarly delusional people. Censoring (moderating) feeds the echo chamber.
Private forums can regulate whatever they want. If you don’t like it, find another one.
However, I do think this breaks down when a few outlets dominate. YouTube, Facebook, and Xhitter are all examples. Federated platforms, like Lemmy, are the solution.
This world doesn’t operate on ‘should.’ Another problem with libertarian ideology.
This is a mentally damaged individual.
Well yeah, they’re a libertarian.
They’re wishing for them to have very large weiners. It’s a compliment I think
There’s a pretty interesting book about New Hampshire libertarians called “A Libertarian Walks into a Bear”. It’s about a libertarian utopia that was overrun by bears.
There are some good articles about it too. It was part of their attempt to turn the state of New Hampshire into a “free state” run on libertarian principles.
Turns out libertarian principles included not picking up garbage in bear country.
Also, some of the geniuses were actively feeding the bears.
Maybe I’m just cynical but literally nothing surprised me in the book.
Nut jobs with guns? Check.
Nut jobs feeding bears? Check.
Nut jobs accused of sex crimes against children? Check.
Nut jobs infighting about muh freedoms? Check.
Nut jobs surprised when
leopardsbears eat their faces? Check.
Some of the Libertarians want the children to be hung.
Nah, they want children to able to work dangerous jobs, and to consent.
Lack of being hung probably didn’t help with their path down the libertarian rabbit hole.
*hanged
That doesn’t help with matters before they become libertarians.
I always used to think i deserved to be hung. As i get older it matters less
Average is absolutely fine as long as you learn to use it.
I’ve got hands and a tongue. Like yeah doin it old fashioned is cool and it’s cool if that works every time, but most ladies can’t get off from just penetration.
Oh. Well, um, I can.
Congrats, you’re in the 35%! Some ladies can orgasm solely by nipple stimulation; around 1%. They are truly blessed.
It’s all about the angles.
I personally don’t believe that home schooling should be illegal. It’s not my jam, but don’t want it to be illegal…but holy shit that response escalated quickly. Libertarians are triggered idiots.
The big issue with homeschooling, is it is largely used as a tool for brainwashing and creating extremists…
It’s also just plain unworkable for single-parent households or families that rely on two incomes … aka nearly fucking everybody.
Brainwashing is only a term to describe people who weren’t taught mainstream views, but those mainstream views are not necessarily correct. What’s the difference between mainstream propaganda and brainwashing?
Either you haven’t read through the comments on this thread by people who were actually homeschooled, or you’re being deliberately obtuse.
I know tons of people who home school, like a ton actually. Real people and not just internet dwellers. There is a lot of variety in how people do it, some bad, some better than anything you can hope to achieve in public schools. But that isn’t my point. My point is only about brainwashing done in public schools, and how that term is relative. What we think is normal and healthy depends on what we are told. Public schools don’t have the objective truth, they just provide a consistent message and brainwash kids all in a similar manner. The term brainwashing has a negative connotation, but that’s what it is. We were all taught things and taught to see things a certain way and sometimes they are later proven wrong. I can list things I learned in public schools that aren’t correct, so was I brainwashed? Well, yeah of course. In general public schools provide a stabilizing effect and a standardized set of brainwashing, which becomes “normal” because most people have that standard set. It’s relative and arbitrary, that’s my point. Ask indigenous people or other minorities if we get brainwashed in public schools.
Is your company hiring? I’ve been wanting to break into the field of Professional Contrarianism. Any interview tips?
Lol I can’t help myself, especially on lemmy. Some of the takes are so insane I can’t help but engage.
Avg .world user
Super insightful, thanks. Lemme give you some examples of Germans I’ve encountered:
One guy asked me if we use euros in France.
A woman came to me because she couldn’t open the bathroom door. I went with her to see what was up, I knocked, someone replied saying it was occupied.
Another one thought they were superior because of the Lemmy server they were on, of all things.
So yeah, no group is perfect, get over it. All this “.world that”, “.ml that”, “. whatever that” is getting old and stupid.
