“Jardine it appears you are the optimist, where as I see the options available to us as all dystopian varieties of Mega Business and Mega Government.”

Then you’ll be pleased to know that there is a better alternative, and that the reason you were not aware of it, is because of fundamental errors of economic theory that JUST HAPPEN to have been inculcated in you by state-funded humanities faculties drenched in Marxism and marxoid postmodernism.

Pray answer Rothbard’s argument.

Squeers
It’s very easy to demolish your kindergarten-level arguments.

But obviously there’s no point discussing it unless you concede from the outset that
a) self-contradiction invalidates your argument
b) your argument can’t take the form of assuming you are right in the first place, and answering any challenge by repeating the assumption
c) failing to distinguish between private and public ownership of the means of production invalidates your argument.

Do you concede these or not?

Ok Jardine
Lets handle one thing at time,
Freedom of expression through media diversity and ownership is a foundational belief of the enlightenment values. It is. Enshrined in the US constitution and was likewise protected in our legislature.

Over the last 40 years, here and abroad, diversity and ownership has shrunk. Laws to protect from any single entity owning a newspaper and a TV network in the one Capital City here - revoked.

Now as the great defender of libertarian principles why does this not offend you?
What completely amazes me about you Jardine, is that you are smart enough to see the vacuity in our current humanities but this far more fundamental force the media and its increasing narrow inanity appears to escape your perception.

The narrative you present, and I know you love that word, is of someone entirely manipulated by the media. In other words, you think what Murdoch wants you to think. For you to target your angst at the powerless and impotent teachers, Marxists, lefties - what is wrong with you man.?

On one side, there is a media owned by billionaires daily bitching about penalty rates, welfare cheats, the unemployed. This same side which called for the selling off of every public asset. The same people who casualised us, made us contractors. Man everything they wanted has been Done. This is not the land of the long weekend anymore, office workers are working 60 hr weeks not 40 or 36. The unions have been marginalised and eviscerated, strikes are illegal.

And you are pissed at Marxists!

Ok - let me get this right, we sack 300 odd humanities professors, sell off the ABC and then what - freedom? Diversity will just spring up.

You seem to think that the mirage, the noise of post modern nonsense, political correctness, identity politics, multiculturalism is running this country. I have doubted your sincerity because it staggers me, you are clearly mentally capable but this is the Andrew Bolt view of the world, the shock jocks, the Murdoch and his advertisers agenda

Hi Chris Lewis,

I agree with much of your thoughts. Yet I disagree with your belief that "the left as those who strive for a fairer society without adequate regard for the complexities that may complicate or explain policy possibilities or limitations".

Basically you say that the LEFT are good people with good natures and intentions but perhaps too idealistic to be practical.

However I am one who has thought much about this issue, deep and wide, and I am of the belief that the LEFT can be either gullible young people naïve and uneducated who have "Herd/Pack mentality" OR older more seasoned people who can be quite direct and active in their behaviour which I have learned often involved lies, extreme prejudice and outright Nazi-religious type closed-mindedness and fervour.

I would note that it seems you may share these sentiments as you said that . . .

"at university, I played the game to get the best marks I could. There was no way I was going to risk poorer marks just to debate lecturers over supposed knowledge certainties” . . .

This would indicate that a person who you felt might mark you down because you don’t agree with their opinions was some of the teachers in the universities.

A person who can do such a thing must be highly unethical, criminal even and extremely unreasonable and even a bad person, not fit to teach our kids.

If you suspected that your teachers were such people then you must feel that the Left can be extremely bad and unethical, criminal even when pushed or confronted.

As I ALWAYS claim, this shows again that the LEFT are a "religion" of nuts, yet to fully deciphered and dissected.

Jottiikii

I don't think they were criminal, although I did work for a former monash lecturer who went to jail when a federal MP.

I just think that the left, and even right, if we are to refer to such terms, would be much wiser if the standard of debate at university was much better in terms of teaching and content.

I can only speak for my own experience, but I was hardly impressed by my experience at uni as a student.

Perhaps I would have been if I went to uni at 18 rather than 32 which meant I had much more life experience.

Yes the problem is the "Quality" of the teachers.

But the way to deal with the issue is in need of clarification.

One needs to first understand where the Left-wing teacher (hypothetically one who might be willing to mark down those who disagree) is coming from.

Like a strict religious person, when the deepest beliefs held to be absolute Truth by a religious person are mocked and pressed to extreme breaking point their entire existence is threatened, everything they think they know and believe in and think to be important.

Usually as history has showed again and again, to push religious people so harshly can result in violence and untold political strife.

I believe that IF we come to understand some of the more fervent Leftists to be of a similarly "religious" mindset based on no argument or reason BUT only irrational belief of a HERD mass which the individual leftist feels must cling to lest fear that he will be crushed into some sceptical abyss.

Simply, such a person lacks the intellectual capacity in practice to think around this problem.

Now, if we accept that the Leftist is a "religious-type" thinking style then it is no wonder that when pushed with strong arguments by students, such a leftist teacher might crack, become extremely upset and offended and react with viciousness and unfair mistreatment - that is, by marking their papers down some.

I admit my own shortcomings as a scholar, which suggests I am open to informed opinion from a variety of perspectives.

But here are a few gems I have heard from academics who were professors.

1)I don't think Aust will be that affected by the GFC; reality 5% budget deficit next budget and deficits since.

2)the coalition is finished for two decades after Abbott elected was leader.

3)when doing my phd, why do I want to do it, is it a wog thing.

Maybe she did not like me because I questioned term 'social democracy'. I felt the term was 100% collectivist whereas liberal democracy to me offers some balance between individual and collective impulses.

4)he is a good guy, he is a social democrat.