Yet the money for welfare is appropriated via a violation of individual rights. You can't protect rights by violating them. When rights are properly defined, there can be conflict between them.
Wait, what? Of course you can! We do it all the fucking time! If I try to kill you, and the cops shoot me, they just violated my right to life, but protected yours. Hey, protected your rights by violating mine! See also: the example I posted earlier, wherein the TV salesmen has to pay a fee for every TV he sells, in order to protect the rights of the rest of us to have clean water, air, and soil. See also: the banning of child labor. See also: every good government that has existed in the history of the world. For fuck's sake, I've already addressed this fucking retarded platitudinous assumption, which has no evidence whatsoever to back it up. You're a fundamentalist, just like Pat Robertson, the only difference is that there's a chance his god exists, unlike "unlimited inviolate individual rights."
There is no conflict between a government protecting its citizens from physical force, and refraining from redistributing their wealth. If the government pays people on the premise that they would somehow be destined to commit crime otherwise (a premise which is questionable, at best), it is effectively acting as a middleman for the crime they would have otherwise committed, and furthermore, by paying people with its citizens' money on the premise that those people would commit crime otherwise, it is putting its honest, law-abiding citizens in the position of extortion victims.
Yes, yes, yes, taxes are extortion, blah, blah, blah.
Taxes are a necessary evil. Without taxes, there is no government. There are certain things which the government decides to spend our money on. In this case, we can either spend $X on law enforcement, to punish people for committing crimes, or $Y on welfare, so that fewer people are placed in a position of desperation, and have to commit crime. To a certain point, $X will be greater than $Y. Where that point is is very, very debatable, but a small amount of money spent on welfare will make up for a much larger amount of money that would otherwise be spent on law enforcement. Now, I don't know about you, but I'd rather the government take less of my money, and spend it on helping people, rather than take more of my money, and spend it on hurting people. Then again, I haven't yet Seen the Light of Libertarianism. :roll:
A Libertarian is just a liberal who doesn't understand the concept of a collective action problem.
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HunterChemist with a heart of AuRegistered Userregular
edited September 2007
I plan on getting so drunk tomorrow that I will forget I actually have to work for a living.
Were you shot or stabbed today? Do you benefit from public education (and if you're living in the first-world, even if you and your children go to private schools, the answer is "yes")? Been on a road, lately? Sidewalk? Any house in your town had a fire put out in your lifetime? Do you use electricity, clean, running water, natural gas, and/or propane? Do you engage in commerce? Been invaded by a foreign power, lately? Hey, look, you're getting a bunch of benefits from "society." I'd say that maybe you owe them something in exchange for these benefits, because that's how things work in a capitalist society, isn't it? The exchange of goods and services, right? In this case, you're exchanging your goods--in the form of taxes--for the benefit of not having to live in Thunderdome, where, instead of being in prison, Bubba would be in charge, and your ass would be there for his pleasure.
There's no such thing as society, at least in the sense that you're talking about: when a bunch of people start acting in concert to pursue their own individual interests, they have not created some new, supernatural entity with rights and interests independent from, and greater than, those of the individuals involved.
Other than the "supernatural" part, yes, they have. This is fundamental to human civilization, and if you don't believe in it, I suggest you move somewhere where it doesn't exist. This, in general, involves being somewhere where there are no other people.
you're the kind of jackass who thinks he's taking the higher ground in an argument by going just so we're clear, can you specify what you mean by "is" for me please?
you're the kind of jackass who thinks he's taking the higher ground in an argument by going just so we're clear, can you specify what you mean by "is" for me please?
god
fucking asslicker
Because making sure you're debating over the same thing is for assholes?
I get to work tomorrow, it is great! Double time for doing nothing. On top of that, I am working overtime today so my next check will be major extra $$ for my Vegas trip. I love holiday pay.
