| sleepy jack |
01-26-2009 10:50 PM |
Quote:
Originally Posted by Wayfarer
(Post 585076)
i'm not saying it's true or untrue, i'm saying it's not necessarily true. perhaps if the US government ceased all taxation, it would turn out to be a huge mistake. i don't personally believe it would, but it's always a possibility. similarly it's at least feasible that in the right conditions a country could thrive without taxation.
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I don't think were in the right conditions at all; we're in two wars right now.
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i don't even know where to start with this one
1. the US does not need the military it has now
2. a state-funded military has no competition and thus prices are driven up
3. the state has proven to be inefficient at defending the people of the country, both on a small and a large scale
4. why do people seem to have it in their heads that the only thing holding back some awful sea of destruction is the state? this simply isn't true. there are plenty of examples of anarchist societies that functioned just as well as any American town these days, if not better
again, i'm not saying i advocate abolishing state-funded defense, all i'm saying is it's a bit naive to claim that a society couldn't function properly without a government stealing money from everyone, and not because i disagree with it on a moral level but simply because relatively peaceful anarchist societies have existed in the past.
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Anarchy doesn't tend to work on large scales; particularly in a country like US which, if it had no military or an incredibly down-sized military would be targeted since it's the world's only remaining superpower. In addition to that its bred into our political culture to pay taxes, etc. If, say, a Ron Paul government actually took over America the general populace would be freaking out over the lack of all the government funded programs they're use to it. You really can't just start over fresh in a society with a new form of government; some traces of the last one always linger. It's why democratic reform in Russia hasn't worked and why nation building is basically one of the worst ideas ever.
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or they could be hired, be it by individuals or communities or whatever. like i said, people aren't just going to settle for having no police. i don't know why people always seem to assume that without the government providing health care or police services or schools or what-have-you, they simply wouldn't exist. it's called supply and demand. a government is not absolutely 100% necessary for anything, some just prefer it.
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The American government doesn't provide health care now and a good deal of citizens (I don't know the exact percentage) don't have it. I don't want to get into my thoughts on economic rights because it's complex and requires a lot of explaining and diving into why it isn't Marxism but I believe a certain amount of welfare is necessary for every citizen to live up to the preamble of the constitution (the pursuit of happiness and all that.)
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yeah, though that might actually help get this recession moving along. all the Obama administration seems to want to do is get people to spend even more than they already do in an unfortunate attempt to revive Clinton's bubble economy of the '90s.
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This is just an observation but one of my favorite things about Clinton's presidency is how, depending on which side you're on, he was either great or the Republican congress was great. I remember prior to the recession Republicans were running around going "Greenspan gave us the economic prosperity of the nineties" and now these same people are saying Clinton set us up for failure in the nineties. Reverse the roles for the Democrats.
I also notice this with how they refer to Clinton. When he said something negative about Obama to keep on Hillary's good side the Republicans would quote it and be all "William Jefferson Clinton said that!" as opposed to saying Bill Clinton said that. The Democrats do the same thing when saying something negative about Bill Clinton. Extreme partisanship is so amusing. |
