[quote]LankyMofo wrote:
What would Ayn Rand say about this, HH?[/quote]
That’s the conflict I’m having. She’d say to let idiots spend however they want; they’ll be bankrupt soon enought just by being stupid.
The other part of me says that the actors involved should have enough character to use their money for educating the poor or feeding the hungry. Ms Rand would probably berate the hell out of me for being empathetic.
The government’s.
Their own. I know you’re desperate to hold your world view together, but a businessman who receives money for a good or service does not care one whit whether it comes from the government or from private citizens.
You’re obviously not aware, but this is not a game.
I did, but you did not. Your statement was the result of a reflexive appeal to the liberal mantra that “the government doesn’t produce anything,” whereas I simply observe that the government cannot spend money that belongs to someone else. Your statement contains an implicit ethical judgement, but it is not correct as it stands. Whether or not you agree with taxation, the fact is, it becomes the government’s money.
So yes, pops, the government spends its own money.
Your procedure is to arrive at a conclusion (or to let Glenn Beck do it for you), and then see how best to arrange the evidence so that it seems to support you. In that respect, it’s always a game, whether I’m here or not.
Yes yes, you’re much too smart to have to support your arguments with “facts” or “logic.” I know.
You run along now and I won’t bring up the fact that your argument, regardless of its veracity, is irrelevant.
[quote]Ryan P. McCarter wrote:
What’s funny to me is that a frivolous party is just fine because “A whole bunch of folks made their mortgage payments, bought groceries, paid medical bills, gassed up their cars, bought lumber, went to movie theaters, etc.” yet projects that actually produce useful things are “misguided” simply because the government buys them.[/quote]
Define “useful”.
It seems to me that people find a use for those parties and not for the things you want them to.
Which probably makes your suggestions less “useful” for them, or else they would do that with their money.
Also, they will work their ass off for their kids happiness, however they define that, but not for yopur social engineering, so when you want to divert resources to some “useful” endevours you suddenly do not have any resources left to divert.
That is neither good nor bad, just how people are.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]Ryan P. McCarter wrote:
Yes yes, you’re much too smart to have to support your arguments with “facts” or “logic.” I know…[/quote]
This doesn’t work for you. You simply KNOW the sun comes up in the west. You know it beyond a shadow of a doubt.[/quote]
I know that in reality the sun just sits there, while you are preoccupied with an illusion. As usual.
[quote]orion wrote:Define “useful”.
It seems to me that people find a use for those parties and not for the things you want them to.
Which probably makes your suggestions less “useful” for them, or else they would do that with their money.
Also, they will work their ass off for their kids happiness, however they define that, but not for yopur social engineering, so when you want to divert resources to some “useful” endevours you suddenly do not have any resources left to divert.
That is neither good nor bad, just how people are.
[/quote]
It appears that you cannot help but bring up the topic of socialism. Now that’s fine, but if you’re as interested as you appear to be (are you a closet red?!), perhaps picking up a couple of books would be a more edifying experience than following me around the forum interrogating me.
[quote]Ryan P. McCarter wrote:
[quote]orion wrote:Define “useful”.
It seems to me that people find a use for those parties and not for the things you want them to.
Which probably makes your suggestions less “useful” for them, or else they would do that with their money.
Also, they will work their ass off for their kids happiness, however they define that, but not for yopur social engineering, so when you want to divert resources to some “useful” endevours you suddenly do not have any resources left to divert.
That is neither good nor bad, just how people are.
[/quote]
It appears that you cannot help but bring up the topic of socialism. Now that’s fine, but if you’re as interested as you appear to be (are you a closet red?!), perhaps picking up a couple of books would be a more edifying experience than following me around the forum interrogating me.[/quote]
It was more about the term “utility”.
You throw words around like “useful” that are very, very hard to pin down.
Is utility something that you can obejctively determine or something that is strictly subjective? Is it cardinal or ordinal? Is it transferable from one person to another? What about time preferences? The market also allocates over time, not just between perosns and places.
