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I don't believe that there should be arbitrary limits on what government can and cannot do, with the possible exception of what is in the bill of rights (I would repeal the 2nd amendment).
Read the excellent book Nudge, written by Cass Sunstein, who worked in the Obama administration, and Nobel-prize winning economist Richard Thaler. It turns out that there are many things that government can do to make our lives better. The smoking rate and problems with second hand smoke have gone way down. Why? Thanks to government intervention. (unfortunately 'big tobacco' has struck back with the e-cigs).
1. Whom I can marry
2. How much my money I get to keep or give to my children
3. What I can do with my own body
4. How much I must sell my labor for and how much I must pay for certain goods and services
4. I must be responsible for other people's living expenses, child rearing, education and health care
5. What I can say or think
6. What kind of cloth or what kind of makeup I can wear
7. What I conduct my business even it doesn’t cause any harm to other people
What’s on your list?
(This post is entirely sarcastic)
You do realize that to many your sarcasm rings true to their desires?
How are you defining a government? Society can organize itself without some central authority barking out commands - a ruler or ruling group with permission to use force against peaceful people and disregard property rights...they essentially claim to own everything.
This is gibberish and makes no sense.
Quote:
You're also conflating the concept of property with the state itself. The reason we have the concept of property is to settle disputes. Without property rights, that's where it turns to violence. The state itself inherently violates property rights to exist, yet people claim that they need their property rights violated in order for their property to be protected...brilliant.
Property rights themselves only exist when you have a central authority to protect them. I think this is fairly obvious. You move somewhere into the middle of the jungle, you don't have any rights. Some bigger or stronger tribe walks by you and see's something they like you have, they will try to take it. That way, mankind was in a perpetual state of conflict.
It's really simple, no where in mother nature are there property rights. There is just what you're strong enough to take, and what you're strong enough to keep. Property rights are invented by governments to facilitate peace, harmony and economic development.
You owe so much to the government and society in, yet like a freeloader you shirk your responsibility.
Sarcasm aside, if you want government to do anything, literally anything that an individual citizen does not have the power/right to do, then you are signing a Faustian bargain.
Whenever the government does a thing the individual citizen cannot, that's tyranny. When you ask them to be tyrants, there's no coming back. You submit to tyranny and you encourage more of it.
This is not true at all. There are many countries in Europe where the government is not only democratic and respects human rights but provides for the people in the means of social safety nets etc.
And then there are a bunch of banana republic dictatorships in Africa where the government gives the people nothing - not even education. For the most, these dictatorships will leave you alone (unless you somehow run afoul of their operations). They won't even bother to tax you. But you will be dirt poor, at the mercy of your neighbors stealing and killing. Many countries in Africa are like this.
A lot of what you say are just empty platitudes. Conjured up by the ruling elite, the business elite of the USA, the oligarchy which is your government - to get poor, otherwise regular people to support their platform. I sometimes wonder why regular (non-slave owners) in the South went to war for the slaveowners. I can see how easily brainwahsed a subset of you are.
1. Whom I can marry
2. How much my money I get to keep or give to my children
3. What I can do with my own body
4. How much I must sell my labor for and how much I must pay for certain goods and services
4. I must be responsible for other people's living expenses, child rearing, education and health care
5. What I can say or think
6. What kind of cloth or what kind of makeup I can wear
7. What I conduct my business even it doesn’t cause any harm to other people
What’s on your list?
(This post is entirely sarcastic)
And by "the government" you mean the societies majority that elected those in government? Voted on these issues and then decided how they want society to behave?
A lot of times we as a society decide what we want regardless of independence, or facts, it's just what the majority wants to go on in the society they live in.
If my society votes in a representative that wants mandatory days off of work or one payer healthcare then they might get it in numbers. If the majority wants it then it usually happens. I can find a new place if I don't think I can bear it. I can try to vote against it. Other than that we are ruled by the majority of our society, not "THE GOVERNMENT."
And by "the government" you mean the societies majority that elected those in government? Voted on these issues and then decided how they want society to behave?
A lot of times we as a society decide what we want regardless of independence, or facts, it's just what the majority wants to go on in the society they live in.
If my society votes in a representative that wants mandatory days off of work or one payer healthcare then they might get it in numbers. If the majority wants it then it usually happens. I can find a new place if I don't think I can bear it. I can try to vote against it. Other than that we are ruled by the majority of our society, not "THE GOVERNMENT."
If the majority vote for slavery, you’d go along too?
The only thing I demand is for me to be responsible for me. I am not nor is my money responsible for others. Period. Fall on hard times? Not my problem.
Fine, I'll dumb it down a bit. A government is the person or group within a society that's allowed to boss people around and take their stuff. They don't play by the same "don't attack and don't steal" rules that everyone else plays by.
Examples: I can't take your money to fund a charity I want, but the state can. I can't stop you from possessing a plant I don't like, but the state can. I can't claim a monopoly on a certain service, outlaw competition, force the service on everyone and demand payment for it, but the state can.
Quote:
Property rights themselves only exist when you have a central authority to protect them. I think this is fairly obvious. You move somewhere into the middle of the jungle, you don't have any rights. Some bigger or stronger tribe walks by you and see's something they like you have, they will try to take it. That way, mankind was in a perpetual state of conflict.
It's really simple, no where in mother nature are there property rights. There is just what you're strong enough to take, and what you're strong enough to keep. Property rights are invented by governments to facilitate peace, harmony and economic development.
You owe so much to the government and society in, yet like a freeloader you shirk your responsibility.
So how do you explain homeowners shooting burglars, security stopping criminals in private institutions, a pedestrian taking down a guy who stole some lady's purse on the street and returning it to her, organizations like Threat Management Center in Detroit, a friend from Brazil's family having a gate with a guard to stop intruders, etc. ?
Also, rights are not invented by government. I'd laugh if that wasn't such a scary idea. Rights are philosophical moral/ethical statements, as in "it's morally wrong for anyone (gov't included) to stop you from doing X". I'm not big on the Constitution, but even the Bill of Rights is entirely about people's rights that must be protected from the government.
Rights also aren't guarantees of anything. "People have the right to free speech" is not saying "People will never be harmed for stating their opinions"...it's simply saying "Anyone who harms another person for stating their opinion is the one at fault".
Of course people's rights can be violated by bigger and stronger people. The U.S. is attacking weaker countries, but that doesn't mean the people in those countries suddenly have no rights just because they're being violated. Property rights, and human rights in general, apply to everyone - past, present, and future. Political borders don't matter one bit.
Last edited by T0103E; 11-24-2018 at 09:33 PM..
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