Fact : The institution of Slavery had just been upheld by the Supreme court[/quote]
Partly true - the Supreme Court had just created a new constitutional “truth” that Blacks could not ever be citizens under the Constitution, even if a state democratically said otherwise. As such, Black people could only ever be property under the Constitution.
True - only a small class of aristocratic planters owned slaves, and the institution of slavery was actually hampering the free market by promoting a monopolistic privilege.
False - the restriction was federal.
Absolutely false.
False - most states didn’t even bother with mentioning tariffs in their formal declarations of secession. Tariffs were more of an issue during the Nullification Crisis, but were marginal issues at the time of Confederate secession.
The Southern States were not free market worshippers - they were happy with tariffs when they helped, and only disliked them when they hurt.
Partly true, partly false - you present a false label. There was more than one kind of abolitionist: the Absolutist, that wanted slavery outlawed everywhere in one fell swoop, and the Pragmatists, who wanted to outlaw slavery’s expansion in new territories. Both are a kind of abolitionist, and both camps put a Republican in the Oval Office in 1860.
[quote]pittbulll wrote:
tom63 wrote:
pittbulll wrote:
LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
Full blown socialism means no one in the medical field will profit from their work. Do you understand the consequences of this?
Everybody would make a wage, maybe not the best system, but I believe it to be better than the INS companies running everything.
then you have smart guys not wanting to be doctors. We go full socialized, I will shut down my office and go do something else.
You really have no clue.
You may do so and it may discourage some smart people not to go into medicine . but over all I believe Doctors could make more profit and people could pay less money because no one has to pay the profit of the Ins. company[/quote]
I may be a hundred fifty or so posts off from where this thread has gone, but here’s an idea-
Pay Cash.
I’m serious. I’ts fucking crazy, I know, but it works for a lot of stuff- T.V.s, all kinds of consumable goods, and even medical treatments.
Go in for a check up, physical, some dentistry, whatever. Give the M.D. some folding money, and watch what happens to the bill.
If the guy even knows what to charge, the bill will be for time and materials, instead of time materials and 3 people in the billing dept. being kept busy trying to get paid for work you had done from a company other than them that you paid to do it.
edit-
“Nearly 60% Won’t Graduate At South Side School
44 Of 77 Students At Bradwell Elementary Did Not Pass Eighth Grade”
If this had happened in a private school there would have been swift firings of the incompetent teachers (though it never would have happened in a private school in the first place).
When it happens in public schools teachers will blame lack of funding and then get a raise. Government always rewards incompetence – which is why it is full of incompetent people.
[quote]quidnunc wrote:
If you never educate people, they will lack the skills to get a decent job, so they will never escape poverty. You are advocating doing just that.
[/quote]
An education, or educated individual is just like any other commodity when is comes to supply and demand. If everyone has an education, every job will require it. If you try and send everyone to college, a college degree will be a requirement for that many more jobs. If 50% of working people had no HS deploma, more jobs would not require a HS deploma. This is very basic supply and demand.
It’s funny. The same people that say we need to protect manufacturing jobs in the US are they same that also claim everyone should get a college education. The fact is a College, or even HS, education is not needed for many jobs. Why would we want those that take those jobs to waste time in HS or College when they could be learning the trade?
Most gov’t activities that need to be funded, could be funded volentarily by those that use the service. As a matter of fact, this was once a common way of funding most public works. Read Ben Franklin’s autobiography. He was quite successful in raising money and voleteers for roads, fire depts, police depts, etc.
You just need to use your imagination. Think of any function of gov’t and how it might be funded with out forcefully taking 40% of my income.
[/quote]
And “violence redistributing wealth” - police empowered by a democratically elected government fighting tax evasion - is perfectly just and effective.
[/quote]
Would a 100% tax rate be “just”?
[quote]dhickey wrote:
quidnunc wrote:
If you never educate people, they will lack the skills to get a decent job, so they will never escape poverty. You are advocating doing just that.
