I could not agree with you more. This assignment, in which students get to teach "emerging technologies" to each other, and grade each other, is the highlight of my class. The whole point that I wanted to make with this post is that cheating is something that needs to be structurally avoided, not something to be detected and penalized.
Btw, touché on the libertarian point.
Not when there is an existing agreement in place otherwise, that being the one between the honest students, the school, and the teacher calling for the teacher to fairly assess performance and grade accordingly. Unless the policy of the school on cheating is "whatever, no problem" (which doesn't seem to be the case), then the libertarian position is to stick to the contract he signed on for. Or is the new libertarian position something more like: honoring contracts is for suckers, screw everyone who hasn't caught on to it yet.
Libertarian, maximum personal liberty. If you were a libertarian, you wouldn't care about the cheating. Let the little bastards screw themselves.
Libertarian doctrine (such as it is) says nothing about incentives.
Getting worked up about the cheating, you assume society (or at least your class room) should be merit-based. Pretty much the opposite of libertarianism.
A clever teacher would figure out a way for students to police each other. I've seen it work to great effect. No one grades harder than a peer.
Edit: I was being a dick, comment about whining removed.