I know it’s a stupid joke, thats why i made it. In fact, the joke builds on .world being such a generic instance unlike lemmygrad, hexbear or explodingheads, where my comment would’ve been somewhat true. I guess I should’ve added a /s.
Also, here is a list of French ppl I’ve encountered:
- one of them was an avg .world user (Geddit? Geddit? /s)
Ah, it was an “I was only joking, brah” moment. My bad. I guess that’s why there’s jokes about German humor
It is illegal where I live and I do think it’s a good idea for it to continue to be that way.
Aside from the obvious problem with actually learning children, one important part of school is for society to check if the children are well.
Free lunch for everyone is provided every school day, in fact it’s illegal to not provide free lunch. So it’s also a good way to make sure all children at least get a minimum amount of food each day even if they don’t get any at home.
If the children can “learn” at home the rest of society would have no idea if they for example starve or are abused. It’s much harder to hide abuse if the children are forced to go to school each day with teachers that are educated on how to spot signs of abuse. It’s also great for children to make friends and not be insulated.
Yes, school isn’t perfect due to stuff like bullying but that should be solved in other ways.
Also it teaches children how yo socialise and live with other people.
This is super important if you want to like have a society bigger thay your family.
Homeschooling is so stupid in all its ways.
Also it teaches children how yo socialise and live with other people.
Not always, but this is underfunding problem.
Home schooling being illegal doesn’t mean you can’t teach your kids
Very sad when libertarians (i.e. republicans that are too cowardly to publicly own that they are republicans) get burned so bad and don’t have a collectively funded community Fire Department or public roads where anyone could travel to put out the fire.
They aren’t republicans. They are neofeusalists disguising as such. Republic just means representative democracy.
US republicans also aren’t dictionary republicans
Agreed. That’s what I said.
A true libertarian community would have a collectively funded Fire Department and publicly funded roads.
Libertarians do not want to pay “taxes”. Taxes are a portion of your money the government forcefully takes and does whatever they want with.
Public services that a libertarian uses, they would feel like they would have to pay for.
Joe drives to work. He takes a toll road (not saying toll roads are a good solution). He pays for the road that he is using.
Steve rides the bus to work. His bus ticket will have the cost of the roads fixed in.
Joe doesn’t want to lose everything in a fire. He gets insurance. Insurance company doesn’t want to lose the whole house. They get a fire department.
Right now we pay 100% of the fire department in taxes. While paying full price for insurance. Insurance companies get to use the fire department for free.
The idea that giving up ~40% of your work in hopes that the government takes care of you is ridiculous (Social Security is a government ran ponzi scheme). The idea that giving up ~40% of your work in hopes that the government takes care of someone else is also ridiculous.
The government used every penny of taxes you have paid or ever will pay to not even make a dent in the bail out of privately owned banks. Hell, they probably handed Tom Brady more than that in just the PPP loans he received and never had to pay back.
But life can’t function without government taxes /s
No taxation without representation. Do you feel represented?
The only thing I have to say is:
We had public water in our town.
A few years ago, a private company was created to take care of the water system and the distribution in our town and some towns around here.Our bill has never been higher… Houses that were vacant (second homes, people that were in another country etc) received bills…not like a few euros…hundreds…
Private companies have to make more money…year after year…the line always goes up. And although it is a private company and they take every penny they can, they also receive state money and European funds…
We, like other people, are in debt to them now. Because they send us bills like we run a public pool.
“Because on top of your bill, you have to pay for leaks.”
“But people from your company already came to see if there was any…and there isn’t…”
“It doesn’t matter, your are paying for us to fix the system”
But they already went up in the price per L…Aaaaaand received municipal, state and European funds…
Capitalism will kill us. Their greed and the blindness/complacency of people like you.
In Europe? I hope you will fix it soon. If such things start to happen in Europe, it is scary.
Libertarianism has nothing to do with private vs. public companies. Libertarians are not pushing for only private companies.
Libertarians are for Free Market, but that doesn’t mean only private companies.
