Belkira the Tulip wrote:
gbaji wrote:
You're looking at it from the perspective of the person receiving the free thing at the end of the chain. Look at it the other way around:
I take $200 from you and promise to entertain your kid at a birthday party. You would absolutely feel legitimate in insisting that I *not* show up in a clown suit if your kid is terrified of clowns, right? In fact, you'd be well within your rights to mandate exactly what form of fun entertainment I must provide for the birthday boy or girl, right?
Sure. But that's still limiting you (the recipient), not me (the government). Which means that the government has more power over how their money is spent, therefore making it bigger. At least, that's how I view "big" vs. "small" government. When the government sticks it's nose into things, interferes, and puts restrictions on what can and cannot be done.
Ok. Either I didn't write that example clearly, or you're not understanding me, or some combination of the two.
In the analogy I wrote *I* am the government (I'm taking money from you and providing a service in return, analogous to taxes and benefits). You are both the taxpayer and the recipient. And you are correct, you have more power if you can limit what I can spend your $200 on than if you don't. If I just take the money from you and provide the service I think you want, then you have the least amount of power and control and I have the most. The degree to which you can place limits on what I may do with the money I took from you determines the degree to which you have more power and control.
Obviously, if there's an option to not have the money taken from you in the first place, that's the ideal small government position. But if we assume that I'm paying for something either way (public education for example), then anything which limits the way in which that money may be spent limits the government. I guess what's so surprising to me is that there's even a tiny bit of disagreement about this.
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The way I've always understood the "small government" argument, it is that the government places as few restrictions on individuals as possible and has minimal regulation. And, doing a brief search on "small government," that seems to be what most people think of when they heard the term. Things like keeping abortion legal, legalizing gay marriage. You know, not interfering with people when it doesn't cause harm to other people.
It's about minimizing the degree to which government can force people to conform to some standard, yes. I think you're losing sight of the status-quo position here though...
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Which would mean that they would not interfere with the curriculum at a school, so long as the core curriculum is being covered. The money is going to go to the school regardless of whether or not these classes are taught, and in a usual small government scenario, they don't force the schools to stop teaching about other cultures around the world.
And here's where you do it. The very existence of state or federal guidelines for curriculum "interferes" with the curriculum. Those classes would not exist if not for various grant programs. Groups of people do indeed sit around and decide that schools need more "diversity education", and dangle funding in front of public school administrators if they meet some set of criteria. That's how much of education funding is done.
The idea that one status of control is ok, but another is wrong kinda falls apart here. Limiting the scope of something which is already a control mechanism at worst has no effect in terms of small government, and at best may indeed be in keeping with that ideal. And in the case of this specific AZ law, it is the later result.
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gbaji wrote:
I'll ask again: What do you think small government advocates should be arguing for with regard to public education? Assume that "eliminate it" isn't an option and that we're stuck with public schools existing in the meantime.
I think the small government advocates should be arguing for the goverment keeping their noses out of the curriculum unless there seems to be a problem teaching the basics. These classes are not a problem.
Except there does seem to be a problem here. The law only restricts classes which promote racial solidarity or that are designed primarily for students of a particular race or that promote resentment toward a certain ethnic group. Any class which doesn't do that isn't affected by the law, and I assume you agree that classes which do are a problem and shouldn't be being taught, right?
Small government advocates tend to agree that education which goes beyond the basics is always going to be problematic and this is an example of that happening. How do you teach increased cultural studies without leaving someone out or advocating one "side" or another? It's best not to get into that, and certainly our public schools can do without. As I stated earlier, it's not like this makes it illegal for private organizations to teach whatever they want. It's just that when parents and their children have little or no choice about where they go to school, we really do need to keep the curriculum down to the necessities.
I'll restate my original position as well: This is why I support school vouchers. Make all schools private schools and let parents choose where their kids go. If you want to send your kid to the school that teaches nothing but alternative ethnic history, then you can. If you want to send your kids to a religious school, then you can. If you want to send your kid to a school that teaches basket weaving and folk singing, then you can do that. And your choice doesn't affect the parents who don't want their kids indoctrinated with those things.
As long as the bulk of public money for education is funneled into public schools with set curriculum and with minimal choices for parents and children, we shouldn't be doing that stuff. And I don't think a measure designed purely to prevent the worst examples of that sort of education from being taught is a bad thing, much less some violation of the principles of small government.