iceblox wrote: He isn't getting rid of the function of the Dept. of Education which gives out student loans. He is simply transferring that piece elsewhere.
Transferring it where though? Specifically in regards to student loans he mentioned a switch to state/local government or to corporations. I felt I raised fairly logical questions: If he moves responsibility for student loans to the state, how does he deal with differences in revenue between states? It seems to me that this would hurt students in poorer states, and help those in more prosperous states. And if he moves responsibility for student loans to a corporation, what kind of regulations is he prepared to impose to stop them from screwing us over? In fact I think both those questions are very good questions to ask Mr. Paul himself. Personally I don't have the time right now to watch the documentary, but I might be able to get to it sometime this week or weekend.
iceblox wrote: Why does it bother you if someone decides to homeschool their children?
It doesn't. In fact, I agree that it is a choice that should be afforded to the families, and I even know a few kids who have been homeschooled who are really smart; however, Ron Paul seems to favor homeschooling as the best method for teaching children. I mean cutting the department of Education would result in a loss of funding (to be fair though the department doesn't provide nearly as much funding to schools as I thought- about 10% is contributed by the department), but I think the biggest loss would be losing federal guidelines for curriculum. It seems that states would then be able to create whatever curriculum they want, and uniformity from state to state goes out the window. Personally I think we should have a national curriculum. I already think it is bad enough that things like this can happen (
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/13/educa ... texas.html). I think it will cause huge differences in education from state to state. Homeschooling can be better than public schools IF a children's parents are responsible enough to give them a good education. That is something that I don't see as a possibility. Take my parents for example: both of my parents work 40-50 hours a week and neither of them have college degrees. They had neither the time or the ability to homeschool me and my siblings. Sure if a children's parents are both Engineers, I can see them providing their children with very good educations, but I'm not so sure that will be the case most of the time. And I don't know how he plans on providing families with a $5,000 tax credit per each child for homeschooling with his massive planned decreases in government revenue. That right there gives parents an incentive to homeschool their children. It wouldn't surprise me if there was a mass exodus out of public schools. Do people who homeschool their children still pay taxes towards public schools? I really don't know if they do. I'd be fine with this, if students who are homeschooled are required to take examinations to prove that they are learning. Otherwise, it seems to me that the parents are just in it for the tax credit.
Regarding healthcare, I think we both think that it is far too expensive, but we disagree on how it should be fixed. I personally don't see how Mr. Paul's plan would change anything. It still involves the buying of for-profit health insurance. Something else must be done, or I fear we are destined to remain number 37 on the WHO's list of healthcare rankings.
iceblox wrote: You are just so wrong on this. Our Founding Fathers wanted the exact opposite - a decentralized government!
I'd really be interested in other opinions on this in this forum. In fact, I think the point of the Constitution was to establish a centralized government (this might explain it more and where I am coming from-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalism ... t_policies). The federal government has been doing more duties than listed in the Constitution for probably a majority of our history. Once again I think this comes back to the Constitution being hundreds of years old, and the fact that our founding fathers, as smart as they were, couldn't have possibly thought to address every issue in it. This is one of those issues I think that everyone is divided on. Mr. Paul seems to prescribe to the belief of New Federalism (which is described in the wikipedia link) in which there is a push for balance of power towards the states. On the other side, there are people like me and probably other liberals, who feel that the federal government is needed to ensure that all states are being treated equally.
iceblox wrote: WHAT??!! Following the Constitution is a JOKE? I have been sympathetic to everything you said so far, but this frankly makes me angry and sad.
I apologize for offending you. I spoke too strongly. I definitely believe the Constitution should be used as a guideline, but again as it is over 200 years old, I don't think it can be taken literally. The living constitution concept refers to interpretation of the constitution. It doesn't involve disregarding what is in the Constitution, but updating the interpretation of the document to present day.
I also looked at the link you posted. Honestly I stopped reading when I read this sentence: "the Department of Commerce, Department of Education and other Cabinet positions would be eliminated. Civil service employees would be ushered into other government jobs." That simply is just unbelievable. On his own campaign website, Ron Paul states that he wants a 10% reduction in the federal workforce. Now, I don't know how many people are employed by the departments Ron Paul plans on cutting, but I have a hard time believing that they are all going to be given other jobs within the government. In fact, it seems likely that the majority will lose their jobs. And moving people from one department to another is not exactly cutting the workforce, is it? I have read numerous, things about Ron Paul's policies being good for the long term, but every one of them mentioned how in the short term his plan really hurts us. Who knows how our recovery will be in 2012? But I doubt cutting hundreds of thousands of jobs and further adding to our unemployment is going to help our recovery.
Once again I apologize for the length. Feel free to respond to whatever you want, but I can't promise I will respond back. Frankly, I get sick of arguing about politics.