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The service would not be provided in the form expected unless there are stringent government regulations or agreements that universal coverage, and a certain degree of quality is provided. If those sort of regulations and checks are agreed on, privatisation would in reality be in name only...

Of course you can opt out. In a liberal-democratic country like Australia you can easily migrate to another country if you are unhappy with government policies. Alternatively, you can form a union of like minded individuals and implement your ideas on an uninhabited island.

Let me put it to you this way. Let's assume that everyone would be better off if they adopted your views on privatisation. Now, for everyone to be better off you would need to band together with other like-minded individuals and launch a campaign to 'educate' the rest of the population. It would...

The citizens of Australia, the electorate as voters and shareholders of the country. By analogy, there are few differences between a country and a corporation. The leaders of a country, just like the power structure within a corporation, will do what is in their power to stay in power, but are...

Here lies the fundamental problem of libertarianism. If you advocate freedom in decision-making, or value the agency of individuals, you ought to acknowledge that the collective of individuals have spoken - they want essential services in the hands of the government, not of corporations acting...

Well not really, but it's perfectly understandable for someone to learn another language 'for the sake of it' if they are interested in languages. With something like intelligence you can't say that learning A makes you marginally more intelligent than learning B, it's a matter of knowledge and...

Yes.

In a perfect world all Europeans ought to speak one common language, just as they ought to share their currency. If they shared a language, there would be less misunderstanding among them; from the perspective of education (relevant to this thread), students would only have to spend time...

Do you mean Arie Haan or Rob Baan?? I think Arnold is doing a decent job and at least trying to carry on with the style of football that Hiddink has laid the foundation for. The fact that he is Australia doesn't mean that he is naive football wise or a subscriber to the Farina style of...

That is due to the ethnic makeup and historical reasons as I have mentioned. It is not as if average Americans will learn Spanish for the sake of it. It's the same in any ethnic community within Sydney - such as Leichardt, Ashfield or Randwick. No doubt you'll find an abundance of Italian...

I agree that in an ideal world we ought to be bilingual. However, for a country to become bilingual there needs to be a historical catalyst though, such as receiving a huge influx of migrants from another country, or being conquered by a foreign power. Alternatively there needs to be a great...

Europe is different because the countries are so close to each other. Evitably there is a cultural melting pot, especially given that European countries have always been geographical neighbours to one another in art and religion, politics and war. Instead, we should compare ourselves with...

I just think language is something that you can only effectively learn by actually living in a country, or with someone that speaks it. It's inefficient to 'teach' a second language in schools, because unless the student is dedicated to learning the language outside its native environment, she...

Most Chinese and Japanese students learn English from primary school though. I don't think we should force students to study a second language. Their selection will be arbitrary and there's no guarantee that what they learn will be useful in the workforce. Additionally, if we teach our kids a...

I agree with frog even on his views on leadership change in the Liberal Party but it is only in the last few days that I have come to the belief that Labor will win the election. If Howard does stay on to fight until the end however, it will be interesting to see what trick he will use this time...

It's quite simple. What did Communist China in the seventies need to for its people to be marginally better off? It needed free-market policies. What did laissez faire Britain need to be marginally better off? It needed some social and industrial laws to protect the exploited proles. Of course...

Well like I said the outcome is all-encompassing. If we are not talking about goal/view/method-outcome in the context of a strict cause-effect relationship, but rather in the ordinary sense of the words in the context of politics, they refer to ideological stance. In that definition the ideology...

It's interesting to consider Deng's proverbial explanation that 'no matter if it is a white cat or a black cat; as long as it can catch mice, it is a good cat'. I have always thought that we should do what is right, but Deng's maxim has significant merit. Logically, what is more important is the...

Your prose was quite interesting actually, albeit lacking in analytical rigour. I don't really find the left - center - right classification of political spectrum sufficiently satisfying. Ultimately political views are divided into idealism and marginalism - and of course somewhere in between...

The pretty girl would receive higher compensation in principle though, because she would have had a high chance of entering a financially beneficial marriage but for the injury. Conversely, a fat person who is prone to bullying would have earned less but for the injury given the cruel society we...