So it seems that you are a McGuyver Elrond. That's great. But for everyone one of you there are twenty people who can't tie their shoe laces properly. Libertarianism wrongly assumes that individuals possess a high degree of competence.
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I love MacGyver (spell it right, this is important
) ). I set my TiVo to record it whenever it is on. Generally it is on some channel about once a day.
I do not believe libertarianism makes any assumptions about people not being able to tie their shoelaces properly. Other than that under a libertarian system they would be forced to actually do a better job of it and thus, many more people would be able to tie their shoe laces properly. The burden on society would be far less. Charity would be able to deal with it. Of course the transition to that would be very tough. Russia is dealing with that right now. It takes a lot to change a lifetime of non self-reliant mentality.
Don, I know people like you mean well. You have these ideals of everyone getting the same opportunities, everyone being equal. But you see your assumptions rest on one fallacious argument. That everyone is equal. Everyone is not equal. No person is in anyway equal to anyone else. Sure, the law should treat them equally, that I believe firmly. I also believe that every person should be judged as an individual.
Lets talk about your programs that equalize the playing field. Things like affirmative action (which is completely unconstitutional but as I demonstrated the constitution doesn’t matter anymore).
At my college I knew someone who filled out that they were African American on their application for admission. This person was in fact white and from South Africa. His family had lived in South Africa for 600 years. He moved here in his late teens and got US citizenship.
When this the administration figured out that he was white (it wasn’t until his junior year they threw him out of school. Luckily for him there were a lot of protests and legal challenges over this and they let him return. This person is very clearly an African American.
Generally when I bring up lines of discussion like this people scream and point at me “RACIST! RACIST!” which I certainly am not. I don’t give a crap what color someone’s skin is. All I care about is their ability. Every person is an individual who should be treated as such. No one should get special treatment under the government.
As far as your statements about the EPA goes they don’t address the issue as I see it. Making laws that protect the environment in general is certainly not against libertarian philosophy. A company spewing tons of toxic gas into the air is no different from me walking down the street in a local town smashing all the windows with a baseball bat. I doubt you can find a libertarian who thinks it’s ok to do that. I do however think the EPA is a bureaucratic nightmare whose laws could be greatly simplified. Most of them could easily be governed by the individual states, and other situations that are of greater scope than states should be administered by the congress and senate directly instead of pawning it off. I believe the same holds true for the other organizations I’ve listed as well as others I haven’t.
I really don’t think you comprehend what we have lost as a result of the behemoth federal government. For more than 100 years the United States did fine without any income tax at all. Then suddenly they decided they need one after all (at least they did it right by making a constitutional amendment). Just imagine how much more wealth there would be in America if all the income tax wasn’t flushed down the toilet. You can assume that it would have grown at the same rate as the non income tax money did. About 3% a year. Compound that over a century. The federal government would still be getting more money now that it is currently anyway from its old little taxes and the US would be much more wealthy and more technologically advanced.
Some taxes I agree with. I agree with Gasoline taxes because they predominately go to make roads. Sounds fine to me. If you want to drive then you automatically pay to maintain and build roads.
The IRS is nonsense. Forget the bit about income taxes in general being bad for the moment. The tax code is currently set up so that no human on earth actually knows what it is. Not the best accountant you can find. How can a law have meaning if no one can possibly know it? The tax code looks like the bible. Passages contradict one another. It’s bred an entire industry in our society that does nothing but drain it even more. Accountancy. It’s only needed because the tax code is so ridiculously complicated.
Every one of those organizations creates similar industries. Just think where’d we be if all that money were invested in something useful, or in circulation. Even it being squired away in banks would be more useful.
Anyway my whole rant has to do with how all these nice social programs, even though they might feel like good ideas, do dramatically more harm than good. Even if you think the ends justify the means the ends are nothing at all to be proud of.
People like me are not evil. We do care about others, but we want them to be able to stand on their own two feet. For what it’s worth I’ve worked (and plan to go back while I study) at a developmentally disabled center. Worked with people with severe mental disabilities. Many of them we manage to get to stand on their own two feet. To find jobs. To give them something to be proud of themselves. These are people with severe mental retardation and they still can do it. For other people there is just no excuse.
P.S. Forgive any lack of coherence, I’m sick as a dog currently with a temp of 103.4
Edited by eternaltraveler, 17 November 2010 - 10:26 PM.