This is the second post that attempts to respond to comments on my 3/15 post Some Values Matter More Than Others And Are Ignored Anyway.  The third and fourth posts in this series will be up early next week.

Several people (Andrew L., Dan K., Logan B.) worry about the suggestion that people in the US don’t take enough responsibility for their own lives and those of their children.  Here I’ll just say that if parents gave serious consideration to whether to send their children to public school or private school or to home school them, it would suggest to me that they are taking more responsibility for their children’s lives then if they just send them to public school because that is what is expected (by others) and/or encouraged (by the state).  Unfortunately, most people (so far as I can tell) do the latter.  And the anecdotal evidence, for what its worth, is worse: there is much reason to think many parents believe their children are (completely) the school’s responsibility during school hours.  I realize most people don’t say this.  I worry that many believe it. 

I should point out that, as one reader commented, “Every form of social interdependency, economic complexity and shared obligation means there is something that people probably used to have to do themselves but for which they now depend on others” (Dan K., who makes some other very good points I largely agree with, even though I suspect he thinks those points argue against my claims—a point with which I would disagree).*  Indeed, unless we are isolated hermits, we all depend on others in many ways.  And I do not mean to suggest there is anything wrong with that.  I do think, though, that parties to any relationship wherein one depends on another should be voluntarily in the relationship.  To put that point more meekly: it should be, to the greatest extent possible, consensual relationships wherein there is dependency.  If you and I are in a consensual relationship, its fair for you to depend on me (that needs more fleshing out then I can do here).  We citizen-subjects, though, are not in a consensual relationship with our state.  We should be and in my ideal world, we would be, but that isn’t this world.  (Again, that needs more unpacking then I can do here.)

*Note: Another point we disagree with is the importance of distinguishing happiness and eudaimonia.  The fool might pursue happiness, but he will think this means a feeling that can come and go.  That is not what I count as a real value.