Reply to Re: blah
If you don't have an account, just leave the password field blank.
What I will dispute is your idea that you can *opt out* of public services. That's not possible.
Actually it's quite possible. However, I know what you mean. The word you should of used is "feasible", not "possible".
How would you opt out of national defence? Mercinaries? For every person? That's just not feasible. What about if there were two neighbooring buildings, and only one had paid for fire protection. Would the fire deparment have to look up, see that the fire protection was paid up, and then race over, and only save the people from the one building.[i]
If you left one and not the other then you'd risk the one that payed. This mean you'd have to save both to save the paying one. Also you could charge them for the service afterwards. Besides the government is best of saving them anyway, for reasons of self-interest, because the loss of productivity is not good for the economy, which is also bad for the government.
[i]Would every road be a toll road? Who would man the tolls?
Your taxes already pay for the roads so road cost would not go up at all.
Would you have to run your own power lines?
No they would be run by private providers (the power comapnies). That is hald done here in NZ.
Would you have to have a mound in the backyard, as you wouldn't have public sewers.
Admitedly that would have to be a free service, since the lack of that would be a bad thing for the government as well as those without it.
What about the media. There would be no more television, radio or any form of transmision, as the government body that controls the airways would be overrun by people that would set up their own transmision towers and they would just *opt out* of the national system.
No. The government could always own a TV station. There is no reason why governments cannot own businesses, as long as they are run by qualified people and operate on at least the intention of profit.
You like the enviroment? Well, it's gone now, as the agencies can't really stop anyone from strip mining that forest if the people doing so have opted out. You like the air? Oh, so sorry. How dare I make the air black with soot and ash after I opted out of those silly clean air acts.
Actually that sort of thing can be protected with laws and fines. Also the person who done it would have to pay court costs You can't opt out of those three.
If taxes were abolished, who would pay for the police? Would everyone have to start paying protection money?
Police aren't there for portection. That's the joint forces job. The police are there to arrest criminals.
Just think of the massive middle management that would be required to set up this ground level, only pay for what you use infrastructure. You would end up paying more than double than what you were paying before, and you wouldn't be getting half of it.
Wrong. since the government would be supplying less services their would be less middle management than you get now. And less services means lower fees. Besides the government could use any profit from businesses they own to improve the services. Besides the government could run those services as business, thus potentially make profit off them (while dropping the overall cost to us since we are paying for less services from them). That profit could be used to improve the services, hence making them better than they currently are.
Your ideas *might* work in a utopia but a utopia is
No they'd work in the real world. Well, depending on one condition that all systems depend: good management. Utopias cannot exist since every system will still have the odd flaw since humans are not perfect.
Remember, not everyone has your set of morals.<i/>
yes, well I know that. That is self-evident. This very discusiion illustrates that.
[i]And the people that actually do things usually have a much different set of ideas of what's right and what's wrong than the people who dream up utopias
I know that, as well. However, I would like to point out that I do not desire a utopia. I just desire an improvement on the way things are now.
Usually people who dream up utopias are people who have never had to work in a farm, or do any manual labor for little to no pay.
I worked at an lettuce farm for very little. in fact pretty much my whole life has been a struggle to survive. Admittedly not on the scale of that if some places of Africa, but by western standards my childhood was one of low money. In fact we could barely afford the neccesities and had to miss out on some of them a lot of the time. However, in the system I mentioned the measly wages my mom was getting would be enough to get the neccesities and more, because the equivalant of tax would be less.
Government is required, and so are taxes. Anyone that thinks otherwise is a hopeless, closeminded, fool.
Is that so? Well consider this:
As it is now most people don't get to use all of what their taxes are paying for. Either that or they get them all but not to the value of which they are using them. Instead their money goes to helping out others. However, they were never asked if tht was okay. Now I ask you this: is that fair? How is me paying for someone elses's hospital care neccessary? I was never asked if I approve. That is not only not fair, that's blatant theft.
I'll finish on one last sad note. and that is that that humanity's ever increasing reliance on socialism will result in this (quote from a post of mine from above):
In fact in the science fiction novel I am now writing earth is ruled in such a fashion. this happened because of a huge global collapse due to the world's ever growing socalism. This is because I believe that just like happened in Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged that will happen in real life. I've set that as happening about 2050 in my novel, though the real occurence may be any time, perhaps over 100 years later than that.
Oh, and of course when that happens, Objectivists like myself will say, "Ha! We told you so! Oh, and stop asking us for help! You got yourself into it, now get yourself out of it. Besides, we couldn't help you even if we wanted to."