Say you’re paying 10 cents per gallon of water from a private company. If the government can do it and charge you 5 cents per gallon that’s what should happen in a “Free Market”
What’s not good is when the government charges you 15 cents a gallon and a private company can do it for 10 cents but is blocked from doing it because it’s not a “Free market”.
If we said USPS is the only mail carrier. UPS or FedEx can’t exist and you’ve got to pay whatever USPS wants to charge. That’s not a free market. Same as saying USPS can’t exist because UPS and FedEx control the sector. Not free.
In your example it sounds like the government was losing a lot of money with the public water and instead of them charging more and trying to fix everything they just gave up and passed it off to a private company. It’s less that the private company is trying to milk you for all your money but “we don’t have thousands of taxpayers to subsidize our expenses and inflation exists”
Imagine being happy paying taxes just so your local government can get rid of your public water. They probably increased local taxes to pay for all the public water infrastructure. Are they going to decrease your local taxes now that they aren’t supplying you that service? Your local government screwed you, but you see the new company trying to supply you water as the bad guys.
If the government can do it and charge you 5 cents per gallon that’s what should happen in a “Free Market”
Except libertarians will run in circles and yell “Goverment intervention!”.
What’s not good is when the government charges you 15 cents a gallon and a private company can do it for 10 cents but is blocked from doing it because it’s not a “Free market”.
Example, please? If you will try licensing as example, here’s explaination: in terms of wild capitalism(AKA “free market”) licensing is allowing to use franchise undrr certain condition.
It’s less that the private company is trying to milk you for all your money but “we don’t have thousands of taxpayers to subsidize our expenses and inflation exists”
Except it was already clearly stated that they did receive subsidies.
This is an actual example of what a libertarian town looks like.
This is an actual example of what a socialist town looks like.
https://www.maciverinstitute.com/2020/02/the-failed-socialist-state-in-midwestern-america/
Okay? Do you have a need to pretend that I care about some Conservative Thinktank’s views on some rich asshole’s little project town in the 1800s? I mean, it’s blatant propaganda, not even pretending to be a news site.
Or maybe they are, I don’t care either way.
Also, a rich asshole cannot, by definition, be part of a socialist anything. Not if words have real meanings.
Some people left trash out, some bears came to town, so libertarian ideas are all bad. Yep makes sense.
You can look up New Harmony indiana if you’d like to find a more credible resource. That’s just google’s top result. It did happen.
Why am I going to go to work today to save lives in the emergency room if I got paid like everyone else? I had to go to years of schooling, my job is very stressful. Someone working making a hamburger should get the same wages as me?
It makes sense that a fully socialist society would fail. Even if it has a rich asshole trying to fund it. But you’re right that’s not truly socialism and if it couldn’t work with injected funds from a rich asshole, it’s going to work without it?
Too much of a good thing can be bad, just like in both examples.
It wasn’t just “Some people left trash out and some bears came to town”
It was “Libertarians cut funding for trash service and any other essential government service and made the town unsafe, and also a fuck load of bears started living in town because of it”
Saner heads eventually took over and told the overgrown children to fuck off, and now the town funds basic services again.
As to your weird obsession with making me socialist because I think libertarians have about as much sense as an elderly house cat, complete with kitty dementia, well, keep after if it makes you happy.
Lol you’re funny
At least “failed socialist state” somewhere in Europe and Asia left us with UHC and increased literacy rate from 5% to 100%. What did those wild capitalism experiments left?
If at first you don’t succeed, give up and never try again.
Not saying the current system is good, but replacing it with a “libertarian utopia” will be even worse. At least the system does the bare minimum work, we do have roads, we do have medical care, we do have trash pickup. It’s not much but it’s enough for most people so you would have to do a lot better to convince people why they should topple their comfort and pleasures.
It all sounds like it makes sense but it’s not realistic. Rapidly we will end up in a situation where you have pass through 200 different forms of toll/fee collection to get to work, because without strict regulation of all companies, both public and private, they are going to exploit your lack of options. I haven’t had anyone explain to me why we should expect a society of hundreds of millions of people to all suddenly be able to say “That’s enough, line doesn’t need to go up anymore.” It’s not how humans function.
