Michael Shermer: False profit of Libertarian education

[Ian David]

Michael Shermer: False profit of Libertarian education
Sunday, August 23, 2009

I don't want to seem like I'm trying to make a name for myself by attacking the biggest dog in the yard, but I said before that I would tackle another of Michael Shermer's libertarian posts, and I'd like to get this out before I forget, move to Hamilton, and become a big star....in Hamilton. Besides, if I wanted to make a name for myself I would legally change my name to Chewbacca Jesus-Chocolate Kitty.

I want to direct you to a post that Dr. Shermer made regarding public vs. private schooling. I hate to say it, but I have to go all Skeptic on one of the best skeptics out there. If you think I'm letting too much of my labour-academics creep in, please let me know in the comments, but do make a good argument and we'll hash it out: Cage Match (And of course cage matches work. If they didn't, everyone would still be in the cage).

In the linked post, Dr. Shermer frames a case for privatizing education alongside an 1954 essay by John Sparks titled "If Men were Free To Try". I don't want to spend too much time on this essay, but I've read it, and it amounts to little more than post-war economic propaganda to help stem the tide of government intervention that helped build the incredibly powerful American Markets of the 1950's. Not only is it awfully simplistic, but it is even factually wrong. As an example, Sparks noted the poor roads at the time, when in fact the exact opposite is true: federal dollars from The New Deal connected the United States together better than previous road, rail, harbor and air travel ever could....it was suddenly affordable to travel across America.

But that's not why I'm writing.

Shermer uses the same narrative for his own purposes:

More:
http://somecanadianskeptic.blogspot.com/2009/08/michael-shermer-false-profit-of.html

[WhollyHeretic]

1. Thanks for posting. That was a nice rebuttal of Shermer's piece.

Of course Shermer's article was ridiculous intellectually dishonest crap. I just read it and was very disappointed with utter lack of thought it displayed. The "thought experiment" was a ridiculous premise in which he made an argument against himself. Does he really not know how the internet came to be?

I hadn't really read much of his stuff before this but I had liked things of his I'd seen(such as the Baloney Detection Kit video). I just read a couple of other articles by him and I'm not that impressed with him anymore.

I wonder what he has to say about our Amazing Free Market health care being 37th in the world.

[Ian David]

2. 9/11 scared Shermer shitless and he felt compelled to find a larger herd for a sense of safety.

He sought a sense of safety in numbers with the Libertarians.

Even after what he wrote in his book about Ayn Rand, he still chose to hitch his wagon to the Libertarians.

What a self-righteous, hypocritical douchebag.

[salvorhardin]

3. I don't know about his motivations re: 9/11

But I wholeheartedly agree with the douchebaggery. I see Libertarians in organized skepticism as a big problem, but then you all know that. I've certainly said it enough.

At least Shermer often takes a good deal of heat when he posts on Skepticblog. I find it telling that he neither replies in comments or even seems to read his Twitter feed. He just simply never replies to criticism. That makes him a very poor skeptic in my book.

[WhollyHeretic]

4. In his Skepticblog post about schools he was ripped in the comments.

He never responded.
http://skepticblog.org/2009/04/21/free-to-try/

The Libertarians in the skeptic community bug the hell out of me (actually they bug the hell out of me anywhere). It's why I never really watched Penn and Teller's Bullshit. They totally ignore logic whenever a topic even gets close to their political beliefs(the episode they did on environmental issues). Penn is just the prototypical smug Libertarian ass hat.

[salvorhardin]

6. It's heartening to see the criticism

In one blog post, I think it's the one Ian David refers to below, the bogosity of his beliefs were pointed out by several well-known skeptics I know he's worked with. Still, he didn't respond. I don't think he even reads the comments. Similarly I've seen people like Krelnik and Daniel Loxton call him out on Twitter and he doesn't reply to them either. He was favorably quoting Charles "The Bell Curve" Murphy one day, for crying out loud!