An education, or educated individual is just like any other commodity when is comes to supply and demand. If everyone has an education, every job will require it. If you try and send everyone to college, a college degree will be a requirement for that many more jobs. If 50% of working people had no HS deploma, more jobs would not require a HS deploma. This is very basic supply and demand.
[/quote]
This is true to a point - there is credential creep. But LM is taking the position that there should be literally no funding of education whatsoever. If half of the public are illiterate and can’t do addition, they aren’t even qualified for the sort of jobs that used to not require a college degree but now often do (Police offer, say, or secretary, or skilled tradesman). They’d be unfit for almost anything more demanding than menial labor. Since the number of such jobs is limited, and decreasing with improvements in technology, most would invariably be unemployed.
The continuing improvement in the standard of living over the past century or so has very largely been the result of low-skill jobs being automated, leaving people free to take high-skill jobs. This transition would not have been impossible without a massive increase in the availability of education.
[quote]
And “violence redistributing wealth” - police empowered by a democratically elected government fighting tax evasion - is perfectly just and effective.
Would a 100% tax rate be “just”?[/quote]
It would be terrible economics, but if a democratically elected representative body passed it, it would indeed be just. It would be unjust, however, if those who didn’t like the law were denied the right to emigrate.
You still haven’t explained why you think “taxation is theft”, and you really need to answer this before you go on and on about other things. It’s the key to your whole peculiar worldview.
[quote]limitatinfinity wrote:This is what my Soviet socialist expatriate parents told me communism was in 2003, when Bush was in office. Then I read the manifesto for myself and found out that they read it through a thick layer of bias.
The entire and ongoing history of society is and will be a history of class struggle.
Marx was right: class struggle leads to uprising and the restructuring of societies.
It’s communism that is the farce.
Obviously we comprehended it differently…
and should just leave it at that.
[/quote]
Fine, but I feel like it’s important to say that the Manifesto should not be regarded as The Source for information on communism.
[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
Masterful argument, as usual dunderbolt.
I have said over and over that Thunder is the ONLY conservative on this board who’s political opinion I genuinely respect.[/quote]
Which is why none of your opinions carry any weight. You “respect” a neocon’s opinion and call your self a liberal…this is precisely what is fucked up with American government. There really is no difference between your two brands of statist philosophy.
You still haven’t explained why you think “taxation is theft”, and you really need to answer this before you go on and on about other things. It’s the key to your whole peculiar worldview.
[/quote]
You still have not understood what I explained. You are incapable of it.
Why don’t you get one of your Ivy League HS teachers to explain it…
You still haven’t explained why you think “taxation is theft”, and you really need to answer this before you go on and on about other things. It’s the key to your whole peculiar worldview.
You still have not understood what I explained. You are incapable of it.
Why don’t you get one of your Ivy League HS teachers to explain it…[/quote]
Right, you said that “taxation is theft” because hey guys it just is, okay? I pointed out that that’s dumb and dishonest. You haven’t responded.
You still haven’t explained why you think “taxation is theft”, and you really need to answer this before you go on and on about other things. It’s the key to your whole peculiar worldview.
You still have not understood what I explained. You are incapable of it.
Why don’t you get one of your Ivy League HS teachers to explain it…
Right, you said that “taxation is theft” because hey guys it just is, okay? I pointed out that that’s dumb and dishonest. You haven’t responded.
[/quote]
If someone takes someone else’s property without permission it is considered theft. What is wrong for the individual to do is wrong for the government to do. There are no separate ethical principles that only the government operates on. Ethics and morality must be universal or else they are meaningless.
I have made it as simple as I possibly could for you – even though you claim to have gone to one of the “top three high school in the country” and should therefor understand the meaning of words. It’s as if you choose to ignore it because it is convenient for the political philosophy you choose to believe.
