"Freedom" thread or something

You know, Geoff, you could save lives yourself if it is really that sacred to you. You could train to be a doctor, fireman, police officer or even a lifeguard. The fact that you don't shows that implicitly you value your own liberty to live your life as you see fit over the lives of others.If someone forced you to become a doctor against your will, you would resent it, not think "my, what an enlightened, moral society I live in."

But it's easy to deprive others of their liberty without thinking of your own.

thellama73 wrote: You know, Geoff, you could save lives yourself if it is really that sacred to you. You could train to be a doctor, fireman, police officer or even a lifeguard. The fact that you don't shows that implicitly you value your own liberty to live your life as you see fit over the lives of others.If someone forced you to become a doctor against your will, you would resent it, not think "my, what an enlightened, moral society I live in." But it's easy to deprive others of their liberty without thinking of your own.

Here's where you're wrong.  How free am I to do this, really, when it will result in me becoming a slave for life to debt?

I grew up in a relatively poor household.  My father drove trucks for Frito Lay - later on when I was in college, he was laid off and lived on unemployment for a while, and got a Microsoft certification so he could change careers.  Point being - I grew up thinking to myself "I don't want to live life like this.  I don't want my kids to wear hand me downs their whole life.  I want a career where I'll make good wages."  I had an interest in computers, and had always been good at math and logic (people usually choose careers based on what they're good at, after all, don't they?), so I went to school to study computer science.  When I graduated, I found out that no one would hire you in the computer programming field unless you had 5 years of experience.  So I racked up more debt as I floundered around in Bush's awful economy (keep in mind at this point I was a Republican, and would argue with people about how great Bush really was).  Now I have soul crushing college (and other) debt that will likely haunt me for the next thirty years or so, yay.

I'd love to be doing something else.  Honestly, I would love to have a job that had more meaning.  I honestly don't see a way of getting out of my current career choice and still taking care of my family, though.  But that doesn't mean I'm not thinking it could happen, eventually.  I have some ideas.  But I realize that it's going to be a marathon, not a sprint.

dtguitarfan wrote: thellama73 wrote: You know, Geoff, you could save lives yourself if it is really that sacred to you. You could train to be a doctor, fireman, police officer or even a lifeguard. The fact that you don't shows that implicitly you value your own liberty to live your life as you see fit over the lives of others.If someone forced you to become a doctor against your will, you would resent it, not think "my, what an enlightened, moral society I live in." But it's easy to deprive others of their liberty without thinking of your own. Here's where you're wrong.  How free am I to do this, really, when it will result in me becoming a slave for life to debt? I grew up in a relatively poor household.  My father drove trucks for Frito Lay - later on when I was in college, he was laid off and lived on unemployment for a while, and got a Microsoft certification so he could change careers.  Point being - I grew up thinking to myself "I don't want to live life like this.  I don't want my kids to wear hand me downs their whole life.  I want a career where I'll make good wages."  I had an interest in computers, and had always been good at math and logic (people usually choose careers based on what they're good at, after all, don't they?), so I went to school to study computer science.  When I graduated, I found out that no one would hire you in the computer programming field unless you had 5 years of experience.  So I racked up more debt as I floundered around in Bush's awful economy (keep in mind at this point I was a Republican, and would argue with people about how great Bush really was).  Now I have soul crushing college (and other) debt that will likely haunt me for the next thirty years or so, yay. I'd love to be doing something else.  Honestly, I would love to have a job that had more meaning.  I honestly don't see a way of getting out of my current career choice and still taking care of my family, though.  But that doesn't mean I'm not thinking it could happen, eventually.  I have some ideas.  But I realize that it's going to be a marathon, not a sprint.

You can't become a lifeguard on the weekends without becoming a slave to debt?

Maybe we should pay taxes to Great Britain, France, and Rome since without them, there would be no USA. 

Epignosis wrote: Maybe we should pay taxes to Great Britain, France, and Rome since without them, there would be no USA.

And they should be paying taxes to Germany where the neanderthal guy roamed around... Any let's not go back all the way to the origins of that slacker... 

dtguitarfan wrote: Epignosis wrote: dtguitarfan wrote: You live in a society.  You benefit from living in this society.  And you did not build this society.  Therefore, you owe a debt to society.  You use a website.  You benefit from using this website.  And you did not build this website.  Therefore, you owe a debt to this website. That's a non sequitur.  Prog Archives is welcome to start charging for its use, and I will simply stop using it.  Living in a society and using a website are two different things.

You still haven't demonstrated that living in a society incurs a debt on my part.  That's why your syllogism is invalid.  People could very well live among one another and not owe a debt to anybody.  Furthermore, "society" does not mean the US government, which is exactly what you are implying.  As I said, if there were no Great Britain, France, or Rome, there would be no USA.  Should we be paying those countries in taxes?  Why or why not?

But let's say you are right.

United States law entitles a debtor to a written validation of debt.  Since this debt is clearly monetary, I would like to know how much I owe and when this debt originated.  To what address do I submit my written request for debt validation?

In other words, you saying I owe some (again) nebulous entity that you cannot define does not make it true. 

I don't live in PA so no. 

I'm curious about the things you "make" your kids do, Geoff. If they refuse your demands, do you imprison them? Do you beat them? Or do you simply revoke certain benefits you were not obligated to give them in the first place, ergo a capitalist exchange? If they only do chores out of fear of punishment, how is that an act of love?

Oh I completely understand that poor people who get free money from others don't think it's wrong, but what other people think has no effect on what I think unless they can make a persuasive argument.

I have never seen any distinction between an individual taking someone else's money for his own purposes and the government doing so, the government being nothing more than a large collection of individuals, and have never heard any convincing reason why the two things are different, morally speaking.

Ambient Hurricanes wrote: A question for the other libertarians here: would you prefer a government that had a social safety net with welfare, healthcare coverage, etc., but was funded entirely by donations, or a government that imposed taxation but had low tax rates and used the money only for the enforcement of the non-agression principle?

The former wouldn't be a government.  It'd be a charity.