Education is important. That’s why the government shouldn’t play teacher.

Here's en excerpt from a post I recently wrote on my own blog:

Q. What do you make of the Rawlsian idea of “effective freedom”? If I break my leg and am lying in the gutter with no resources to help myself how am I free? If the state is to tax, shouldn’t health and education be the primary services it owes its citizens as a result of the imposition? Protection of property rights might be the sole concern of the ‘night watchman’ state, but, you know, respect for property rights is free, and I would say an excellent side effect of good education. — ninefruits, from tumblr.

A. I’ve read Rawls, though it’s been a while and his ideas are hardly fresh in my mind.  At any rate, I’ll go question by question:

What do you make of the Rawlsian idea of “effective freedom”? If I break my leg and am lying in the gutter with no resources to help myself how am I free?

How are you not free?  No person is restraining you, and that’s what it is the responsibility of government to stop.  (Of course, if someone or their property has broken your leg and put you in the gutter, that is quite a different story.  But I’m assuming you just tripped over a…wild bird or something which could not possibly be a human crime.)  Basically, this confuses positive rights with freedom, and they are two very different things.