ManusJustus said:
No, in a free country you can decide wether you want those services or not. You think you're on on the side of 'free' but that is actually not the case. And thats not to mention numerous services that, using your logic, are forced on us by our government everyday. Maybe I dont want to pay for road construction, maybe I dont want to pay for military funding, but I am forced to do so and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. I see that this hypocrisy was already mentioned and you responded that with "the government protects, not provides." I find it disheartening that you refuse to see the error in your logic. Not only can protect and provide be used simultaneously for the many services the government provides, but the government can also protect people by providing healthcare and education. I know I would like to be protected against cancer just as much as I want to be protected from Al Quieda. And what about services that have nothing to do with protection, such as the road system. Anybody with knowledge of economics knows that the government has to provide most of the road system since is it uneconomical for private companies to do so. Or I guess the government is protecting my low-rider from dirt roads that I would otherwise use... |
Yeah, there are all kinds of services that fall into this category that you could not call "protecting." I mean, hell, the government has always run one of the largest businesses in the country, the U.S. Postal Service. I don't think you can call that protection.
And you could even call these regulatory reforms a form of "protection." Mafoo's argument pretty much falls apart when you look at the substance of it. It assumes that everyone benefits equally from the money the government spends on protection, which is not true. Rich people benefit the most from police protection and national security protection because they have the most assets that would be vulnerable if the government was destabilized. There really is no such thing as a "fair tax" even if you charge everyone the same thing. Someone always benefits more than someone else.
You can even say the same thing about stupid people who burn their houses down all the time and who require extra police protection because of their own stupidity.
We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers…Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls. The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. –Raoul Duke
It is hard to shed anything but crocodile tears over White House speechwriter Patrick Buchanan's tragic analysis of the Nixon debacle. "It's like Sisyphus," he said. "We rolled the rock all the way up the mountain...and it rolled right back down on us...." Neither Sisyphus nor the commander of the Light Brigade nor Pat Buchanan had the time or any real inclination to question what they were doing...a martyr, to the bitter end, to a "flawed" cause and a narrow, atavistic concept of conservative politics that has done more damage to itself and the country in less than six years than its liberal enemies could have done in two or three decades. -Hunter S. Thompson
