I wasn’t expecting to see a compelling argument for letting the state raise kids instead of parents, but here it is.
The situation is as follows:
- Person X committed murder
- Person X was raised by a Parent Y who is an explicit bigot and advocate of violence
- Therefore, Adams says, we have a compelling argument for “letting” the state raise kids
The question is: Can the shortcomings of Person X and Parent Y also be applied to the state?
1. Have members of governments ever committed murder? Let’s not be bigoted and only stick to the US government, let us get a global and historical account of this institution to better understand its nature. There was a wold war, twice, between governments which murdered tens of millions of people and thrived of bigoted propaganda. There was a Cold war where proxy wars were fought in Vietnam, Korea, and Afghanistan which left millions dead and dismembered. The Holodomor was a government program which murdered millions. Mao and the Communist Chinese Party murdered millions. The Japanese government from 1933-1945 murdered millions of people in China. There were civil wars in America and England which killed hundreds of thousands. Pol Pot’s government murdered as many as 2 million people. The current U.S. government has murdered innocent people with drones in Pakistan, Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia, and Libya. Ukraine murdered civilians in Donbas and Russia is murdering civilians in Ukraine. It’s clear that on point 1, Scott has no leg to stand on. His main criteria, namely that murder is bad, applies many times over to the state, the very organization he thinks can solve this issue.
2. Adams also ignores that this situation occurred in America where the state has a legal monopoly on compulsory schooling. Not all education of course, but only the state can legally force you to fund and attend their schools. So after most people have spent 12 (wasted) years of their lives in these places we get a stupid population* which is bigoted. Adams apparently looks at this situation and believes more state involvement is necessary, even though they are the source of the problem today. Politicians, college professors, and teachers are the primary bigots in society using their institutional power to divide people by accidents of birth. Black v. White, men v. women, rich v. poor, Russia v. America, etc. Of course the corporate press is a major player in bigotry as well, but for the sake of argument, every short coming Adams applies to the citizens applies many times over to the state therefore the state raising kids is the worst possible solution.
3. The contradiction almost everyone holds: Monopolies are bad because they give few people too much power and with no competition we all get higher prices and lower quality of goods and services. Also, the state should monopolize compulsory schooling, taxation, law and order, regulation, welfare, the money supply, and tons of other things. No matter how bad things are, giving some people a monopoly is far worse than doing nothing. I put “letting” in quotes because that is often code for “some people supporting government coercing people by law with the threat of jailing them”.
Consider the argument with different variables:
Humans are often imperfect, ignorant, bigoted, and dishonest. Therefore, everyone should be forced to fund and attend Catholic Church schools.
Is it possible that Adams seeing one example of a person being evil was enough to make him justify this position? Such evil has always existed and will likely exist in any society with more than a few thousand people. The ignorant are always one example away from justifying tyranny. COVID! Terrorism! Poverty! Ignorance! Violence! Stock market decline! This is mind control. They hear about a problem, and without thinking at all they justify state intervention. Adams knows all the historical events I mentioned above and still can’t think clearly on the issue.
I wonder if such stupidity has anything to do with the state controlling how the vast majority of people are raised from ages 5-18?
I invite Mr. Adams to withdraw and retract his double standard for the state and embrace the peaceful and consistent philosophy of libertarianism.
*Its not that people are stupid per se, it’s that they don’t have the humility to only speak on topics which they have carefully researched and pondered. The vast majority of intellectual achievements that occur do so in spite of state schooling not because of it.