Oh, and I have a problem with people holding up P&T as good friends of the skeptical community as much as I have a problem with American Atheists International honoring Bill Maher for his contributions to atheism while ignoring his bizarre alt-med and pseudoscientific foolishness.

[onager]

15. I had the same reaction to P&T...

Stopped watching after the episode where they let David Whorowitz rant about college students being "indoctrinated."

"Most college professors are liberal Democrats!" He didn't provide any objective numbers to back that up, or note the many colleges where students can get indoctrinated by conservatives/Xians.

I have several of those in my back yard, such as Pepperdine, Claremont, Azusa Pacific, Ambassador College (founded by Garner Ted Armstrong's dad), etc. etc.

Full disclosure: I have a degree from Pepperdine, but got it by attending night classes while in the Marine Corps. They sent the professors to the Marine base, and what a crew THAT was. An anarchist taught us Modern Political Theory (and did a great job). The Constitutional Law prof was somewhere to the right of Genghis Khan and constantly raved about Roe v. Wade.

One of the best was the guy who taught the propaganda class. I forget the real title, but that's what it was. He was a Marine infantry major who often came to class straight from a field exercise, pulling the textbook and notes out of his Marine-issue backpack.

He gave us the interesting assignment of analyzing the St. Crispin's Day speech from Henry IV as a piece of pure political propganda. ("We few, we happy few, we band of brothers...")

[Ian David]

5. His prior post extolling the virtues of objectivism...

... or libertarianism (terms are interchangeable) started with how happy he was our troops are protecting us after 9/11.

Maybe he just wants someone to keep slaves from burning down Skeptic's swank new HQ at 30 Rock?

[salvorhardin]

7. I forgot about that

Skeptic Magazine has offices at 30 Rock now? Wow. Shows you how much I keep up with Shermer. Skeptic Magazine at least hasn't been contaminated by his version of Ayn Rand Lite yet and continues to have some fine articles in it.

[charlie]

9. Actually, 911 *moderated* his Libertarianism

Before 911, he was one of those privatize-the-military Libertarians. Scary turrists convinced him of the efficacy of government initiative in this one endeavor.

He's rough on Rand because he was once a Randroid, but she's the one who made him aware he was a Libertarian in the first place. He stills admires some of her "philosophy."

His college years must have been tumultous. He had the hokey epiphany upon reading Atlas Shrugged, and he abandoned his Born Again Christian evolution-denier stance after taking biology courses.

[Ian David]

11. Ahh.. thanks! n/t

[realisticphish]

8. Obviously there is a broad range

of political opinions in the skeptical movement, and I think that we tend to do a pretty good job of ignoring that aspect of it. But Libertarians are the one gorup who seems to have the hardest time with that. You don't see right wing skeptics that often, but on the left there's usually a reasonable degree of introspection when it comes to our political opinions and skepticism.

As an aside, it's great to talk about this on a liberal board, where there aren't douchebag Randites coming in to bitch, as there would be on any other message board in the universe

[Anarcho-Socialist]

10. Randbots are mystics

Yes they reject faith in religion, but they merely relocate it to the mysticism of laisser faire economics. They crossed out god and jesus and put in "free market" in their place.

[Orrex]

12. Exactly correct

Here's an excerpt from an article by Mike Bast. The linked page is dated October 2007, but I'm sure that I read it several years before that:

Next, I am an atheist. Now, many libertarians are also, so that isn't the issue. What is is the amount of libertarian rhetoric that maps almost exactly to christian evangelism. I've actually taken an article on a libertarian site on capitalism, replaced the word capitalism with "christ", and then (with minor editing for consistency) had friends read it. They couldn't tell it wasn't originally written for religious purposes. I don't like the idea that so many people in a movement seem to think their system has all the answers. It blinds you to seeing things outside the system. It's part of my problem when people begin to repeat the "free-market solves all" mantra. It's simply not true. It is the best system we've created, but it's still a human creation.

I would dispute that last part about how the free market "is the best system we've created," but otherwise I think that Bast is right on the money.

Libertarianism is based in faith and wishful thinking more than on facts or reality.


