In article <4a82d0a0$1@news.povray.org>,
Neeum Zawan wrote:

> On 08/11/09 21:51, Daniel Bastos wrote:
>> something else. If the government funds Princeton in some ways, does
>> that increases Princeton's responsibility to be together with the
>> taxpayers when they actively seek to educate themselves?
>
> 	Government funding shouldn't be the _only_ reason (think of all those 
> bailouts).

I'm sorry. Reason for what? To increase Princeton's responsibility? I
agree. Indeed, there are other factors that are even stronger, but
less quantitative. Money is measurable, so I think it is okay to look
there first. 

> 	But if the funding is going to support the library, then a case can be 
> made (at least, say, for a discounted library card).

I agree. At least. 

But I think that one problem here is your ``if.'' It's not clear to me
what is not support for the library. 

For example, if some money goes towards, say, research in mathematical
topology, some may say that that has nothing to do with the library.
But to me that is very short sighted because the guy who gets this
money writes books that go into that library, and he needs that
library to study, so he reads many books from that library, which were
put there because they exist, and they exist because they were written
by people like him, who also got money from the government.

Not every book is written like that. You can go into the groceries
store and find lots of books that have no easy ties with government
money. I believe one can argue strongly in favor of not letting anyone
read those books without some direct payment.

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