Oh, and it's also covered in Terry Goodkind's Sword of truth series (books 2-9), especially in book six, Faith of the Fallen.
Actually it's quite possible. However, I know what you mean. The word you should of used is "feasible", not "possible".
How would you opt out of national defence? Mercinaries? For every person? That's just not feasible. What about if there were two neighbooring buildings, and only one had paid for fire protection. Would the fire deparment have to look up, see that the fire protection was paid up, and then race over, and only save the people from the one building.[i]
If you left one and not the other then you'd risk the one that payed. This mean you'd have to save both to save the paying one. Also you could charge them for the service afterwards. Besides the government is best of saving them anyway, for reasons of self-interest, because the loss of productivity is not good for the economy, which is also bad for the government.
[i]Would every road be a toll road? Who would man the tolls?
Your taxes already pay for the roads so road cost would not go up at all.
Would you have to run your own power lines?
No they would be run by private providers (the power comapnies). That is hald done here in NZ.
Would you have to have a mound in the backyard, as you wouldn't have public sewers.
Admitedly that would have to be a free service, since the lack of that would be a bad thing for the government as well as those without it.
What about the media. There would be no more television, radio or any form of transmision, as the government body that controls the airways would be overrun by people that would set up their own transmision towers and they would just *opt out* of the national system.
No. The government could always own a TV station. There is no reason why governments cannot own businesses, as long as they are run by qualified people and operate on at least the intention of profit.
You like the enviroment? Well, it's gone now, as the agencies can't really stop anyone from strip mining that forest if the people doing so have opted out. You like the air? Oh, so sorry. How dare I make the air black with soot and ash after I opted out of those silly clean air acts.
Actually that sort of thing can be protected with laws and fines. Also the person who done it would have to pay court costs You can't opt out of those three.
If taxes were abolished, who would pay for the police? Would everyone have to start paying protection money?
Police aren't there for portection. That's the joint forces job. The police are there to arrest criminals.
Just think of the massive middle management that would be required to set up this ground level, only pay for what you use infrastructure. You would end up paying more than double than what you were paying before, and you wouldn't be getting half of it.
Wrong. since the government would be supplying less services their would be less middle management than you get now. And less services means lower fees. Besides the government could use any profit from businesses they own to improve the services. Besides the government could run those services as business, thus potentially make profit off them (while dropping the overall cost to us since we are paying for less services from them). That profit could be used to improve the services, hence making them better than they currently are.
Your ideas *might* work in a utopia but a utopia is
No they'd work in the real world. Well, depending on one condition that all systems depend: good management. Utopias cannot exist since every system will still have the odd flaw since humans are not perfect.
Remember, not everyone has your set of morals.<i/>
yes, well I know that. That is self-evident. This very discusiion illustrates that.
[i]And the people that actually do things usually have a much different set of ideas of what's right and what's wrong than the people who dream up utopias
I know that, as well. However, I would like to point out that I do not desire a utopia. I just desire an improvement on the way things are now.
Usually people who dream up utopias are people who have never had to work in a farm, or do any manual labor for little to no pay.
I worked at an lettuce farm for very little. in fact pretty much my whole life has been a struggle to survive. Admittedly not on the scale of that if some places of Africa, but by western standards my childhood was one of low money. In fact we could barely afford the neccesities and had to miss out on some of them a lot of the time. However, in the system I mentioned the measly wages my mom was getting would be enough to get the neccesities and more, because the equivalant of tax would be less.
Government is required, and so are taxes. Anyone that thinks otherwise is a hopeless, closeminded, fool.
Is that so? Well consider this:
As it is now most people don't get to use all of what their taxes are paying for. Either that or they get them all but not to the value of which they are using them. Instead their money goes to helping out others. However, they were never asked if tht was okay. Now I ask you this: is that fair? How is me paying for someone elses's hospital care neccessary? I was never asked if I approve. That is not only not fair, that's blatant theft.
I'll finish on one last sad note. and that is that that humanity's ever increasing reliance on socialism will result in this (quote from a post of mine from above):
In fact in the science fiction novel I am now writing earth is ruled in such a fashion. this happened because of a huge global collapse due to the world's ever growing socalism. This is because I believe that just like happened in Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged that will happen in real life. I've set that as happening about 2050 in my novel, though the real occurence may be any time, perhaps over 100 years later than that.
Oh, and of course when that happens, Objectivists like myself will say, "Ha! We told you so! Oh, and stop asking us for help! You got yourself into it, now get yourself out of it. Besides, we couldn't help you even if we wanted to."
Oh, and it's also covered in Terry Goodkind's Sword of truth series (books 2-9), especially in book six, Faith of the Fallen.