Taxation is theft. I am done wasting my time with you on this subject
You still haven’t explained why you think “taxation is theft”, and you really need to answer this before you go on and on about other things. It’s the key to your whole peculiar worldview.
You still have not understood what I explained. You are incapable of it.
Why don’t you get one of your Ivy League HS teachers to explain it…
Right, you said that “taxation is theft” because hey guys it just is, okay? I pointed out that that’s dumb and dishonest. You haven’t responded.
If someone takes someone else’s property without permission it is considered theft. What is wrong for the individual to do is wrong for the government to do. There are no separate ethical principles that only the government operates on. Ethics and morality must be universal or else they are meaningless.
Taxation is theft. I am done wasting my time with you on this subject[/quote]
I gave you the actual, correct definition of the word “theft,” and you stuck your fingers your ears and went “nuh-uh.” You’re free to make up whatever fanciful definitions of words you please, but it’s dishonest and equivocating to first say “Taxation is theft (in LM’s magic rainbow unicorn sense of the word)” and then say “theft (in the normal sense of the word) is bad, so taxation is bad also”. That’s not an argument.
Cutting people up is wrong, right? No, because surgeons do this, and they do it to save lives. How can this be? Do surgeons operate on “separate ethical principles” than everyone else? No, it’s that when we’re judging the ethical nature of an action, factors like intent, consent and legitimacy come into play. For example, normally if I tackle someone to the ground, I’m committing assault. But if I’m saving someone you from getting hit by a truck (intent), it’s okay. If we’re professional football players, it’s okay (consent). If you’re an escaped murderer resisting arrest and I’m a police officer (I have legitimacy), it’s okay.
Similarly, taxes collected by a democratic government following due process (legitimacy), to serve the public good (intent), collected from people who participate in the society (consent, at least implicitly) are nothing whatsoever like actual bad-person theft, which lacks all of these elements.
[quote]SkyzykS wrote:
pittbulll wrote:
tom63 wrote:
pittbulll wrote:
LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
Full blown socialism means no one in the medical field will profit from their work. Do you understand the consequences of this?
Everybody would make a wage, maybe not the best system, but I believe it to be better than the INS companies running everything.
then you have smart guys not wanting to be doctors. We go full socialized, I will shut down my office and go do something else.
You really have no clue.
You may do so and it may discourage some smart people not to go into medicine . but over all I believe Doctors could make more profit and people could pay less money because no one has to pay the profit of the Ins. company
I may be a hundred fifty or so posts off from where this thread has gone, but here’s an idea-
Pay Cash.
I’m serious. I’ts fucking crazy, I know, but it works for a lot of stuff- T.V.s, all kinds of consumable goods, and even medical treatments.
Go in for a check up, physical, some dentistry, whatever. Give the M.D. some folding money, and watch what happens to the bill.
If the guy even knows what to charge, the bill will be for time and materials, instead of time materials and 3 people in the billing dept. being kept busy trying to get paid for work you had done from a company other than them that you paid to do it.
[/quote]
[quote]quidnunc wrote:
Similarly, taxes collected by a democratic government following due process (legitimacy), to serve the public good (intent), collected by people who participate in the society (consent, at least implicitly) are nothing whatsoever like actual bad-person theft, which lacks all of these elements.
Try again!
[/quote]
There is no legitimacy in mob rule. Government is unethical and always will be no matter what guise it takes. Aggression is always wrong. Taxation is not only theft it relies on aggression in order to carry it out. Aggression is the government’s only trick to make people comply – and thus it can never have any legitimacy – especially with respect to justice.
Furthermore, there have been many evils committed in the name of “democracy”. Just one example, Hitler claimed moral justification to slaughter millions of human beings using democracy. Obviously, democracy doesn’t make rule legitimate if the actions are unethical. No one has the right to imbue their government with the power to carry out theft, murder, and slavery. This is why, among other reasons, I am an anarchist. Government is untenable with the natural order.
