[Capitalist_Eagle]

My question is very simple

If YOU support a particular program, why can't YOU pay for it and leave everyone else alone?

If YOU don't believe a company should be in for profits, why don't YOU start your own non-profit and leave everyone else alone?

If YOU don't believe a certain food is healthy, why don't YOU not eat it and leave everyone else alone?

I have no problem with anyone supporting a cause, getting together with friends and associates, financing it, and working for it, but I do have a problem when you use other peoples' money to do it.

It's so simple, too: why don't you just do it on your own and leave people who don't want to do it alone?

Believe in a "public option" non-profit? Go start your own organization, then.

[Social_Critic]

Well hoss, we could make a deal. You pay for the Department of Defense and the Space Station. I'll just keep my gun collection in case the Mexicans or Canadians decide to invade. And of course, you can eat anything you want, but please don't call the fire department to take you out of the tub because you're too fat to move. I like to have my tax dollars saved for useful stuff, like protecting squirrels.

[Capitalist_Eagle]

Sounds good. See, now we're getting somewhere.

[Fasces]

Why have states, or communities?

[Capitalist_Eagle]

States and communities are not the same thing, first of all.

And who said we shouldn't have communities? I am arguing for a community of voluntarily interacting individuals in a private market society, where they are free to make their own decisions to the extent that they do not violate the rights of others, and where there is no top-down dictatorial rule.

Communities organized from the top-down are not communities at all.

[Fasces]

Communities are never organized from the top-down. If a heirarchy exists, it is ultimately by consent, or apathy, of those at the bottom.

[Capitalist_Eagle]

Communities are built by the co-operation of free individuals. Nothing else can create a community.

[Fasces]

I agree. They are. And people, in order to retain membership in the community they have chosen, pay duties to it.

[Capitalist_Eagle]

Nonsense. An individual pays duties to those other individuals which render him a service; this is called payment in a free society, based on contract and voluntarism. Payment for membership assumes that this "collective" even has rightful ownership in the first place in order to demand payment. That is not how a free society works; a free society works based on private property, and the individual needs only to pay those who render him a service which he has voluntarily and individually agreed to receive.

Thus I need only to pay those who render me a service which I agree to: my bills, so to speak. You are not part of that equation and I owe you nothing, and that goes for most of the country.

[Fasces]

You agree to the bills associated with living in the United States, by virtue of your continued residence there. If I lived in an apartment would not the landlord be in his right to collect a rent? If I refused the rent, what would be my recourse? Wouldn't I have to leave the apartment? How can I continue to occupy the apartment and not pay rent?

[Social_Critic]

What about police and fire service? Public schools? The forest service? FBI? The TSA?

[Capitalist_Eagle]

Fasces, more nonsense.

The landlord in the case of an apartment legitimately owns the complex, for it is property, the fruit of labor, and can be owned.

The "nation" is not a piece of property. You assume the government owns all the land and is generous enough to "allow" me to live here; nonsense. The government does not own the land in the first place in order to be in the position to demand rent from me.

The "love it or leave it" argument assumes the government even has the moral authority to demand rent. It does not. It only has the threat of force.

Social Critic, what about those things?

I am not arguing that there is no legitimate function of government.
Fire service, specifically, is already 70% volunteer and 10+ % mostly volunteer, and is being outsourced to private according to the National Fire Association

Police service is primarily local and, in any case, is a legitimate function of government by virtue of upholding the law

Public schools are a failure. If we do keep them, we should get the Federal Government out at any rate

FBI is policing, which I addressed

TSA is nothing but a violation of rights.

[Fasces]

The "nation" is not a piece of property. You assume the government owns all the land and is generous enough to "allow" me to live here; nonsense. The government does not own the land in the first place in order to be in the position to demand rent from me.

The "love it or leave it" argument assumes the government even has the moral authority to demand rent. It does not. It only has the threat of force.

You seem to believe the government exists independently and prior to the establishment of a nation. It is the expression of the people's will. The government owns the territory of a state (though you are right that a nation is not a piece of property, it is a spiritual and social concept) through consent of those who owned it at the time that government was created.

How did the landlord first get that land, if I may ask?

[Capitalist_Eagle]

Government is not an "expression of the peoples' will", it is simply a mediating force which exists to uphold contracts and private property laws. That is, at least, its only moral duty.

Saying that it is an "expression of the peoples' will" assumes that government can or should satisfy the wants or needs of the masses, but this ignores the fact that government can only do this by first taking from some to give to others. Government does not exist to serve as a means to satisfying our infinite wishes or "taking care of us". It exists only to stop one man from bashing another on the top of the head.

Furthermore, government does not have any more right than an individual does. If an individual cannot force you to leave, neither can government.

[Fasces]

Saying that it is an "expression of the peoples' will" assumes that government can or should satisfy the wants or needs of the masses, but this ignores the fact that government can only do this by first taking from some to give to others. Government does not exist to serve as a means to satisfying our infinite wishes or "taking care of us". It exists only to stop one man from bashing another on the top of the head.

Government exists to serve only as the governed wish it to serve. If the majority of the governed want it to take care of them, it shall do so, and it shall have the right to do so. That you believe government is only a mediating force does not make that belief universal or true.

If an individual cannot force you to leave, neither can government.

So you do not believe in trespassing, and are a vanguard of squatters' rights, then?

Do not avoid my questions. Where did the landlord get his land?

[Social_Critic]

Well, I think the Supreme Court already ruled the government has the right of eminent domain, and of course if land isn't deeded to an individual, it belongs to the comune, so that's that. You got the land if we say you can have it. And if we say you can't, and you do have title, we can take it away and build a maccaroni factory on it. Sometimes the land isn't taken from somebody to give it to somebody else. Sometimes the land belongs to the comune. Government doesn't have rights, we individuals do. But the government does have the powers invested on it by the law and the constitution. And those powers do include the ability to take your land and give it to somebody else. Like I said, it's the Supreme Court saying so. Don't look at me.

[Capitalist_Eagle]

Of course the court of the state will rule in favor of the state. The argument "the law says so" is flat; a dictator could use such a flat justification for his actions.

Nobody has the right to rob another individual. Period. No matter what piece of paper says you do.

[Fasces]

Why am I not surprised you continue to ignore me? Still waiting for a response in the Healthcare Debate thread, unless you concede the contradiction.

[Social_Critic]

Well, if the Supreme Court says it, it's not robbery. I think you are stepping outside the realm of logic here. I happen to be a strict constitutionalist, so if the US Supreme Court says it's so, I tend to believe them. I do reserve the right to ask my representative to introduce a Constitutional Amendment, of course.

But I'm not sure where you are headed with all this talk, really. I feel like I'm in college debating over lunch trays.

Fasces, I think he ignores you because you look weird. It's the way you hold your mouth open all the time. I keep waiting for a really long tongue to come out and snare the fly.

[Pants-of-dog]

My question is very simple

If YOU support a particular program, why can't YOU pay for it and leave everyone else alone?

If YOU don't believe a company should be in for profits, why don't YOU start your own non-profit and leave everyone else alone?

If YOU don't believe a certain food is healthy, why don't YOU not eat it and leave everyone else alone?

I have no problem with anyone supporting a cause, getting together with friends and associates, financing it, and working for it, but I do have a problem when you use other peoples' money to do it.

It's so simple, too: why don't you just do it on your own and leave people who don't want to do it alone?

Believe in a "public option" non-profit? Go start your own organization, then.

Have you paid the government for developing the internet you use? No? Go start your own internet, then.