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Originally Posted by Raistlin
About the contract tax: That is only ONE possible example. Even so, if the gas companies form a monopoly agreeing not to pay the tax and to raise prices, that leaves the door wide open for another company to form willing to pay the tax and offer lower prices - which would force the others to lower prices, etc. Competition wins out in a free market.
Again, not always. Screwing competition rules is a rational behavior.
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At least you're admitting that this sort of thing violates freedom.
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Yes, it has been that way in the past - but always by choice. We don't go along with freedom for a while, then the next generation is born with genes that promote dictatorships. You choose to follow freedom, or you don't - I'm merely showing why you should.
So let's take... hmm, the Civil War. Assuming it was mostly about slavery, the Union's intents were good. However, doing so heavily trampled the right to live of the Confederationists. I mean, people from Atlanta certainly deserved to see their city burnt to the ground? I don't think so. So, whose freedom goes first? The slaves' or the slave owners'? Anyway, after that time of war, were the people suddenly craving for dictatorship? Was Grant a dictator?
Let's take French history, it's even funnier. after the 1789 revolution, which was a movement trying to restore freedom to the people. People were craving/fighting for freedom. Result: two terrors and Bonaparte.
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Not at all. Have you no concept of people doing anything for any reason other than their being forced to?
Altruism, yes. But altruism is irrational. It means you value someone else's well being equal or above to yours to some aspects, which would mean you don't value your own life as much as you should.
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I may have befriended my neighbor, I may like his dog, or I may just like looking at his house or garden; whatever my reasons, I must choose to help him(or choose not to), or else freedom is ripped apart. Freedom and force are contradictions - they are mutually exclusive.
See, pure altruism, however as idealistic as your world of logic (pure egoism?), would mean that people don't feel it like an infringement of their freedom. Different axioms, different conclusions.
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You're saying that the "ends justify the means."
No. Not in that absolutist black & white vision of the world you have. What I am saying is that individuals sometimes, thinking about themselves, don't achieve as good an individual situation as they could, because there are limits to our capacity to reason (you should read Herbert Simon, it's really interesting), and that at times, a form of central action is necessary. Public lighting is such an example.
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But if so, where does that end? Murder is justified, as long as it clears the way for public property;
Where did I say that?
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slavery is justified if those enslaved fight for the country(how do you feel about drafts? If you disagree with them, you contradict yourself);
See above. For the record, I disagree with both, because I value human life (not just mine) above private property.
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theft is justified if it is done for the "public good."
Not always. It's highly contextual, you see.
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What is the public? Is it everybody within a specific area? But not everybody uses a new road, or a new bridge. Then what is it? Is it some undefinable, intangible body over the individuals? If you can't define the term, how does the phrase "public good" even have any meaning? "This is done for JKSGDUF398DSFS!#." Does that make any more or less sense?
The "public", I guess, could be defined as the opposite of the individual. Again, it's contextual. The army defense benefits to everyone in the country, the national guard to the state, the county police to the county... The public, accoring to the dictionary, is "The community or the people as a whole.", and obviously, the community is relative to the interests at hand, liken hospital concerns people around a certain area, street lighting concerns people in some part of the city.
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The "public" is merely a collection of individuals. Check the "needs of the masses vs. the needs of the individual" in EoEO - that thread supports pretty much everything I've said here. If the public is merely a collection of individuals, then the "good of the public" must be in the best interest of every individual. The only common interest every individual has is freedom.
His own freedom.
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Therefore, logically, the only moral purpose for the government is to ensure freedom for everybody - by the exclusion of the initiation of force from human relationships. The logical conclusion of freedom is that no person has the right to initiate the use of force - this includes the government. Only retalitory force(self-defense, throwing someone in jail) is acceptable.
So it's okay to preserve your freedom at the expense of someone else's?
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Force and freedom are opposites. Once a government legalizes the initation of force to seize private property by subjective whim(for the good of the undefinable "public") or to steal private income by equally subjective whim, it loses any right to proclaim freedom - it becomes a dictatorship. Such was evolution of Soviet Russia and other communist nations.
See, what's nice about the street lighting example is that if you put a computer in charge of looking at the overall situation assuming every citizen in the concerned area is rational, it would conclude that a form of coercion is necessary.
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If the government was limited back to its only moral purpose - to protect individual rights, then it wouldn't need all this looted money from the people, and could go without income tax entirely - if necessary, resorting to other means of fund-raising(other means of taxation not based on income, charities, etc.).
Maybe in a perfect world it would work, yes.
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Also, those areas bereft of public funds, may even benefit from privitization.
Some most likely would, yes. I'm glad the phone public monopoly is gone here. However, I fear the day the public post offices are gone (for regular letters, not for package shipping).
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Privitization encourages competition, and competition encourages development - in a free nation. Such is the sound principle of capitalism.
Assuming some of the actors don't try too hard to get out of competitive capitalism. I mean, look at the patent system. That's something I see as quite smurfed up and anti-innovative today. But at the same time, no patent will make it hard to see innovation, since you wouldn't be assured that you would reap the fruits of your labor. And look at M$.
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Note that in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the degree of freedom of a country was proportional to its economic, industrial, and technological growth. The United States, by far the freest, achieved the most.
I beg to differ about the 19th century. UK and France were doing pretty good, yet relied heavily on colonies. It was immoral, but it worked.
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Now, ever since the introduction of the welfare state, the degree of freedom is lowering, and the US is losing its standing as the industrial powerhouse. Not to say that the US is not the freest country(which it is) or probably still the leading economic, technological, and industrial nation(which it probably is in every respect) - but that it doesn't have such a huge lead anymore. With public education, public welfare, public social security - things are stagnating. This is no coincidence.
Err, and maybe it is also the effect of capitalism, you know, that the other countries are catching up with you? Is that a bad thing?
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Freedom and force cannot coexist. I cannot go up to my neighbor, take out a gun, and demand he hand over his income or his property; why can the government do so to me? When a government claims a right on the life of every person in it, it turns from a free government to a dictatorship - ruler by force. There can be no compromise where freedom - the right to your life - is concerned.
Because in 1791, the Congress proposed and argued about it, and made the decision that it would be best to "promote the general Welfare", I suppose. When we have time machines, I'll make a mental note to go ask them.
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Ah well. I'm leaving for the weekend. This'll be my last post in this thread. If you still don't understand this, I can't say anything else. I laid it all down right there, with its choices: good or evil, freedom or force, the individual or the imaginary "public," development or stagnation, individual achievement or mass-slavery, a government serving the people("by the people, of the people, for the people" - Abraham Lincoln), or a people serving the government(as in Nazi Germany). Those are the only choices.
I disagree. I don't see the world in black and white. I see shades of gray. There is no pure "good" and pure "evil". No matter how hard you try to twist it to fit your view, it's still subjective. Protecting your freedom will inevitably require you to use force. In fact, any functioning legal system will rely to a greater or a lesser extent on force.
Even if it was only defensive, how is that not a case of "the end (protecting my property/freedom) justifies the means (killing/maiming/jailing the offender)"? In fact, I'm starting to think your philosophy is nothing more than that, the end (your life) justifying the means (your actions).
