>>That general argument has been a straw-man fallacy for years. :)

Really? Come on. The taxpayer cheerfully funded his education to High School level. That's not a straw man, it's a basic fact. The real fallacy is that he magically did all this himself.

If you insist on an opinion, I'd give more credit to Carson's mother when he was bottom of his class. Left to his own devices, Carson was on the road to becoming an illiterate but most dangerous and elusive criminal, exactly what society does NOT want. Ditto Gabby Douglas' mom. Take a look and you'll find that the good mom is a recurring theme, as is the good aunt or good grandma. If you want to save $, might be smart to focus on self esteem and education for the girls in these communities. Split 'em away from the boys (since we know that girls do better in a single sex environment) and invest heavily in the girls so they can help turn things around for the next generation and give us a few more Carsons (and Carsonellas) rather than increasingly smart criminals.

So here's another consideration: imagine that somebody in this forum pays a lot of money- tens of thousands of dollars per annum per child- to privately school the kids. What would you imagine that person would think about contributing to free education for others' kids?

>>The entire welfare system and "taxpayer model" are not voluntary - all of us are coerced into the model. In the absence of a forced welfare state, individuals could invest a greater amount of their money and there is no telling what could amount from it.

LOL. You're also "coerced" into using taxpayer- funded roads and freeways. In the absence of a forced road network, you could invest a greater amount of your money and set up your own transport system, correct? Meanwhile in real life (and breaking my own rule) I have very recent experience of Texas freeways mostly built by taxpayer but with some built and run by private enterprise. What do you think of that model?

My expectation is that without the taxpayer, the 1% would set things up to exclude the great unwashed including most in this forum. Example: http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thisisthat/brad-pitt-manitoba-private-texas-freeway-skywriting-pilot-bay-street-poets-1.2843213/north-america-s-first-members-only-luxury-freeway-opens-in-texas-1.2843216 . The 1% already queers the pitch in schooling (e.g. check out Phillips Academy that is set up to feed average scions of graduates into Yale and Harvard in front of exceptional daughters of people like you.) Looking at past experience is a good way to predict how people will behave given the chance. IMHO you ought to be saying "thank God for the taxpayer."

>>The "seeming inconsistency" you're invoking lies more in the moral contradiction of welfare systems in general, not those mixed up in it.

I don't know what that is supposed to mean. Certainly it's inconsistent to identify people who rose from poverty as exemplars without admitting that the taxpayer was there to help- as she should be proud to be for people whose contribution to the greater good eclipses the recipient's desire for personal enrichment. One Carson makes it worth putting up with 10 awful bankers IMHO.

>>I have tremendous respect and admiration for Dr. Carson, though I think his talents would be better served as head of HHS or some kind of health czar position. He has no business running for President.

LOL. OK then: what qualifies somebody to run for President? FWIW, you never went to Med School so you have no idea of the discipline required for this man to qualify, or of how smart he is, or of the stamina required to practice neurosurgery, or of Carson's particular ability to juggle a galaxy of uncertainties and possibilities and make consistently impressive decisions under pressure when somebody is trying to die in front of him. He also trained and worked in an environment where weasel words have little value: you can't sweep the dead patient under the operating table or raise a tax so you can quietly start over. Anyway, I see plenty of attributes of a good President. More than any banker or economist IMHO- and some would say more than anybody else who is good at "politics" as it functions today.