You would need a central authority that would audit and review all these “fees” that pay for our roads and medical care and fire departments, and make sure they are allocated where they’re supposed to go. And if we’re doing that, why not just send the money to this central authority to begin with so there’s no hiding shit? And now guess what we have. We have the system we have because it’s how things evolve.
Our argument isn’t that we should do away with a central authority that distributes our work, it should be that we want that work to pay for things we actually want, not the things that a few defense contractors and banks want. I don’t want to do away with government, I want one that makes less self-interested decisions with the money we lend them. And so far all the alternatives save one or two, they just make it easier for these people to make self-interested decisions.
Liberterian utopia is giving power to corporations and taking freedoms from individuals. You want to go here? Too bad you don’t have money to pay. You collectively don’t want to pay? Tyranny! Central authority!
Imagine a world where corporations that aren’t even involved in your life can decide where you can and can’t go, where you can and can’t live, if you can receive medical care or not, what you can and can’t eat, and so on. If we can break every aspect of society down to a system of “fees” to have basic services, we will rapidly have an entire nation of shanty towns, with about 0.1% of the population living in fucking castles on the mountains.
And this is what they want. Because the people pushing this tripe always think they’re the ones who will live in the castles.
Or in other words…
I was shooting heroin and reading “The Fountainhead” in the front seat of my privately owned police cruiser when a call came in. I put a quarter in the radio to activate it. It was the chief. “Bad news, detective. We got a situation.” “What? Is the mayor trying to ban trans fats again?” “Worse. Somebody just stole four hundred and forty-seven million dollars’ worth of bitcoins.” The heroin needle practically fell out of my arm. “What kind of monster would do something like that? Bitcoins are the ultimate currency: virtual, anonymous, stateless. They represent true economic freedom, not subject to arbitrary manipulation by any government. Do we have any leads?” “Not yet. But mark my words: we’re going to figure out who did this and we’re going to take them down … provided someone pays us a fair market rate to do so.” “Easy, chief,” I said. “Any rate the market offers is, by definition, fair.” He laughed. “That’s why you’re the best I got, Lisowski. Now you get out there and find those bitcoins.” “Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m on it.” I put a quarter in the siren. Ten minutes later, I was on the scene. It was a normal office building, strangled on all sides by public sidewalks. I hopped over them and went inside. “Home Depot™ Presents the Police!®” I said, flashing my badge and my gun and a small picture of Ron Paul. “Nobody move unless you want to!” They didn’t. “Now, which one of you punks is going to pay me to investigate this crime?” No one spoke up. “Come on,” I said. “Don’t you all understand that the protection of private property is the foundation of all personal liberty?” It didn’t seem like they did. “Seriously, guys. Without a strong economic motivator, I’m just going to stand here and not solve this case. Cash is fine, but I prefer being paid in gold bullion or autographed Penn Jillette posters.” Nothing. These people were stonewalling me. It almost seemed like they didn’t care that a fortune in computer money invented to buy drugs was missing. I figured I could wait them out. I lit several cigarettes indoors. A pregnant lady coughed, and I told her that secondhand smoke is a myth. Just then, a man in glasses made a break for it. “Subway™ Eat Fresh and Freeze, Scumbag!®” I yelled. Too late. He was already out the front door. I went after him. “Stop right there!” I yelled as I ran. He was faster than me because I always try to avoid stepping on public sidewalks. Our country needs a private-sidewalk voucher system, but, thanks to the incestuous interplay between our corrupt federal government and the public-sidewalk lobby, it will never happen. I was losing him. “Listen, I’ll pay you to stop!” I yelled. “What would you consider an appropriate price point for stopping? I’ll offer you a thirteenth of an ounce of gold and a gently worn ‘Bob Barr ‘08’ extra-large long-sleeved men’s T-shirt!” He turned. In his hand was a revolver that the Constitution said he had every right to own. He fired at me and missed. I pulled my own gun, put a quarter in it, and fired back. The bullet lodged in a U.S.P.S. mailbox less than a foot from his head. I shot the mailbox again, on purpose. “All right, all right!” the man yelled, throwing down his weapon. “I give up, cop! I confess: I took the bitcoins.” “Why’d you do it?” I asked, as I slapped a pair of Oikos™ Greek Yogurt Presents Handcuffs® on the guy. “Because I was afraid.” “Afraid?” “Afraid of an economic future free from the pernicious meddling of central bankers,” he said. “I’m a central banker.” I wanted to coldcock the guy. Years ago, a central banker killed my partner. Instead, I shook my head. “Let this be a message to all your central-banker friends out on the street,” I said. “No matter how many bitcoins you steal, you’ll never take away the dream of an open society based on the principles of personal and economic freedom.” He nodded, because he knew I was right. Then he swiped his credit card to pay me for arresting him.