BTW, do some research about the history of the income tax in the US and answer why if it was so necessary it took over 100 years to amend the constitution to do it. Why did all of the sudden it become necessary for the US government to commit theft upon its people when historically it was not necessary?
Also, there is no such thing as a “public good”. This is a construction of the leftist, utilitarians (via J.S. Mill) to strip people of their individuality and make them comply to group power. Left to its own devices this philosophy leads to a collectivist mindset that is necessary for the left to maintain power. Collectivism is the root of evil in society and is the basis of all socialist political philosophies.
Writes Ludwig Von Mises in the “Fallacy of Collectivism”:
“According to the doctrines of universalism, conceptual realism, holism, collectivism, and some representatives of Gestaltpsychologie, society is an entity living its own life, independent of and separate from the lives of the various individuals, acting on its own behalf and aiming at its own ends which are different from the ends sought by the individuals. Then, of course, an antagonism between the aims of society and those of its members can emerge. In order to safeguard the flowering and further development of society it becomes necessary to master the selfishness of the individuals and to compel them to sacrifice their egoistic designs to the benefit of society…”
And this is how the masses are convinced to “selflessly” give up their individuality to the “greater good” of society. There are people like you who swallow it without question and doom the rest of us to suffer the same fate – all while wrapping it in a pretty package called democracy.
There is no legitimacy in mob rule. Government is unethical and always will be no matter what guise it takes. Aggression is always wrong. Taxation is not only theft it relies on aggression in order to carry it out. Aggression is the government’s only trick to make people comply – and thus it can never have any legitimacy – especially with respect to justice.
[/quote]
Five ludicrous assertions , zero arguments.
You think Nazi Germany was a democracy, and that Hitler liked democracy. Wow.
You don’t think there are non-rivalrous, non-excludable goods? How exactly does that work out?
Also, make that eight assertions, zero arguments.
That’s vaguely Rosseauian but is nothing like the basis for any modern state. We don’t require people to sacrifice their “egotistic designs” - you’re totally free to rave in darkness for the rest of your natural life. Taking 20% of your annual income to support the roads you drive on, the education of the people you work with and the police who protect you doesn’t affect any part of you but your base animalistic greed.
Could you be a dear and acknowledge that you were wrong about the “taxation is theft!” point? Since you didn’t respond to my arguments, I assume that you accept them, but it would be nice to hear it in your own words.
There is no legitimacy in mob rule. Government is unethical and always will be no matter what guise it takes. Aggression is always wrong. Taxation is not only theft it relies on aggression in order to carry it out. Aggression is the government’s only trick to make people comply – and thus it can never have any legitimacy – especially with respect to justice.
Five ludicrous assertions , zero arguments.
[/quote]
Actually, this is the argument and now you have to disprove what I wrote. I have a feeling you cannot do it. So in reply to your reply…
“One ludicrous assertion, zero argument” – but when I say it about your statement it is actually truth.
[quote]
Furthermore, there have been many evils committed in the name of “democracy”. Just one example, Hitler claimed moral justification to slaughter millions of human beings using democracy. Obviously, democracy doesn’t make rule legitimate if the actions are unethical. No one has the right to imbue their government with the power to carry out theft, murder, and slavery. This is why, among other reasons, I am an anarchist. Government is untenable with the natural order.
You think Nazi Germany was a democracy, and that Hitler liked democracy. Wow.[/quote]
I did not say that.
[quote]
Also, there is no such thing as a “public good”. This is a construction of the leftist, utilitarians (via J.S. Mill) to strip people of their individuality and make them comply to group power. Left to its own devices this philosophy leads to a collectivist mindset that is necessary for the left to maintain power. Collectivism is the root of evil in society and is the basis of all socialist political philosophies.
You don’t think there are non-rivalrous, non-excludable goods? How exactly does that work out?
Also, make that eight assertions, zero arguments. [/quote]
You are a collectivist which is why you believe what you do. I am not. I am an individualist. That is where the crux of our philosophical difference lies.