What constitues “usefullness” in the context of a planned economy? What “utility” is to be maximized? Total utility? Average utility? What eaverage utility?What about utility monsters and Parfits “repugnant conclusion”? What about decisions that are inherently uncertain?
All of these questions need to be answered in any kind if economic planning from the top down and you just cavalierly assume that there are answers to that kind of question. There are, but all of them are rather whimsical and arbitrary and ultimately a form of tyranny if they form the basis of a planned economic model.
So are these parties useful?
The Austrian answer would be yes, because those who paid for them demonstrated a subjective preference by spending money on them.
You may think that that is good, bad or yellow with green stripes, but ultimately you think that their judgement should be substituted by yours which is the basis of all “socialism”.
And tell me, how exactly is one person imposing his will on a society in any way “social?”
Look, you’re a smart guy, but if you continue to intentionally misrepresent things like this, I see very little point in engaging you. You’re obviously committed to your ideas, but don’t chide me for being “vague” or for “not understanding” capitalism, value, (insert concept here), when you continually insist that, despite the fact that legions of socialist thinkers and activists have said “we believe x,” they actually believe y. In short, quit telling me what I believe. If you were actually onto something with your ideas, you wouldn’t have to.
No, I think the fact that you’re sitting here stuttering over talking points means I’ve out-e-dueled you.
And to think, you almost got it yourself. Of course it comes from the taxpayer, but that was not your question. You asked whose money they were spending, to which I gave the obviously correct answer. You still cannot get past the ethical judgement. It may or may not be wrong to take the money, but it is their money nonetheless.
Regardless, the point is still irrelevant.
[quote]Ryan P. McCarter wrote:
And tell me, how exactly is one person imposing his will on a society in any way “social?”
Look, you’re a smart guy, but if you continue to intentionally misrepresent things like this, I see very little point in engaging you. You’re obviously committed to your ideas, but don’t chide me for being “vague” or for “not understanding” capitalism, value, (insert concept here), when you continually insist that, despite the fact that legions of socialist thinkers and activists have said “we believe x,” they actually believe y. In short, quit telling me what I believe. If you were actually onto something with your ideas, you wouldn’t have to.
[/quote]
What oyu do not get is that he “imposes” n thing. He knows what constitutes “usefullnes” to him. That is all he has to know-
YOu on the other hand seem to know what would be more “useful” and that means that you are under the obligation to define what “useful” is.
Well you cant, and I know that you cant because philosophers and economists have tried for centuries, it is one of the main problems of welfare theory.
One of the main functions of philosophy today is to examine ideas like “usefullness” on an abstract level and see where that leads us:
Here “Parfits” repugnant conclusion:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/repugnant-conclusion/
Very often it is not about “what you believe in” but the things that you take for granted when you believe in certain things. Those unquestioned beliefs can have very serious consequences when you try to form a society around them.
So I am not saying that you believe y when you say that you believe in x, I am saying that x presupposes a, b and c which will lead to y whether you intend that or not or whether you are even aware of it or not.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]Ryan P. McCarter wrote:
No, I think the fact that you’re sitting here stuttering over talking points means I’ve out-e-dueled you.
And to think, you almost got it yourself. Of course it comes from the taxpayer, but that was not your question. You asked whose money they were spending, to which I gave the obviously correct answer. You still cannot get past the ethical judgement. It may or may not be wrong to take the money, but it is their money nonetheless.
Regardless, the point is still irrelevant.[/quote]
No, even though the government took it, legally or illegally, it is still spending the taxpayer’s money. You have forgotten we live in a republic, I guess. You must think this is a monarchy or dictatorship.[/quote]
Actually in monarchies tax rebellions were quite common because the people were under no illusion that “we are all in this together”-
They were subjeczts and they knew it and acted accordingly.
Todays illusion of freedom is the problem.
Once they take it, it’s their money. Period. Whine and cry about the moral implications all you want, it doesn’t change the facts of the situation.