[quote]orion wrote:
Rockefeller, bad, bad Robber Baron.
Reduced the price of oil by 90%.
Carnegie, bad, bad Robber Baron.
Reduced the price of steel by 90%.
But, some workers were treated like shit every now and then.
The horror. [/quote]
Don’t forget James Hill. I think he’s probably the worst of the bunch, because he built infrastructure without the government’s force. #evil
[quote]pittbulll wrote:
@ Nic var , I hope you don’t take this like the rest of the flat head society but the whole thread is dumb . meaning no disrespect :)[/quote]
You’re welcome to join in the discussion, or to not read it at all.
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
[quote]orion wrote:
But, you know, you dont have to buy their products.
With governments you kind of do.
They will make you.
And you think that is a good thing. [/quote]
Except that, with anarchy, they can make you. And you can like what they sell a lot less. Like the rape of your wife, for example.[/quote]
Well, I dont have a wive but you are free to try.
Also, strawman, I am not an anarchist.
[quote]orion wrote:
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
[quote]orion wrote:
But, you know, you dont have to buy their products.
With governments you kind of do.
They will make you.
And you think that is a good thing. [/quote]
Except that, with anarchy, they can make you. And you can like what they sell a lot less. Like the rape of your wife, for example.[/quote]
Well, I dont have a wive but you are free to try.
Also, strawman, I am not an anarchist.
[/quote]
I am arguing against Nick’s anarchism and have been this entire time.
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
[quote]orion wrote:
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
[quote]orion wrote:
But, you know, you dont have to buy their products.
With governments you kind of do.
They will make you.
And you think that is a good thing. [/quote]
Except that, with anarchy, they can make you. And you can like what they sell a lot less. Like the rape of your wife, for example.[/quote]
Well, I dont have a wive but you are free to try.
Also, strawman, I am not an anarchist.
[/quote]
I am arguing against Nick’s anarchism and have been this entire time.[/quote]
Yeah well, governments are kind of everywhere so maybe they are kind of needed.
Problem is, they grow like a cancer and branch into areas where they are a nuisance at best.
Blow up, collapse…
Blow up, collapse…
meh…
[quote]orion wrote:
Problem is, they grow like a cancer and branch into areas where they are a nuisance at best. [/quote]
I would not necessarily disagree with this, though I suspect we’d differ somewhat on solutions.
Did you finish Durant?
Only line in the whole thread I read, so if this is addressed, sorry for the repeat.
[quote]NickViar wrote:
If voting is a right, then a foreigner should be allowed to vote.
[/quote]
The act of voting itself isn’t the right. The right is having a say in who or what governs you. The right is the freedom to choose who your leaders are, choose to be lead, and choose what they are able to do or not do as the case may be.
Until we as a people come up with a better way of appointing leaders than voting, we will have votes in “free” societies. But the act of voting is merely exercising your rights. Punching a ticket isn’t a right, having the ticket to punch is the right.
[quote]countingbeans wrote:
Only line in the whole thread I read, so if this is addressed, sorry for the repeat.
[quote]NickViar wrote:
If voting is a right, then a foreigner should be allowed to vote.
[/quote]
The act of voting itself isn’t the right. The right is having a say in who or what governs you. The right is the freedom to choose who your leaders are, choose to be lead, and choose what they are able to do or not do as the case may be.
Until we as a people come up with a better way of appointing leaders than voting, we will have votes in “free” societies. But the act of voting is merely exercising your rights. Punching a ticket isn’t a right, having the ticket to punch is the right. [/quote]
EXCELLENT point. We can all probably agree that we have rights to life, liberty, and property, right? Given that we have those rights, how is it that we can delegate to others rights we don’t have?
“The right is having a say in who or what governs you. The right is the freedom to choose who your leaders are, choose to be lead, and choose what they are able to do or not do as the case may be.”
-Who here can say he has that right? Rights are not collective-voting is. If 50.00001% of the population elects a candidate whom I oppose, then I have obviously not chosen my leader or who governs me, correct?
It’s also important to remember who those who founded this country intended to allow the “right” to vote. Property owners. If one who doesn’t own property is allowed to have a say in how property that is owned by another is run…well, how’s that going to work? What RIGHT allows for that? Life? Nope. Liberty? Nope. Property? Certainly not.
*It was also not me who brought up voting as a right.
[quote]NickViar wrote:
We can all probably agree that we have rights to life, liberty, and property, right? [/quote]
Not really.
Do you?
If it’s something you have, then find one of these rights for me, and show it to me.
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
[quote]orion wrote:
Problem is, they grow like a cancer and branch into areas where they are a nuisance at best. [/quote]
I would not necessarily disagree with this, though I suspect we’d differ somewhat on solutions.
Did you finish Durant?[/quote]
Not yet, that stuff is like 300 hours.
Need a lot more mindless tasks or drives to do that.
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
[quote]NickViar wrote:
We can all probably agree that we have rights to life, liberty, and property, right? [/quote]
Not really.
Do you?
If it’s something you have, then find one of these rights for me, and show it to me.[/quote]
[quote]orion wrote:
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
[quote]NickViar wrote:
We can all probably agree that we have rights to life, liberty, and property, right? [/quote]
Not really.
Do you?
If it’s something you have, then find one of these rights for me, and show it to me.[/quote]
[/quote]
A weapon can get you those things, but does this make them rights?
