Date: Mon, 11 Aug 1997 05:51:31 -0400 From: "Joel N. Weber II" <devnull@gnu.ai.mit.edu> To: andrsn@andrsn.stanford.edu Cc: jmb@FreeBSD.ORG, hoek@hwcn.org, softweyr@xmission.com, chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: FTC regulating use of registrations Message-ID: <199708110951.FAA12121@ethanol.gnu.ai.mit.edu> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.3.96.970810113330.127A-100000@andrsn.stanford.edu> (message from Annelise Anderson on Sun, 10 Aug 1997 11:57:03 -0700 (PDT))
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(The Constitutional question of separation of church and state is pretty much taken care of by giving the vouchers to the parents and not directly to the schools, although some people still consider it unconstitutional.) My understanding is that the Constiution doesn't actually demand a seperation of church and state; it's just htat some liberals would like you to believe that. Furthurmore, I think that the original arguement was that we wanted to prevent the government from affecting the churches, not hte otherway around. The argument against vouchers from the libertarian perspective is that it will lead to more government control of private schools, and in fact all schools will be subject to the same rules & regs that hamper public schools. That may be true. IIRC Consumers' Union, which publishes the magazine Consumer Reports, was able to get a grant from the government to produce an education TV show, but I think they ended up turning it down, because it would have restricted their ability to lobby the government for safety improvements that they consider necissary, etc. (It was within the last year or two; I don't know if I'm getting the facts exactly straight.) The League for Programming Freedom is a non-profit organization, in the sense that I belive donataions to them are tax-deducable. A new organziation that some of hte LPF people are involved in forming (as well as others not involved in LPF) is called Union for the Public Domain; I don't think that your donations to UPD are going to be tax-deductable, because they want to be able to send lobbyists to congress etc. I like the school voucher approach better than increasing the personal exemption, because it provides choice at all income levels. I think we could do better though. Becasue I think that some schools will be too expensive for people. OTOH, maybe if the expensive schools charge rich students extra, and don't charge poor students anything beyond the voucher, we might not have problems. I'd be wary of the approah though; it will likely lead to more government regulation.
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