“I want people to be able to get what they need to live: enough food, a place to live, and an education for their children. Government does not provide these as well as private charities and businesses.”

We hold this truth to be self evident. History has proven this over and over again. And, we know what happens when you forget history.

True Mike, the same mistakes come around to kick one in the teeth yet again. Man, claims intelligence but practices stupidity over and over again. It's sad but all for a purpose. To teach, but it is up to us to learn by individual choice. No learn, no straight A's but instead failure.

I think Davy had it nailed.

But private charities & business do not provide these at all... its a classic case of longing for the past that never was.

Anonymous, they would if government got out of the way.

Anonymous, probably Waffler being wrong again. By way of example: People do need food, shelter, and so that the individual, family and society may take care of itself/themselves and then advance, an education for their children. And, churches, non profit organizations (as well as other charitable entities as may exist), schools for profit, etc. have for the vast majority of times provided a better education than a governmentally induced education. I, once upon a time, a long time ago, owned one such educational facility, not for profit (charitable - had the government's stamp and verbiage to prove it). So, Anonymous, it is not "a classic case of longing for the past that never was", it is just a real simple statement of fact - no matter how bad you want to re-write the definition or words and the past to fit your desired now.

Wow I am getting honorable mention by Mike when I have yet to even comment. Anonymous has it correct. If anyone would study the history of mankind you will find that groups, clans, tribes, villages etcetera came to together to educate their young in whatever it was necessary to educate them be it spear chucking, fire building or later reading and writing. Since all parents had an interest in such activity it was natural for them to all get together. The concept of "rule of the many" gave them all a voice in their childrens education. Educating children should not be a charitable endeavour but one of our and societies top priorities. If this endeavour is given or contracted out to a "private business" it should be watched and monitored very carefully. A private business owes its top priority to enhancing the bottom line and maximizing return on investment to its owners. Not exactly what education is about.

Waffler, the anonymous comment and rating was stupid enough and sufficiently wrong to have come from you so, that is why my honorable mention. Your dribble confirmed my earlier evaluation. You wouldn't know your asymptote from a hole in your X axis, even if it came up and bit you. Your examples are a 'make up' from desired conclusions once again. Your perceptions are not as things were or are, but as you would have them be. My comment to anonymous also answers your rating comments. I can't argue with stupid, the negative, or the illusionary so, I'm glad you're happy in your world of make believe. ;-)

Obvious truth proved by time.

Government does not 'provide' anything -- they do not produce anything, they merely take from one to give to another. If there is to be any 'providing' for anyone, it is to be done by those that produce. The only thing the government need provide is protection of our rights and property. If we as a people are not generous enough to help each other, what makes you think government made up of the very same people will not abuse the power to take from the people and keep for themselves? The idea that government is made up of honest and charitable people is the real delusion -- it is made up of people competing for the power the offices provide. Obama, the Bush's, the Clinton's are perfect examples and all the folks that end up surrounding them. Thieving megalomaniacs all.

Right let's judge by 1836 conditions.

anonymous, what do 1836 conditions have to do with anything? It is human nature vs. the personality of government that is the subject. One of many examples comes to mind. During the Katrina disaster and cleanup. My family and I went almost every week end from inception for over a year to help (went and worked with churches and private charities) I remember one church had members caravan down from Montana with dossers and tractors to help. - those people volunteered and left their homes before Katrina was even finished (didn't see any of that in the news) By the time the government got there they were asking the churches and charities where they needed help. The churches (mostly) and charities gave far more (shelter, food, water, supplies, materials, money, time, labor, long term opportunities, etc. than did all government efforts combined) VS, government (theocracy) entitlements that break down families and produce generations of slaves. That is an observation by today's conditions.

"Educating children should not be a charitable endeavour but one of our and societies top priorities. If this endeavour is given or contracted out to a "private business" it should be watched and monitored very carefully. A private business owes its top priority to enhancing the bottom line and maximizing return on investment to its owners. Not exactly what education is about." -- Waffler

Ah, so a private business owes its priority to the bottom line? So what above all things enhances that bottom-line in a free-market system? SUPERIOR PRODUCT OR SERVICE that's what. The true bosses of any such system is the parents/customer, the customer is not satisfied with that level of superior service they expect they go elsewhere and that affects the bottom-line too! So it is in the private schools best interest to provide a superior education not indoctrination in government dependency propaganda.

That goes double for homeschoolers for they have the most vested personal interest because it is their children. Who would work harder for your child, you or some government employee?
One last thing, the folks commenting here (and you know who you are) that favor a centralized Socialist/communist government I have to wonder just how many years you actually lived under one?

Private schools a huge plus, home schooling a huge plus. Considering the public school system of the nanny state, they were so far behind in the late sixties and early seventies, to see the lack of discipline in the high school classroom made me sick. Not long after in 74 the riots. A lot of education there ? Not at all ! Picking lice from their heads and grooming one another trying to learn to spell cat. No more than a way to keep the punks off the streets for a little while. All the parents with means and an education flooded what private schools existed at the time. Knowing the social experiments taking place at our expense. Mike, Pleasant Hill, A friend, Ukrainian Russian Jew, says you do not want to go there. For the want to be communist commenting here, Go there !

Waffler, all government is an inorganic phantasm / an intangible concept. Government does not exist and can do nothing in and of itself. When individuals unite in a body politic, they agree on a structure of administrating certain issues of interest. When that body politic gains enough mindless adherents willing to enslave themselves to the body politic, not as a body of servants but rather, as a government of masters - tyranny and despotism is born. This new inorganic / conceptual hegemony is still a non-substantive phantasm - despots directing the minds and beings of helots, serfs, and slaves. Such conceptual hegemony can in fact, produce, provide, or do nothing of itself. Before the despots can produce, provide or do anything, they must first, through duress, threat and violence take from their mind-controlled inferiors. Individual sovereigns, individually and in concert, can produce, provide and do anything they desire at law, justice, and liberty. Education is but one of the things (individually, in concert, by charitable means, through laissez-faire business endeavors, and otherwise) individual sovereigns can do better everything than inorganic phantasms / substantiveless concepts (government) and despots that cloak themselves under the nomenclature of government.

That society can be perfected by means of the social engineering endeavors of an overweening, presumptuously intrusive, State is a signal, carefully conditioned, delusion of our day.

The denial of individual wholeness from which charity and compassion flow is the creed of the ruling class, of which the Waffler's and Reston's are the plebiscites demanding their share of the spoils of war. They have been taught to obey in return for the favor of Caesar. They know not how to provide for themselves and cannot conceive of a free and prosperous man without the help of the Crown. They were educated by the State and further the slave-mentality of the State -- they love their servitude, and insist it upon ALL (to be fair). It's a religion of Power, for the 'common good'. It is self-deception on the grandest of scales, delusion and illusion, unfulfilling in the end. Their lust will NEVER be satisfied, nor is it meant to be -- that is how you rule. Is it any surprise that 'zombie' films are so popular right now? That's the logical conclusion of continuing in this same direction. Wake the frack up!