How about that DOW?

[redneckgeek]

We do have a responsibility to our neighbors and fellow community members. I believe that redneckgeek was saying he doesn't want to be forced by his government to support his neighbors through taxation.

The bad thing is that the community does a terrible job taking care of unfortunates. That has forced government to step in and do that job. It's a shame, really.

I think people stopped taking care of each other AFTER the government stepped in. Example: Social Security.... time was, it wasn't needed because people would take care of their parents in their old age. Then the government stepped in and said "We can do it better". Now, many people wouldn't dream of allowing their invalid mother live with them... It's so much easier to just put her in a home where social security and medicare will take care of her.

 

[Banana]

Even the cavemen understood that we survive as a community or a species, not as individuals. The cult of individualism is ridiculous on its face if you know ANYTHING about evolution and/or world history.

You're leaving out the fact that cavesmen participated in *voluntary* transaction. We had wars and conflicts because some group wanted to take the resources by force. Taxation is simply just another mean of taking resources by force.

And I'd actually look to economics first because we are dealing with allocating scarce resources, and by far the most humane way to do this is through free market with voluntary transaction between parties. It cannot be distributed effectively by anyone but the invisible hand.

 

[Alisa]

Wow, I didn't realize you guys were all anarchists

 

[Banana]

I don't know about them, but I'm a libertarian. There's a difference.

 

[georgedwilkinson]

Which guys?

 

[David Eagar]

If you guys think that a bunch of local communties are going to agree to band together to fund and build road systems, railways etc you really are in cloud cuckoo land.

 

[redneckgeek]

I prefer to think of myself as a libertarian. My thoughts on government are:

Provide protection (Military and Police).
Provide the courts.
Leave me alone.

 

[redneckgeek]

If you guys think that a bunch of local communties are going to agree to band together to fund and build road systems, railways etc you really are in cloud cuckoo land.

The railways in america were built privately. All the telephone and electric lines are private. We'd survive....Municipalities would take care of their roads. I imagine interstates would be toll roads - but we wouldn't have gasoline taxes.

 

[pbaldy]

Even the cavemen understood that we survive as a community or a species, not as individuals. The cult of individualism is ridiculous on its face if you know ANYTHING about evolution and/or world history.

Wow, I didn't realize you guys were all anarchists

So anyone who disagrees with you is:

1) Beneath caveman level
2) ridiculous
3) an anarchist

Never takes long for them to revert to name calling, does it my fellow caveman-wannabes?

 

[georgedwilkinson]

So anyone who disagrees with you is:

1) Beneath caveman level
2) ridiculous
3) an anarchist

Never takes long for them to revert to name calling, does it my fellow caveman-wannabes?

Check out the last couple of posts on the atom smasher thread: The God Particle - Beginning or End? (

1 2 3)

 

[Alisa]

Nope, I said EVEN the cavemen, meaning cavemen would have agreed with me.
In any case, it is not people who disagree with me. It is people who don't recognize the value of government, period.

 

[Banana]

It is people who don't recognize the value of government, period.

Yet you called redneckgeek and me an anarchists (e.g. someone who doesn't want *any* government at all) while we both are libertarian who want the government to return to its intended purpose.

Read the tenth amendment.

 

[redneckgeek]

Internet debate rule number 27:

If you get the other person to call you Crazy, Stupid, or a Nazi for no good reason - You Win

 

[pbaldy]

We recognize the value of government. We just don't see value in it as the great caretaker. It's funny, because I recall in other threads you talking about wanting to restore the Constitution or words to that effect, but where in the Constitution do you find justification for all the "great society"/take-from-the-rich-give-to-the-poor social programs? You seem to want to twist it to your current needs.

 

[Banana]

pbaldy gets it.

It's a misfortune that *both* Democrats and Republicans are more than happy to trump the Constitution when it suits their purpose but once it gets in their way, it's shredded.

As I've posted in other threads, partisans of either party will not acknowledge their party's own flaws even as they point out the *same* flaws in another party. This only benefits the people who likes fascism or socialism.

 

[ajetrumpet]

I think I'm starting to dislike this thread now. Too bad I started it. By the way, the DOW is down yet another 300 points today. My shares are going down too! What a deal...

 

[Rich]

The railways in america were built privately.

Actually they were heavilly subsidised by the taxpayer

 

[georgedwilkinson]

That was one of the reasons Dagny Taggert was so interested in leaving the looters and moving into John Galt's utopia.

 

[redneckgeek]

I think I'm starting to dislike this thread now. Too bad I started it. By the way, the DOW is down yet another 300 points today. My shares are going down too! What a deal...

Why? All threads eventually resort to politics They are, after all, the root of all evil.

 

[Rich]

Why? All threads eventually resort to politics They are, after all, the root of all evil.

This is a political thread and its root cause lies at Bush's feet