Shame on Shermer to hitching his wagon to an intellectually bankrupt notion.

[Codeine]

13. The last issue of Skeptic

had some bullshit interview with a Libertarian masquerading as an article. It seems each issue gets progressively more politically charged.

[salvorhardin]

14. I don't subscribe (can't afford to)

So I don't get to see the print edition very often. Who was the interview with and what other Libertarian-tinged articles can you think of?

[onager]

16. Here's the contents...

http://www.skeptic.com/the_magazine/index.html

I have that issue but did not read it all the way thru yet. I tend to start with the stuff that interests me. Which in this issue was the Jr. Skeptic article on Scooby-Doo.

[LeftishBrit]

17. Thank you so much - wonderful piece!

While right-libertarianism in its purest form is less common in the UK than the USA, it is commoner with regard to education than many other public services. Probably because education here has been affected by class divisions since time immemorial (i.e. when state education was introduced in 1870 we'd *already* reached the stage of If You Want to Get There, I Wouldn't Start from Here). Some still have the attitude that anyone who *is* anyone sends their kids to a public, i.e. very private, school, and state education is just for the plebs.

[onager]

18. Our right-wing blowhards love your educational system...

Well, they IMAGINE they love it, anyway.

Using your well-developed psychic powers, I bet you can predict their most often (mis)used quote before I even type it.

Here's a great example from Charlie Sykes, a radio bloviator in Wisconsin variously described as a "conservative pundit" or as a "cowardly, racist, thrice-married hypocritical right-wing POS." Sort of a Rush Limbaugh with only 1 brain cell instead of 2:

The Duke of Wellington once said that “the Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton ” – reflecting his view that competitive sports shape a nation’s character.

We sure as hell should hope that’s not true about America unless, that is, we plan on going to war against an enemy who also values non-competitive, risk-free, self-esteem building play activities for its young...

Insert flags, drums, cheerleaders and marching bands as appropriate.

Warning, History Geekery ahead...

Except the Duke of Wellington never said any such thing. The quote wasn't attributed to him until 3 years after his death.

And Wellington disliked organized sports - which barely existed at Eton during his time there anyway. Ha! Suck on that, Charlie! Other Etonians remembered Wellington as a dreamy, loner sort.

He apparently didn't care much for Eton, either, remembering his time there as sad and lonely. His descendant, the Seventh Duke of Wellington, told TIME magazine that the Great Man had "no particular affection for the place."

Nobody ever uses his real quote about the battle of Waterloo: "Nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won."

Proving, I guess, that much of the 19th-century media was just as lazy and dishonest as their modern descendants, the battle of Waterloo provided a slew of non-existent quotes.

My favorite is the commander of Napoleon's Imperial Guard, into whose mouth a journalist put the words: "The Guard dies but never surrenders." The commander himself always insisted he didn't have time for eloquent quotes, since he was busy seeing his troops cut to pieces and being surrounded by the British. He said his quote at the time consisted of just one word: "Merde!"

[LeftishBrit]

19. The top British public schools are currently very popular with Russian oligarchs

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/5872498/Russias-super-rich-take-advantage-of-recession-to-storm-Britains-public-schools.html

Perhaps Britain will end up being ruled by Russian oligarchs trained on the Playing Fields of Eton.

[onager]

20. Thanks! I'll try to find that documentary...

Given that even the most well-adjusted British child is prone to griping about boarding school food, crammed dormitories, lack of privacy and compulsory chapel...

That's good news. Must be all that critical thinking the article mentions.

Russians, she says, love our crumbly old buildings with history behind them. It reminds them of the long-gone tsarist lifestyle, a heritage they are now looking to reclaim.

Uh-oh. Not good news. Damn, history's good ideas just keep coming back around...(insert sarcasm smiley).

[realisticphish]

21. since the fall of the USSR

there have been quite a few Russians who long for the old days. They lost power, prestige, and their economy, and their country is still very corrupt. They may have been oppressed before, but they had a place to live...

I know that there's a strong trend of anti-western Russian nationalism at the moment, especially with youth.