success, or failure?

If we put government in charge of fixing a social concern -- like the cost of education -- then how do we measure success?

Liberals seem to measure the success by how many people benefit from the program.

But shouldn't we be measuring it by what happens to the cost?

I mean, wouldn't a truly successful government intervention, into high tuition costs, for example, be distinguished by falling tuitions?

Do the libs really even understand they're taking the side of the problem?

Comments

[JohnJ]

Liberals measure success by intentions. As long as the intentions are good, results don't matter.

[John Galt]

Hmm. Well then, if conservatives want lower tuition costs, too, then why do libs think we're the bad guys?

[JohnJ]

Because conservatives have bad intentions, therefore everything they want is bad.

[John Galt]

I have to ask: What is the bad intention of conservatives?

[PJ]

The bad intention of conservatives is their opposition to the good intention of liberals. This bad intention can be cited as the root cause for the failure of the liberal's good plans and deeds. By liberal thinking all this conservative talk of how to measure success is very detrimental to the self esteem of people lacking reasoning skills, putting needless pressure on the poor souls. The liberals have the good intention to do the deciding about values like success for these people so they won't feel pressured, but conservatives have the bad intention of allowing and expecting people to make their own decisions intelligently . The liberal use of concepts like benefit are positive forces, bringing a warm aura to giver and getter with no hurtful tabulating and thinking required. In conclusion I believe that the conservative point of view is one of optimism while the liberal is forever self-doomed to be mired in pessimism.
Please remember our armed forces this 4th, especially those Marines in harm's way in Afghanistan -

[JohnJ]

Well, ya, basically. Speaking as a conservative, the liberal starting point is that conservatives have bad intentions, and that's reason enough to oppose everything they say.

For example, Obama's plans may suck, and liberals will openly acknowledge this, but they'll support him because he has "good intentions", regardless of the eventual outcome of his plans.

But we have to distinguish between the liberal mass and the liberal intelligentsia. The liberal elite believe they have both the right and the responsibility to make decisions for other people, because they've been anointed (to use Thomas Sowell's word). Allowing people to make their own decisions would be a cruel and heartless thing to do, because they're not as enlightened as the anointed are. It's not the fault of the people that they cannot comprehend the world in the way of the enlightened. Because reason is invalidated as a tool, all other means, including deceit and coercion, are acceptable because the ends justify them.

[JohnJ]

Bastiat says it better than I can: "Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to it being done at all. We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say we want no religion at all. We object to state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting people to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain."