Yeah, but now he's going to enjoy the process of progressing through failure more than the success itself, so that the rest of his life every time he masters something he'll begin looking for the next challenge and eventually he'll become an autodidact that can't land a job and has to start and sell multimillion dollar companies again and again and again just to keep from going insane!!!

I'd lean more towards enouraging men to be autodidacts and polymaths than specialists and experts. The latter relies upon society to survive, but society relies on the former to survive. Indepednance is always prefereable to interdependance in my mind. A jack of all trades, master of none, is always better than a master of one.

I'd remove 'change a diaper' from that list by Robert Heinlein and replace it with 'make a baby, deliver a baby'.

Autodidact.

_{AKA 'High-School Dropout'}

I'm going back, though. I dropped-out to work, and then we went on strike! Jeebus..

I don't know about post-secondary education, though.
I'm not sure what I'd go into so that I could get a return on my investment, or just avoid massive heaps of debt.
That and I feel there's going to be some sort of collapse happen soon enough. We'll see.

I really do question what we've learned in school. I think it's national indoctrination, that's why I dislike the public school system so much. That, and my education was sub par, and I was not the sharpest tool in the shed at 18 because of it. I've done better as an autodidactic which has also lead me to understand what I learned in school was not so much a lie but a cherry-picking of information devised for social engineering and thinly veiled as unbiased education. Regardless, I don't think any of my classes properly explained Capitalism to me, nor the free market, nor fiat currency, Corporatism, the Federal Reserve, etc. etc. etc. They didn't teach me a lot of things except how to be dumb and be a cog.

I get it. I don't tow the lines. But, you seem to want to lump me in with anti-abortionists (I refuse to call them by any euphemism), creationists, anti-immigrationists, homophobes and racists. Seriously? All of that is antithetical to my positions and those of Libertarians. In fact, if California was a Libertarian state, I bet gays would no longer be secondhand citizens like they are in the blue state. Democrat civil liberties fail.

What's so wrong with personal liberty, DFT? What's wrong with giving the individual a right to be captain of his own destiny? Why shouldn't we honor self-reliance over dependency? Why do you feel people are too stupid and incompetent to live with freedom? I believe you veil elitism under the banner of democracy. Most people do who believe they know what's best for everyone instead of allowing the individual to choose. When your direct democracy leads to bad legislation and tyranny you will pretend it wasn't democracy, but a lack of it; and therefore it's a selective democracy where the pro-Democratic voices should be heard, but dissenters should not. To me your party sounds a lot like the other party.

Also, I understand your fears of Corporations. I, too, am anti-Corporatist and I certainly don't trust them. They wouldn't exist if government didn't allow them to. In fact, it used to take an act of Congress to create a Corporation; now it all has to do with how much money you have. And it's government regulation that allows them to monopolize the markets by squeezing out the small business owners. Corporations, like government, hate competition, and most regulation is set up to protect Corporate interests, not ours. I've given a great example of this here in the 5th and 6th paragraph and show how a protective government bureaucracy like the EPA is only used to further the Corporate agenda, not protect us. That's your government regulatory system failing... again.

I could ask you the same question about being a Democrat that you asked me about being Libertarian. Seriously, if you were part of the Green Party or a Marxist I'd probably have more respect for your position. But a Democrat? Sure I can see how you agree with some of their positions, but all of them? Hell, most of them? The continuation of the unconstitutional war? More troops sent to Afghanistan? No mention from your party on closing the 700+ military bases in 130 countries overseas. And, what about the Patriot Act? Your party isn't moving to repeal it, only modify it. Your party is a sham. And the fact that you can't see how similar your party is to the Republican Party is very amusing but mostly frustrating. Pot, meet kettle.

In reply to this comment by dystopianfuturetoday

I would welcome any Ron Paul Republican over an Obama Democrat any day. And, I don't thinking anyone is immune to indoctrination, but I wasn't speaking about partisan indoctrination. I was speaking of statist and social indoctrination. Status quo. What they refuse to teach you in civics class. Hell, not once do I think I ever had a real civics class. Praise allah there's a such thing as being an autodidact.

And, yes, nationalized healthcare is compulsory. Thanks for admitting that. So, how is it using "fear" to coerce people if I'm calling a spade a spade? Conversely, I think it's dubious to dodge that it's compulsory. Regardless, the intention of the *fear channel was to go against our innate fear of each other, of trusting each other, and of allowing each of us to make decisions for ourselves... and that extends to nationalized healthcare.

I know you and NetRunner don't see it, but you're wrong to tell me what I need to do to take care of myself. It demonstrates arrogance to think you know best for those of us too stupid to make our own decisions. I don't believe in fear (passion) to persuade. I believe in reason. And I believe in being persuasive with words to convince people, not by using force and violence. But, you and NR are too indoctrinated with your cognitive dissonance to make any real change with the two of you.

In reply to this comment by dystopianfuturetoday:
Don't play coy with me, snuggle nuts, national healthcare is compulsory by definition. When you bust out the scary rhetorical words, you are employing the very *fear tactics that you created a channel to combat, ya?

I hope that you don't believe libertarians are immune to indoctrination. I mean, believing that you are the author of liberty is the first sign of your political delusion. srsly. Ron Paul, like it or not, is a member of the cult of personality every bit as much as Obama, if not morso because he's had no national forum with which to prove himself.... beyond a lot of fanciful talk. He's still a Republican for chrissakes!!!! Where's the integrity in that?

Autodidacts take note! She reads ALL newspapers and magazines! That's an incredible achievement.

Does even news.google.com read ALL newspapers and magazines? Google needs to hire her before Microsoft or Yahoo get to her first!

MAJOR points from me for the first actual use of "autodidact" I've ever seen in mass media.