I have been more than generous with you…
You just need to admit you are a collectivist and then we can be done with this argument.
But still, I am right and you are not.
In fact, let's do this your way and take a vote; after all, democracy is a legitimate way of finding truth and justice according to your assertion.
Who thinks I am right?
There is no legitimacy in mob rule. Government is unethical and always will be no matter what guise it takes. Aggression is always wrong. Taxation is not only theft it relies on aggression in order to carry it out. Aggression is the government’s only trick to make people comply – and thus it can never have any legitimacy – especially with respect to justice.
Five ludicrous assertions , zero arguments.
Actually, this is the argument and now you have to disprove what I wrote. I have a feeling you cannot do it. So in reply to your reply…
[/quote]
I will address these very, very slowly, in the vain hope that you’ll understand.
“There is no legitimacy in mob rule.” You are implicitly stating that democracy is equivalent to mob rule. Nearly everyone rejects this identification. You provide no justification whatsoever for this. You failed.
“Government is unethical and always will be no matter what guise it takes.”
Why? YOU CAN’T JUST FUCKING SAY SHIT YOU STUPID FUCKING SOCIOPATH. You have to prevent some sort of definition of “ethics” and show that government is incompatible with it. You haven’t. You failed.
“Aggression is always wrong.”
You have to define “aggression”, explain why governments commit “aggression”, and explain why this is wrong. You didn’t do this. You failed.
“Taxation is not only theft it relies on aggression in order to carry it out.” I already showed you why the first assertion is false; you’ve offered no response. You failed.
“Aggression is the government’s only trick to make people comply – and thus it can never have any legitimacy – especially with respect to justice.”
Define “legitimacy” and “justice.” You didn’t do this. You failed. This is also empirically false, as a child of six could say - people usually follow the law not out of fear of force, but because they feel that it is right to do so.
Tell you what, give me a single quote from Hitler saying that he did what he did because of democracy, and I’ll concede the point. Good luck.
You claimed that a straightforward type of good doesn’t exist. I helpfully provided the correct definition of the concept, and asked how it was possible that it couldn’t exist. You ignored my point and instead babbled about “collectivism.” You need to either accept my point (public goods do exist) or provide a counterargument. You did neither. You failed.
And I repeat:
Could you be a dear and acknowledge that you were wrong about the “taxation is theft!” point? Since you didn’t respond to my arguments, I assume that you accept them, but it would be nice to hear it in your own words.
[quote]quidnunc wrote:
This is true to a point - there is credential creep. But LM is taking the position that there should be literally no funding of education whatsoever. If half of the public are illiterate and can’t do addition, they aren’t even qualified for the sort of jobs that used to not require a college degree but now often do (Police offer, say, or secretary, or skilled tradesman). They’d be unfit for almost anything more demanding than menial labor. Since the number of such jobs is limited, and decreasing with improvements in technology, most would invariably be unemployed.
[/quote]
Your premis is incorrect. Many of the greatest minds in history were self educated.
Paying for ones own education doesn’t mean no education. If we are able to buy food, cloths, housing, cell phones, cars, etc, there is not reason we cannot buy education.
You throw around words like “education” without definition. I have not used a fraction of my education in my profession. Math and English are the only disiplines I have used from public education. Hardly worth 12 years of full-time education. I have used even less of my college education and I am in a very technical field. My various employers have provided me with the education I have actually used.
This push towards more and more general education for all is a waste of time and resourses.
Well then you miss the very point of the declaration of independance, the “revolutionary war”, and the constitution. Individual liberty.
BTW, I get paid a fuckload of money by the hour from a very wealthy client and I can keep repeating the same thing over and over again (just like you) all day long and be just as happy as if I were doing actual productive work…and still have something to show for it at the end of the day – namely, a fuckload of money that I will have to hide from the government somehow.
Just admit your collectivist ideologies are wrong and we can be done here.