I could get a whole lot of other peoples’ money with a gun tonight. Do I have a right to it?
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
[quote]orion wrote:
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
[quote]NickViar wrote:
We can all probably agree that we have rights to life, liberty, and property, right? [/quote]
Not really.
Do you?
If it’s something you have, then find one of these rights for me, and show it to me.[/quote]
[/quote]
A weapon can get you those things, but does this make them rights?
I could get a whole lot of other peoples’ money with a gun tonight. Do I have a right to it?[/quote]
To a gun yes, to other peoples’ money by using the gun, no.
Hey that is what the government is doing to us with taxes.
Lets vote all them bums out.
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
[quote]NickViar wrote:
We can all probably agree that we have rights to life, liberty, and property, right? [/quote]
Not really.
Do you?
If it’s something you have, then find one of these rights for me, and show it to me.[/quote]
A man is born=life. A man is born equal to other men; therefore, no man can justifiably impose his will on another(however, a man does not have a right to liberty on another man’s property)=liberty. If a man stumbles upon previously unused and un-owned property and makes use of it, it becomes his property; if another man wishes to own that property, he must purchase it from the owner.
That’s about as good as I can do right now. If you don’t believe men have rights, so be it. If you believe men have rights, then no others can exist-anything else will run afoul of those.
I know I will hear something(not necessarily from smh) like, “If I stick a gun in your ear and take your property, then I own that property;” or, “If I can stick a gun in your ear and pull the trigger, then obviously you have no right to life;” or, “Some people are slaves, so obviously there is no right to liberty.” None of those situations mean we don’t have rights to those things.
To those too hard-headed to admit that rights exist, I ask, does not the fact that murders, robberies, and kidnappings occur in our society mean that government is useless by your reasoning? Why have something that can’t protect you at all times and from everything?
If the fact that our rights can be violated means that they don’t exist, then it seems to me that the fact crimes occur even with government means that government is useless.
*Edit: I posted before I realized you had already responded to orion with the logic I believed(and still believe, actually) you were above. A weapon can protect those rights. It does not create them. A weapon can be used to violate the rights of others.
[quote]dmaddox wrote:
To a gun yes, to other peoples’ money by using the gun, no.
Hey that is what the government is doing to us with taxes.
Lets vote all them bums out.
[/quote]
I thought about a similar topic today while riding around town, doing my government job. It’d be great to vote everybody out, but the “right to vote” has expanded too far. I would like to see states begin working on passing legislation which would bar from voting, for six years(longest elected term I can think of) from last receipt, anyone who has received money or property from the government. That would definitely bar government employees and welfare recipients. It would also likely bar many contractors(if a contractor also did private work during the year, someone would have to figure if his gross income minus the government work was equal to or greater than his net(after tax) income, I guess) if their income is primarily government funded. If a business was to use government to take property, then all its employees would lose their votes.
There is absolutely no reason to allow anyone who profits from government to vote, as far as I’m concerned. I do not believe there is a reason to bar anyone for life from voting, so I came up with a time period that makes sense to me. Let’s see how valuable us “public servants” are to our masters…after all, one can’t really still be considered a servant if he robs his master, can he?
[quote]NickViar wrote:
A man is born=life.[/quote]
I’m going to focus on this, but what I’m saying applies to the other rights you’ve listed as well.
That a man is born means that this man has life. What does it mean to have a right to life, and who decided which things man has a right to, and where can evidence of this decision be looked up and studied?
What, in short, is a right? People who are alive try to stay that way; other people/microbial organisms/chemicals/natural calamities (and, failing all that, the relentless march of time) try to disallow them from staying that way. Where is there a right here? How is this anything other than simply what is?
[quote]NickViar wrote:
If 50.00001% of the population elects a candidate whom I oppose, then I have obviously not chosen my leader or who governs me, correct?
[/quote]
Yes you have, it is just the person you choose didn’t win what in contemporary times is a popularity contest for who is the bigger rockstar.
Voting will be replaced with a better system eventually. Mankind is innovative, it is just all the people creative and thoughtful enough to discover new civic activities are busy making cat meme’s, playing beer pong and wasting time on TV and other bullshit.
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
I’m going to focus on this, but what I’m saying applies to the other rights you’ve listed as well.
That a man is born means that this man has life. What does it mean to have a right to life, and who decided which things man has a right to, and where can evidence of this decision be looked up and studied?
What, in short, is a right? People who are alive try to stay that way; other people/microbial organisms/chemicals/natural calamities (and, failing all that, the relentless march of time) try to disallow them from staying that way. Where is there a right here? How is this anything other than simply what is?[/quote]
How about: A man has a right to do anything that doesn’t impair another’s right to the same. That might not be stated as clearly as I intended, but it’s about as good as I can do. If a man takes another’s life, the dead man no longer has the ability to take life. If a man takes another’s liberty, the enslaved man no longer has the ability to enslave another. If a man takes another’s property, the victim will forever be without that piece of property.
[quote]countingbeans wrote:
Voting will be replaced with a better system eventually. Mankind is innovative, it is just all the people creative and thoughtful enough to discover new civic activities are busy making cat meme’s, playing beer pong and wasting time on TV and other bullshit. [/quote]
How about allowing each person to choose who governs the property he owns?