David Agnew

No, I am not a statist, but do believe that if everyone were brought up properly in the first place, then the enormous costs of crime, lifestyle related disease and educational under-achievement could simply be avoided. It is the duty of parents to bring their children up properly, but if they don't then the state must intervene. Who else will? Not to do so is unfair to the children themselves, as well as everyone else who has to bear the costs of poorly brought up children.

With regard to adults, I am completely libertarian.

The state must promote good culture to prevent problems in the first place. Apart from anything else, it is much cheaper and more efficient than dealing with the consequences of bad culture through the health, benefits and criminal justice systems. The Jesuits had the right idea.

ukip kipper

Ahhh but aren't you really arguing that if SOME parents don't bring their children up properly, then the state must intervene with ALL parents? That's altogether different and most un-libertarian.

Zak64

I'm going slightly off topic here, but for what it's worth I strongly believe in the following:

1) All children should be taught to swim. Regardless. The world is full of water, and if you fall in it and cannot swim then you are in trouble!

2) All chilren should be taught to breakfall (as in Judo, Ju-Jitsu, Aikido etc). The ability to breakfall rather than go down like a sack of spuds can save no end of grief!

There is a fabulous clip of Judoka doing breakfalls here:




I'm sure that if it was introduced into the curriculum early enough kids would love doing it. If it was taught regularly it would become ingrained, rather like riding a push bike. Once you have learned the skill it stays with you for a lifetime. It would save the NHS a fortune, IMO.

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If anyone complains about unlimited mass immigration we call them a racist - it's our culture!

tito

The very definition of a statist.

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brian pearson

The state intervenes against crime and the way some children are brought up is criminal.

The worst type of state intervention is the welfare state, where we have turned the idea of a safety net into a whole way of life for millions. Most of societies breakdown has free money at it's source.

g hall

Really need to define what the state is for and what it should provide but then you need to go back and see how it evolved.

My thoughts both citizens and the state have rights and responsibilities to each other and we need to see what would work but certainly the less the state interferes the better which of course where the British parliamentary democracy evolved from unfortunately under recent governments encouraged by the EUSSR we are moving toward a completely control freak state.
This needs to be rolled back and quickly and the first step is to get out of the EUSSR

__________________
"That government is best which governs least."
"This is a sharp Medicine, but it is a Physician for all diseases and miseries".
"To be "matter of fact" about the world is to blunder into fantasy --and dull fantasy at that, as the real world is strange and wonderful."

Kevin Adamson

The worst type of state intervention is the welfare state, where we have turned the idea of a safety net into a whole way of life for millions. Most of societies breakdown has free money at it's source.[/quote]

Couldn't agree more,

David Agnew

(At the risk of labouring the point)

I am not a statist. A statist is someone who believes that a large state is inherently virtuous. I don't. A large state means that we are made worse off. This is because British politicians extract money from the productive economy, and waste it. They spend it on things that deliver no benefit to taxpayers or to the economy (the usual litany: wars, the dependency culture, quangos, extra professional politicians and assemblies, the EU, gimmicks etc). This reduces economic growth.

Even when they spend money in the right areas eg "schools 'n' hospitals", there is waste and inefficiency. Anything that British politicians are involved in running will be run badly (re New Labour's target culture in the NHS).

I am not a statist, but I am a 'culturalist'. I want to live in a self regulating society that doesn't have to bear the costs of crime and lifestyle related disease. In such a society, the state is unnecessary.

This can only be achieved by cultural means. British politicians believe that it is impossible, but it isn't. We know that it isn't because culture already works. For example, I was brought in a culture that held that, (amongst other things) the route to advancement is through education, that state dependency should be avoided, that crime is wrong, and that it is wrong to get fat or to smoke. Consequently, I am not a criminal, nor a burden on the state, and I have no lifestyle related diseases. I expect that you (and most other people on this forum) were brought up in the same way. The problem is that not everyone is. It is because I am not a statist that I advocate strong early years intervention by the state.

One of the many things wrong with British politicians is that they interfere where they shouldn't but don't interfere where they should. They should be trying to create (recreate?) the self-regulating society, instead they have undermined it. For example they have abolished discipline in schools, they have removed financial incentives to marry (and have refused to endorse it). Worse than that they have created a welfare state that is a disaster (Brian Pearson is absolutely right), it actually undermines the self regulating society by rewarding people for not taking responsibility for their own actions (for example you are better off if you get a woman pregnant if you refuse to take responsibility, or the child can just be killed - at tax payers' expense of course).

The dependency culture is one of the 'elephants in the room' of British politics, but the established parties ignore it. New Labour won't do anything about it (because they believe that people in the dependency vote New Labour) and the Tories won't do anything about it (because they're hopeless). In my opinion, a policy to abolish the dependency culture would be an open goal for UKIP.

tito

I am all for abolishing the dependency culture. I am glad you agree with me that the state runs the schools and hospitals badly, so what should UKIPs policy on obesity be if we should not control schools and hospitals?

__________________
For life, Liberty and Prosperity
http://lpuk.org/

brian pearson

You cannot (or should not) try to micro manage everything. You don't need policies on obesity, or casual sex or truancy. What is needed is a society where personal responsibilty and consequences for one's actions start to matter again. I firmly believe these have been removed because of the runaway welfare state.

Now talking is easy but taking free money away from people is not. Remember we don't call it the dole anymore. We call it entitlements, or living allowance or tax credits. The state has it's tenticals into millions of us.

Until this very prickly nettle is grasped I don't think much will improve.