No money = no sports

Libertarianism, or whatever, is built on flawed logic. It might work in a textbook, or in someone's imagination -- or New Hampshire -- but when you have to factor in the real-world, human element it gets shredded.

Essentially, flying the libertarian flag is justification for being a short-sighted, selfish asshole.

 

The Great Depression was just nature's way of weeding out the unfit and that tax-and-spend Roosevelt wasn't man enough to just let it run its course. Ragu and other famous libertarians will tell you that intervening like that just caused more poverty in the long run. This may sound harsh but it's sort of like forest fires being good for the ecosystem. Survival of the fittest necessarily means that the unfit don't survive, right? Libertarians just spend less time worrying about the survival of the unfit than the rest of us saps.

 

This is a terrific idea. I hope more schools do it.

I have long advocated that schools get rid of all of it. Oh, still teach the sports, but make every competition intramural, under which anybody who wants to participate, providing minimum skills, can.

The interscholastic stuff can be handled by private entities that would be more than happy to fill the vacuum. They already do, in fact. Anybody who knows anything knows AAU basketball and club softball are way more important than the high school counterparts.

It's the No. 1 way to get America back in the education game.

 

Sure, then we'll be reading about more layoffs and buyouts of prep writers. Great idea. Keep advocating.

 

I still think interscholastic sports are a rallying point for a student body to bond with each other.

 

God, I don't know where to start.

Every study I have ever seen shows high school athletes with better test scores and GPAs than the student body as a whole.

High school sports are still very much the glue that binds communities together. Given the level of suburban sprawl all over this country, in a lot of places, it's the only thing.

And AAU sports are a freaking cesspool.

In short, that's an awful idea.

 

Pretty much.

 

But the market, to bring it back to Libertarianism, is making this change anyway. If you're getting a college scholarship, it's based on how did in club play, not high school. AAU's a cesspool, but it fills a need. You don't tell an aspiring violinist she's limited to a certain number of hours of practice and performances a week, so why should an athlete be so restricted? As for high school athletics being the glue that binds communities together, I think that's less and less true, even in smaller towns. Years of jockocracy in the high school social order have helped erode that, as well as people and students just getting more involved in their own things. A few years back, when talking to people throughout Indiana about why the crowds don't come out for HS hoops like they used to, even before talking about class basketball, a lot of the response was "girls sports." Meaning, once there were more opportunities for kids to play, fewer cared to watch.

Beefing up intramurals or even organizing some sort of noncompetitive athletic activity would be great at the high school level because you would have more kids playing and exercising. I'm not saying kill high school interscholastic sports, because they have their place. But I'm not sure that's so exalted a place anymore.

 

Life doesn't owe you anything.

In my mind, someone using food stamps is *exactly* the same as someone who robs their neighbor at gunpoint. People don't see it that way because food stamps are sanitary and discreet, but the ethical and moral division between them is indistinguishable.

As for libertarians being short-sighted, I disagree. One of the fundamentals of libertarianism from my perspective is to look at things in the "long run", not the short run. That's why a lot of the ideas seem harsh--because they are long term solutions to problems that have better short term solutions available, if you are willing to steal from your neighbor, sign legislation like Bush signed into law today bailing out mortgage lenders and buyers, create government work programs, etc, etc, etc.

I can't say that libertarianism is a moral political philosophy--it isn't. But it is rigorously ethical. If 100,000 elderly people need to starve tomorrow, libertarianism will allow it because it isn't right to steal from someone else to feed those people. It is, however, evil to let those people starve. Libertarianism just doesn't address that concern, which is one of the major distinctions i make between libertarianism and other mainstream political ideologies. That the others are more than just political ideologies because they address Good and Evil before they address Right and Wrong. In some ways it is a failing of libertarianism, in others it is what makes it tick--that individuals in that society need to be able to choose between good and evil on their own terms. I'm someone who believes that there are enough good people in the world that anyone who didn't want to starve would have a meal somewhere. I also believe that creating that many "good" people in the world is giving them the freedom to make their own decisions about good and evil(morality) while creating an atmosphere where right and wrong (ethics) is rigorously defined and that the "right" is always protected, even if protecting it is evil.

 

Maybe one of the stupidest things I have ever read.

So in this society you live in, what happens to the people, who through no fault of their own are unable to take care of themselves?

You sound like a great guy.

 

In theory, communism works. In theory.

 

"[libertarian] theory as we have it promises to grapple with some fundamental problems, but on the whole fails to deliver. It has been shamefaced about morality and metaphysics, embarrassed about love, biology, religion and revolution, largely silent about evil, reticent about death and suffering, dogmatic about essences, universals and foundations, and superficial about truth, objectivity and disinterestedness. This, on any estimate, is rather a large slice of human existence to fall down on. It is also, as we have suggested before, rather an awkward moment in history to find oneself with little or nothing to say about such fundamental questions." -- Terry Eagleton

Claiming libertarianism as an ethos is like claiming a tuna sandwich as a messiah. You can do it, but it doesn't make much sense.