I give Rand a B-. He'll improve with time, as he does more of these. It's not as though he does not know all the correct answers (Which he does try to get across), but he also has to be careful how he words things in dealing with a hostile interviewer (on national television) who is ready to jump on anything Rand says that will appear absurd to an uneducated public.
In time, Rand will be able to spin Letterman around the way Tom Woods handled Dennis Miller.
i'd say worse then b-.obviously most people symphatize with the teachers, because ''think about the children'', but he just missed a chance for a good counterstrike.he was talking about competition and i thought he was going the right direction when he started with the per pupil expenditures in dc, but then he probably forgot to mention that private school costs are often even lower on avg and that including some very fancy institutions.he also could have ilustrated how the cost were gradualy raising since gvt got involved.in the 20s a regular ford worker could afford to pay for a years tuition for his child from a months sallary.he should start using the word privatize.he is calling for abolishing the dpt of edu right?
ReplyDeleteLetterman is hearing something that is totally contrary to the myths he’s been fed all his life. He just doesn’t want to hear that the quality of education is not dependent on throwing more and more money into the education bureaucracy.
ReplyDeleteLike most of the indoctrinated masses, Letterman is fixated on the fairy tales that aggrandize the State’s compulsory monopolies. There’s nothing one can say to convince him otherwise.
Wenzel is a tough grader. I give Rand an A-.
He kept getting stuck on firefighters as public employees. Rand should have mentioned government intervention into the market such as Cash for Clunkers, Fannie and Freddie or Obamacare.
ReplyDeleteAhhh. The Mises Institute needs to have a "Promoting Liberty, Discouraging Government Intervention and Discussing Austrian Economics for Politicians" course. Tom Woods can teach it.
1) I totally support the anon at 1:39. Especially the part about Tom Woods' teaching thereof.
ReplyDelete2) I honestly thought Rand did pretty good; maybe even enough to warrant a solid B. Dave clearly showed his intellectual frustrations at the end when he claimed that he disagrees with Rand, but doesn't know why. If Rand was worse, Dave would probably feel quite confident about why he disagreed with Rand.
Let's also not forget that Letterman claims to have been inclined to vote for Ron Paul in 1988:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mY5BZzOFtt4
A class for politicians at LvMI? Leave that for C4L, YAL, or even CATO (yes, I know the problems there.) FEE could do it, but I get the feeling they're leaning more towards LvMI's positions. I'd agree that Tom Woods would be perfect for a nullification class. But again, YAL or C4L would be the best platform for that.
ReplyDeleteTo my knowledge, in the entire history of LvMI, the only politicians they ever associated with were Ron Paul and former federal judge Andrew Napolitano.
I don't see LvMI opening the doors to anybody else. Paul and Napolitano understand history and economics at a decent level and are sympathetic to the classical liberal tradition. But how many other politicians are willing to show up to a place where most of the speakers there hold Spooner, Rothbard, Hoppe, or David Friedman's views which are largely anti-politician and anti-government? Little to none. (Mises himself didn't hold the views that most of the people there subscribe to.)
I don't think the Mises Institute should be involved with politicians at all, they are a pure theory and intellectual study organization. They've been such for years, and they are VERY good at that. They haven't been involved in traditional "think tank" activities, and becoming more political now would most likely ruin what they have there and what they've worked on for decades.