this post was submitted on 21 Jul 2026
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If we privatize the schools, train the lower class for work and motherhood, this will.be a Fair Society! The weak stay in their place.
[this is what Conservatives actually believe]
It kind of is! They believe in hierarchy, and that people need to be in their correct place for the world to work. It's a reason they oppose things like social programs- things that try to bring people up contradict the natural order and lead to bad times!
They're kind of bad people, fundamentally.
Hierarchy is simply a reality. Believing in hierarchy is like believing in reality itself (i.e. someone is going to be better than me at weaving baskets voilà you have a hierarchy: simple as). But "conservative" is too broad a label, because neoconservatives & paleoconservatives disagree dramatically. More right-liberal or libertarian-leaning conservatives generally do not oppose voluntary associations. That is their thing. They love open-source, volunteering, agorism, & so on. I do not know enough about neoconservatives to comment extensively, but they seem probably so obsessively pro-Israel & would likely change their views to anything if it helped Israel.
There is no obvious limit to what can be considered “charity.” So, if the government takes responsibility for providing charity instead of leaving it to individuals and communities, it can use that as a reason to keep expanding its power and responsibilities.
Thomas Jefferson in 1817. He penned, “Our tenet ever was that Congress had not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but were restrained to those specifically enumerated so it could not have been meant they should raise money for purposes which the enumeration did not place under their action.
In 1794, James Madison stood on the House floor and objected, “I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents…Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government.”
Why Private funding?
That's not exactly what was meant by hierarchy. It's more like having some people rule over others is good and natural. And that people don't really change their station in life. You're a peasant so course the royal family rules over you. They're good at ruling. Perhaps innately.
I don't find this a compelling argument. "Something bad might happen so we shouldn't do anything". I'm sure many of the people suffering from lack of food, shelter, and health care also do not find it compelling. You shouldn't go outside because bad things can happen there. You shouldn't lend your phone to your friend because there's no obvious limit what they can do with it. You can use this argument to avoid anything.
The appeal to the "founding fathers" is not very effective. They lived a very long time ago in a very different world, and were not saints.
We both (probably) view ourselves as good people (or at least as people who strive for that). However, I believe your policies cause people to suffer from a lack of food, shelter, & healthcare (e.g., whether you are a Republican, Democratic Socialist, MAGA, Democrat, etc.). Your politics drive up the cost of supplying these necessities by creating barriers to entry for those who provide them, dictating how and to what extent they can operate. While I think many of the founders were excellent architects of a governance system, I do not view them as saints or possess any sort of hagiomania toward them.
The conservative goal would be for schooling to be as affordable as possible, without artificial barriers restricting supply for the benefit of unions rather than students. I can't really speak for all conservatives because, first, I'm not one, & second, there's a huge diversity of thought within conservatism. For example, some conservatives support Israel's genocidal actions in Gaza, while others oppose them, so there are obvious huge differences of opinion within the tent that is 'conservatism'.
What monetary evidence have you seen that makes you think unions are the most expensive barrier to education?
All the evidence I've seen has shown education costs have outpaced even CEO/administrative pay (one of the highest rising costs in society, dwarfing even housing inflation.)
Chalking it up to unions and union workers (whose pay is often rising at inflation rates or below) seems a bit absurd.
To use a metaphor its like saying we should address a sinking ship by opening an umbrella on the roof to deflect rain instead of finding and sealing the actual holes. Maybe the rain adds to the water but shouldn't we be discussing the hole first: rising cost of living and administrative costs.
The hyperfixation on eliminating unions while ignoring real problems and costs seems less like 'conservative fiscal responsibility' and more like '2011 Scott Walker corruption ideology'
I shouldn't have only mentioned unions. A better way to put it is that I take issue with education when it isn't oriented to serve the consumer (i.e., the parent or student). I would oppose eliminating unions, as I actually like many of them; I just don't like closed-shop unions. I also like worker cooperatives, but I don't support mandating them.
Realistically though, lets set aside unions as they are at best irrelevant to any real discussion of education and at worst simply the subject of cold war hyperfixation and irrational fear.
What is a real cost saving measure that could be brought to education?
Technology fees, subscriptions and infrastruction are, for instance, a major cost burden that has arisen in the last 40 years during the course of time where educational costs have skyrocketed. Why don't I ever see conservatives talking about reducing educational technology costs?
There is a similar problem with legal and administrative costs as well.
I tell people to try to take the GED & graduate high school early (since it's a waste of time & full of propaganda), then save money on their first year of college by taking CLEP exams using vouchers provided through completing Modern States courses.
There's a lot to be said for community college transfers, testing out of credits etc from a purchaser perspective. While that can help individual students I don't think it addresses larger problems about rising costs in the academic sector and the fact that high costs make planning and attending colleges a high cost, moderate risk proposition.
For instance, an ideal college system would reduce need for corporations to request h1b visas
The level of bureacracy (both for students and institutions) required to maintain so many grant and voucher systems including secondary bureacratic patchworks like H1b visas could all be drastically reduced by subsidizing college tuiton prices across the board to the point where college costs were less of a financial burden.
One might argue that eliminating tuition costs entirely would pay for itself in reduced bureacratic burden across the government and would make it easier for corporations to retrain employees rather than importing them.