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 Off-Topic / Debate / 19746
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Subject: 
Re: Just Teasing, I Have No Intention of Debating Any of This...
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.off-topic.debate
Date: 
Mon, 24 Mar 2003 15:24:57 GMT
Viewed: 
863 times
  
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Christopher L. Weeks writes:
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Dave Schuler writes:

Would you prefer that the Federal Government taxes you, or would
you rather be robbed with impugnity by a crooked stockbroker who
didn't let you see the prospectus?

While I agree with the trend of your note as a whole -- times have never been
perfect and nostalgia is often silly, This one point seems weird.

I would rather that people have the ability to trick me losing my money than
to take it from me at gunpoint.  Isn't that how everyone would answer?

  I presume you're talking about the government in the latter case, but can
you rephrase that without the "at gunpoint" phrase?  There's no initiation
of force involved; it's simple enforcement of social contract.  You may
disagree with the contract, but until you exit from it, you are subject to it.

And there is something to be said for the notion of going back to a simpler
government with the knowledge that we have gained since those times and adding
on the needed layers of complexity with purpose rather than as a series of ad
hoc measures.

  Okay, but who gets to decide which measures are necessary and which are not?

     Dave!



Message has 2 Replies:
  Re: Just Teasing, I Have No Intention of Debating Any of This...
 
(...) False. Contracts are things agreed to by both parties. I was never given a choice to reject taxes and the attendant benefits. I am no more _morally_ bound by this "social contract" than were the Africans enslaved in the south through their (...) (21 years ago, 24-Mar-03, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
  Re: Just Teasing, I Have No Intention of Debating Any of This...
 
(...) How does one exit? What if the contract was abrogated by one side (the side with the big guns)? (21 years ago, 24-Mar-03, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Message is in Reply To:
  Re: Just Teasing, I Have No Intention of Debating Any of This...
 
(...) While I agree with the trend of your note as a whole -- times have never been perfect and nostalgia is often silly, This one point seems weird. I would rather that people have the ability to trick me losing my money than to take it from me at (...) (21 years ago, 24-Mar-03, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

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