This is the best thing I’ve read all week.
Except bitcoins aren’t anonymous
The idea that giving up ~40% of your work in hopes that the government takes care of you is ridiculous (Social Security is a government ran ponzi scheme).
Works in Europe. If you get sick or disabled(permanently sick), goverment will pay you.
While paying full price for insurance. Insurance companies get to use the fire department for free.
Maybe get rid of insurance then?
Idealism? check
False dichotomy between said idealism and cherry picked reality? check
Mistakes avoided by anyone with a mental age over 16.
Boo fucking hoo a small portion of “your” money goes to keeping your neighbors’ houses from burning down.
Also, you think most people are out there paying 40% in taxes? You either live in Scandinavia or you’ve never had a job before.
Lastly, “No taxation without representation?” Who says? A bunch of selfish, greedy, white, landowning, people-owning assholes hundreds of years ago? Fuck them. Taxes are a part of society.
The idea that giving up ~40% of your work in hopes that the government takes care of you is ridiculous (Social Security is a government ran ponzi scheme).
The average person makes 65k in the US
They would pay 10k in federal income tax (15.4%)
They would pay 4k in social security (6.2%)
They would pay 2.6k in state income tax (~4%)
So out of the 65k, they get to keep 48.4k
Business would pay 4k in social security for you (6.2%)
With: Get paid 65k, walk home with 48.4k
Without: Get paid 69k, walk home with 69k.
69k - 48.4k = 20.2k
20.2k ÷ 69k = .29
Without federal/state/SS tax, the average person would have 30% more
Sales tax is ~5%
48.4k × 5% = 2.4k
If they used all their money to buy stuff, their actual purchasing power would be. They’d only have 46k to spend.
69k - 46k = 23k
23k ÷ 69k = .33
Average person gets to spend about 66% of their “actual pay”
I’d call that ~40%
65k - 48.4k = 16.6k
Let’s assume 20 years old and retire at 67
47 years of working
S&P500 has had an average annual rate of return of 10% since being created in 1957.
Let’s say 5% APR because 10% is realistic, but it’s not guaranteed.
Extra 16.6k a year is about 1.4k per month.
If someone invested 1.4k per month for 47 years at 5%, interest compounded annually.
They would have 3 million in a retirement fund. (10% is 14.6m)
A 30-year mortgage is currently 7.5%. You could put the 1.4k a month into that and basically get a 7.5% guaranteed return.
Making 65k, walking home with 48.4k. Having to spend an extra 2.4k If you want to buy anything with the 48.4k because you really can only buy 46k worth of stuff. While giving up a 3m-14.6m retirement fund.
That’s a “small portion”?
This isn’t even counting health insurance. You make 65k the government isn’t helping you out.
This is also not counting property tax.
You’re giving up 1.4k a month so the government can give you 1.4k a month (hopefully) when you turn 67.
The government uses your potential 3m-14.6m for its own needs in the meantime
A functioning true libertarian community is a collection of co-ops, with a member owned insurance + investment company in the center replacing taxes and gov spending and driving regulatory decisionmaking.
I’ve never seen anybody successfully build it IRL and keep it working, but feel free to try.
But the cruise ship, bro?
