A health care question...

Easy Money wrote: RR tracks have been overseen by the government since this country came out of its dark ages.

Equality 7-2521 wrote: And seriously, the "Defense" budget is more of a "Imperialism and Occupation" budget.

I'm not a big fan of the Department of War, myself.

I wonder just how many tanks or unmanned drones we could not build to actually make our education in this country not suck big d**ks....

Easy Money wrote: Equality 7-2521 wrote: Easy Money wrote: RR tracks have been overseen by the government since this country came out of its dark ages. I should have used were that's correct. When was the dark age exactly and what made it dark? Oh I don't know, maybe slavery, mass buffalo slaughter and no voting rights for women or the Irish to name a few. All part of a utopian heaven where the dollar bill reigns supreme and humans can be traded like cattle.

No, I think they are all very related. I think slavery is a good example of what happens when materialism is the supreme law of the land as you have proposed by saying he with the most money will decide.

Easy Money wrote: No, I think they are all very related. I think slavery is a good example of what happens when materialism is the supreme law of the land as you have proposed by saying he with the most money will decide.

Equality 7-2521 wrote: thellama73 wrote: A true Libertarian government has never been tried, not because it is unworkable, but because the lust for power is too great. America was awfully close in it's early years, but various congresses and presidents let the authority go to their heads and started behaving like they knew how to run things better than anyone else. Human nature, I'm afraid. That doesn't mean we can't keep fighting for it, though. This exactly. Governments accumulate power no matter what their form. Even ours which was so carefully constrained by the Constitution has done little to stop such accumulation; it has only been slowed. People lust for power.  Its the same reason dictatorships don't work. Theoretically there's nothing to say a dictatorship should be any worse than any other form of government. The problem is that it has no mechanisms to stop this flaw of human nature.

that last part is a bit extreme and more importantly not quite correct: the problem with dictatorships is that they're dictatorships, not that they suffer the same 'flaw of human nature' that other systems have--  in other words the fact that a dictatorship has power issues is an incomplete assessment of the failures of Totalatarianism that excludes little things like what is required to maintain that kind of control.

also, if a Libertarian government would fail in this same way, why bother "fighting for it" ?  Wouldn't it just suffer the same fate as what we currently have?

I don't think any of us are advocating a system where the rich decide what rights the poor shall have. That's why we a mix between a democracy (in which everyone gets an equal say) and an ironclad set of rules that apply to everyone equally (that no special interest group, no matter how rich, can overrule.) Our point has been about individual liberty, not to advocate some sort of aristocracy system.

Edited by thellama73 - March 31 2010 at 22:10

Atavachron wrote: Equality 7-2521 wrote: thellama73 wrote: A true Libertarian government has never been tried, not because it is unworkable, but because the lust for power is too great. America was awfully close in it's early years, but various congresses and presidents let the authority go to their heads and started behaving like they knew how to run things better than anyone else. Human nature, I'm afraid. That doesn't mean we can't keep fighting for it, though. This exactly. Governments accumulate power no matter what their form. Even ours which was so carefully constrained by the Constitution has done little to stop such accumulation; it has only been slowed. People lust for power.  Its the same reason dictatorships don't work. Theoretically there's nothing to say a dictatorship should be any worse than any other form of government. The problem is that it has no mechanisms to stop this flaw of human nature. that last part is a bit extreme and more importantly not quite correct: the problem with dictatorships is that they're dictatorships, not that they suffer the same 'flaw of human nature' that other systems have--  in other words the fact that a dictatorship has power issues is an incomplete assessment of the failures of Totalatarianism that excludes little things like what is required to maintain that kind of control. also, if a Libertarian government would fail in this same way, why bother "fighting for it" ?  Wouldn't it just suffer the same fate as what we currently have?

Easy Money wrote: Equality 7-2521 wrote: Easy Money wrote: No, I think they are all very related. I think slavery is a good example of what happens when materialism is the supreme law of the land as you have proposed by saying he with the most money will decide. Private ownership of roads has nothing to do with materialism. What kind of straw man argument are you trying to build? The man with the most money will be deciding a lot more things for us than just where the roads will go. Why wouldn't he?

thellama73 wrote: Equality 7-2521 wrote: What's incorrect about it? Say we theoretically had a dictator who was incorruptible and continuously reformed his will to that of the majority of those over whom he ruled. This would be indistinguishable from a Democracy.  Your second point is a silly argument. That's like saying you're going to die anyway so why bother to move out of the path of a falling boulder.  I have always maintained that the most effective form of government would be a benevolent dictatorship. The problem is that there is no way to prevent a dictator from ceasing to be benevolent once he is in power. No sir, I don't like it.