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ZeroFillFeeling much better.A nice, green leaf.Registered Userregular
edited September 2007
the furries, they were everywhere, and oh god they got filler and veretas
I get to work tomorrow, it is great! Double time for doing nothing. On top of that, I am working overtime today so my next check will be major extra $$ for my Vegas trip. I love holiday pay.
you're going to be living up the hedonistic lifestyle in las vegas huh
I get to work tomorrow, it is great! Double time for doing nothing. On top of that, I am working overtime today so my next check will be major extra $$ for my Vegas trip. I love holiday pay.
you're going to be living up the hedonistic lifestyle in las Vegas huh
you hedonist you
I had to Google hedonist. O_o
I would also rather think of it in Freudian terms. I will venture to Vegas, where I will suppress my Superego and let my Id consume my every action for five glorious days. I will then place the constraints of morality back upon my weary soul for another year.
Next year is Barcelona. New gay hot spot of the world.
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labor day rules.
too bad i have to work.
Dear satan I wish for this or maybe some of this....oh and I'm a medium or a large.
Yes, yes, yes, taxes are extortion, blah, blah, blah.
Taxes are a necessary evil. Without taxes, there is no government. There are certain things which the government decides to spend our money on. In this case, we can either spend $X on law enforcement, to punish people for committing crimes, or $Y on welfare, so that fewer people are placed in a position of desperation, and have to commit crime. To a certain point, $X will be greater than $Y. Where that point is is very, very debatable, but a small amount of money spent on welfare will make up for a much larger amount of money that would otherwise be spent on law enforcement. Now, I don't know about you, but I'd rather the government take less of my money, and spend it on helping people, rather than take more of my money, and spend it on hurting people. Then again, I haven't yet Seen the Light of Libertarianism. :roll:
A Libertarian is just a liberal who doesn't understand the concept of a collective action problem.
Secret Satan 2013 Wishlist
Other than the "supernatural" part, yes, they have. This is fundamental to human civilization, and if you don't believe in it, I suggest you move somewhere where it doesn't exist. This, in general, involves being somewhere where there are no other people.
My sweet, untouched Miranda
And while the seagulls are crying
We fall but our souls are flying
What
The last thing I need right now is a lot of time to sit around and think, work would at least be a distraction for me.
EDIT: Or that explanation would work, I guess.
My sweet, untouched Miranda
And while the seagulls are crying
We fall but our souls are flying
I can understand it if you need the money, I guess.
I get paid for tomorrow and I don't even have to go in. I enjoy that way more.
Secret Satan 2013 Wishlist
I just wish I was working, is all.
My sweet, untouched Miranda
And while the seagulls are crying
We fall but our souls are flying
I just don't happen to be working.
Say what you want about that guy, he probably knows how to turn a mother out.
well you see
when you get more than one person together
you get a group of people
and when you get a very large group of people together
we call that a society
I hope I haven't gone too fast for you.
Tomorrow we'll learn how to count to ten!
And what sound a horsie makes!
asking us to define what a society is
everyone knows what a fucking society is
you're the kind of jackass who thinks he's taking the higher ground in an argument by going just so we're clear, can you specify what you mean by "is" for me please?
god
fucking asslicker
I mean yeah he was being pretty petty
but you're being a huge condescending asshole too, who just happened to completely oversimplify something that you really shouldn't
where's my column, jerusalem! am i going to have to suck it out of you again?
you forsook us in our hour of need
i spent today watching a bruce lee movie with ping-pong instead of kung fu, i firmly believe that it is time well-spent
they got filler and veretas
you're going to be living up the hedonistic lifestyle in las vegas huh
you hedonist you
and everything there will accommodate you and your decision to do so
I had to Google hedonist. O_o
I would also rather think of it in Freudian terms. I will venture to Vegas, where I will suppress my Superego and let my Id consume my every action for five glorious days. I will then place the constraints of morality back upon my weary soul for another year.
Next year is Barcelona. New gay hot spot of the world.
That's nothing more than a series of individual choices. It's not some other entity acting independent of that.