# Tax supported conspiracy theory? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 26, 2006, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tax-supported-conspiracy-theory/366048 "2006-07-26T04:52:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2006, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tax-supported-conspiracy-theory/366048/21 "2006-07-26T20:35:29Z")
Uh, blanket apology for the festival of typos in my posts. The keyboard on this old laptop is getting increasingly cranky with age, like me. ---
**Author:** ![MojoBox](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/bbe5ce/32.png) [@MojoBox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MojoBox)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2006, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tax-supported-conspiracy-theory/366048/22 "2006-07-26T20:58:28Z")
Just wait till your keyboard starts telling you to keep your damn fingers off it’s lawn, and spraying with you with a hose. Damn old man laptop. ---
**Author:** ![Biblical](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/258eb7/32.png) [@Biblical](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biblical)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2006, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tax-supported-conspiracy-theory/366048/23 "2006-07-27T04:49:50Z")
[QUOTE=El\_Kabong] Still, in the Barrett case it doesn’t seem like you are paying all that much, really. [/QUOTE] True. But still, so what? I’m arguing on principle. Beside, Barrett is a drop in the bucket of crackpots, IMHO. But since I find arguing with concrete details more engaging than arguing over abstract concepts, this debate is about the “Barretts” of America U. > [@](#): > > [If we estimate the number of taxpayers in the US at 170 million (I have no idea, of the exact number, but anyone is welcome to provide a more accurate figure), the OP has spent about .five one-hundredths of a cent funding Barrett and his eccentric views on 9/11. Seems like a bargain at half the price, what with the side benefit of generating Internet discussion threads and all. The Ayn Rand within me is tempted to call the math irrelevant. But for sake of argument let’s assume you’re correct and it’s no big deal. Feel the same way about, say, the government forcing you to fund a Catholic nativity scene with your .five one-hundredths of a penny passed off as a school voucher? Ideology, theory, and philosphy are not exculisvely economic issues by nature. There’s something to be said for principle. And consistency. > [@](#): > > Seriously, though, someone explain to me the litmus test for determining what types of ideas are permitted to be expressed with government funding. That’s dangerous territory, albeit necessary. > [@](#): > > If what the OP is saying is that becasue of this one, isolated, highly limited case, there is no justification for goverment funding of education at all, well, that’s just silly. Such dangerous, albeit necessary, territory that I disagree with funding education period. ---
**Author:** ![Biblical](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/258eb7/32.png) [@Biblical](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biblical)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2006, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tax-supported-conspiracy-theory/366048/24 "2006-07-27T04:55:59Z")
[QUOTE=Jackknifed Juggernaut] You’re already funding all sorts of wacko agendas, in an indirect way. Churches, for example, are tax-exempt. Guess who pays the taxes that they don’t pay.[/QUOTE Fair complaint. Simple sollution: everyone fund your own agenda. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2006, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tax-supported-conspiracy-theory/366048/25 "2006-07-27T05:06:21Z")
So because there are a handful of lunatics in academia, public education should be abolished? ---
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2006, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tax-supported-conspiracy-theory/366048/26 "2006-07-27T13:31:28Z")
Well, if we’re supposed to go all Libertarian and choose whether or not we pay taxes for things we disagree with, I vote to stop paying for the war in Iraq. I find that argument a hell of a lot more compelling than some anecdote about a part-time teacher in Wisconsin. ---
**Author:** ![Biblical](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/258eb7/32.png) [@Biblical](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biblical)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2006, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tax-supported-conspiracy-theory/366048/27 "2006-07-27T14:37:49Z")
[QUOTE=El\_Kabong] Well, if we’re supposed to go all Libertarian and choose whether or not we pay taxes for things we disagree with, I vote to stop paying for the war in Iraq. I find that argument a hell of a lot more compelling than some anecdote about a part-time teacher in Wisconsin. [/QUOTE] Agreed. ---
**Author:** ![Biblical](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/258eb7/32.png) [@Biblical](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biblical)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2006, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tax-supported-conspiracy-theory/366048/28 "2006-07-28T04:21:28Z")
No takers? ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2006, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tax-supported-conspiracy-theory/366048/29 "2006-07-28T05:14:39Z")
Perhaps you could expand a bit, **Biblical** , on why, exactly, you disagree with public funding of education? ---
**Author:** ![Askance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/askance/32/8281_2.png) [@Askance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askance)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2006, 6:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tax-supported-conspiracy-theory/366048/30 "2006-07-28T06:29:24Z")
[QUOTE=Biblical] Why should my money be wasted on this crap? [/QUOTE] Public education is not a waste of money, although some money spent in it is undoubtedly wasted (as in any other human activity). Do you really want to live in a society where only those who can afford private education get any education at all? If you think people are generally an ignorant rabble now (as I do) that’s nothing compared to how they’d be with no education at all and no way of earning an income in today’s high-tech society. Rather like the people in the theocracies that I rather suspect you hate, whose main lack is a comprehensive secular education to lift them out of the mire of superstition humans are prone to when lacking the mental tools and facts necessary for proper understanding of how the universe works. Public Education makes the US and the world a better place, and improves your life in myriads of ways. ---
**Author:** ![Askance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/askance/32/8281_2.png) [@Askance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askance)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2006, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tax-supported-conspiracy-theory/366048/31 "2006-07-28T06:30:36Z")
[QUOTE=Monty] Perhaps you could expand a bit, **Biblical** , on why, exactly, you disagree with public funding of education? [/QUOTE] If he’s anything like my like-minded friend, he doesn’t want to pay for anything from which he gets no direct benefit. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2006, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tax-supported-conspiracy-theory/366048/32 "2006-07-28T06:40:12Z")
Ah, but there is a benefit in having the general populace educated, as you so ably proved in the posting above. ---
**Author:** ![ambushed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3bc359/32.png) [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2006, 8:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tax-supported-conspiracy-theory/366048/33 "2006-07-28T08:04:55Z")
[QUOTE=Biblical] The Ayn Rand within me… [/QUOTE] You need an excorcism, and fast! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![FRDE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e68b1a/32.png) [@FRDE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FRDE)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2006, 11:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tax-supported-conspiracy-theory/366048/34 "2006-07-28T11:53:33Z")
How about looking at things from another point of view: Given how politically correct morons have an astonishing tendency to make sure that their views, and only their views are permitted - would state education benefit from evicting anyone who did not toe the line ? In my book ‘teaching’ something and an ‘anecdotal digression’ are totally different things. Say this place got taken over by totally PC moderators - it would be a dead site within weeks Thinking about it, it might be an idea to expose school kids (and quite a lot of adults) to as many opposing and raving fanatics as possible. Postulating that 9/11 was engineered is interesting, personally I doubt that it was, but I have strong suspicions about Pearl Harbour. Maybe I’m biased, but I derived great enjoyment from listening to the views and remeniscences of politically incorrect teachers and tutors. ---
**Author:** ![Autumn\_Almanac](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d26b3c/32.png) [@Autumn\_Almanac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Autumn_Almanac)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2006, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tax-supported-conspiracy-theory/366048/35 "2006-07-28T13:31:55Z")
[QUOTE=Steve MB] Originally Posted by Thomas Jefferson [/QUOTE] Wow. He’s a member? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tax-supported-conspiracy-theory/366048.md?page=1)