Subject:
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Re: From Harry Browne
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Wed, 8 Nov 2000 11:04:34 GMT
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Viewed:
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642 times
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Oddly, I'm with both of you :-)
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Scott Arthur writes:
> It really comes down to what your life is about:
>
> 1. Being a part of society
>
> 2. Or the accumulation of personal wealth.
I don't think so. I think your life can be about many things, including both
of those. They are in no way mutually exclusive.
> > > Personally, I quite happy to be a member of
> > > society, and contribute to it passively and actively.
Great! I, for one, am truely glad that you've hooked up with a system that
makes you happy. Go ahead. We're not trying to change that.
> > So am I. And I think my contributions, allocated by me, are more effective
> > than yours, allocated by bureaucrats.
>
> More effective in reaching your goals, perhaps. As for those of greater
> society, I doubt it.
What are the goals of greater society? Who decides? It seems to me like the
fairest way to decide is to let things be free and see how the dollars
allocate. No one wants to horde money. Money isn't any good, except in the
way you can shape your environment with it. I want money so that I can do good
things with it, not for its own sake.
> > > I'm happy that around
> > > a third of what I earn ensures that the whole of the society I live in has
> > > access to education, health care, policing etc etc etc.
Once again, great! You may continue to give 1/3 of your salary to those
charaties in our system too. You do that, and I'll teach illiterate adults how
to read. I give time, you give money. We would be free to make that choice.
But in today's system, since I'm having over 40% of my pay stolen to fund such
charitable causes, I have to work more so that I have enough to pay down my
student/house/car debt, and thus don't have time (anymore) to help illiterate
adults. Bummer.
> > > The problem with
> > > your philosophy is that it assumes that people would continue to distribute
> > > their wealth,
Is it your suggestion, that people would just earna and earn and earn, and
never spend it? That is quite absurd. Of course the wealth would continually
flow through the economy...more than it does today. And everywhere it touches,
life would flourish.
> > > if their tax were to be reduced. I'm just to convinced that
> > > would be the case.
Then what would happen with their wealth?
> > 1. I've shown in the past why that it indeed would be the case that people
> > would give and give generously, and further, that the dollars contributed
> > voluntarily would be used more effectively than the ones extracted.
>
> "generously" - very vauge. In percentage terms, what does it mean to you?
I used to give about 20% of my income, but that was before my university debts
piled up...say around 1989. I give almost nothing now, but I will again. And
if I had the extra money, I'd give more.
And what exactly is your response to the assertion that these contributions
work more effectively? The cut that the federal bureaucracy takes is enormous.
> > 2. Are you saying, then, that because you're convinced that people should
> > fund these goods that your preferred mode of government provides, that you
> > are willing to see government extract those funds by force? Answer yes or
> > no, please, because that's what it comes down to.
Agreed. Unfortunately he didn't answer. This is the crux of why I align
pretty closely with the LP. Stealing is wrong wether it's a lone thug, or a
large high-tech well armed group of thugs who think they're taking the moral
high ground. Robbin Hood (the one in the stories) was a theif too.
> I believe we are morally obliged to support the society we live in.
I said at the top that I agreed with both of you. This is where. Scott, I
believe that we are morally obliged to support society too. But I have a few
points. How big is society? Who gets to decide? Support to what extent?
This moral responsibility that we have is insulted by forcing it. I am being
robbed of the opportunity to live up to my responsibility. I am being treated
like the child of the worst kind of parents. I am not being allowed to grow up
and prove myself. And regardless of each of our moral obligations, that
doesn't give us the right to steal from our fellows. That is not what
civilization is all about.
> > > This is because a lot of us a pretty selfish and only
> > > think of Number 1.
By thinking of what I want the world to be like for me, and then spending to
make it so...I am presumably fulfilling the desires of others too. We're all
human, we want the same basic things. I pass on public schooling, even though
I'm paying for it, and send my son to an expensive private school. That school
gives tuition scholarships to families with less income than ours. I'm paying
so that underpayed (maybe even lazy) people can send their kids to a better
school. And I'm doing so freely.
> > I claim that a society based on individual rights, in
> > which *everyone* acts in their own enlightened self interest, results in the
> > most justice and fairness for all. Again, plowed ground.
>
> I doubt it. Those at the lower end of society will be further marginalised.
Why? I think that Sugar Daddy Uncle Sam handing out pork and beans to these
people is what's keeping them down. I think that is clearly the case. When
children are raised with no expectations, they meet them. When children are
raised with high (up to a point) expectations, golly, they meet them. The
"lower end of society" needs higher expectations. And maybe they need some
guidance as to how to reenter society productively. But perpetual hand-out is
the worst possible thing we could be doing for them.
> > Restating, if you say people generally act in their self interest, I agree.
> > I see that as a good thing. If you mean to imply that acting in self
> > interest means that people never give to charity, always try to break all
> > laws, always try to cheat their fellows, and always act churlishly, I • disagree.
>
> It is the nature of man Larry. Like it or not.
No matter how many times you say this, reality will not bend. It appears,
quite clearly, that you are affirming all of Larry's absurd (and purposely so)
claims. Do you actually believe that the nature of Man is to "never give to
charity, always try to break all laws, always try to cheat their fellows, and
always act churlishly?" How sad for you to have such a view. I believe that
most people don't have the strength of conviction to always avoid those
behaviors, but for the most part, they don't describe people at all. We are
the opposite.
This might freak some of you out, but the reason I want to live in Libertopia,
is so that I can live in a commune unencumbered by our current system. To
disagree with Larry, communism does work as long as there is a way to inject
and eject members, as long as everyone there is there by choice, and maybe not
on a grand scale. Though, I've heard the claim that the hopi lived a large
communist society for a thousand years.
Chris
Chris.
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: From Harry Browne
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| Chris wrote:(with snippage) (...) how (...) You _are_ doing that (educating the illiterate). You are _paying_ to do it with your time at another job rather than doing it directly. Don't try to say you are _not_ doing it, because you are. It is just (...) (24 years ago, 8-Nov-00, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
| | | Re: From Harry Browne
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| (...) Yes, in retrospect, it is a little simplistic. (...) No. Things would be too reactive - cute puppies would get all the $$$. Ugly issues like Aids Research etc would be moved town the agenda. (...) That is your perspective, others will differ. (...) (24 years ago, 8-Nov-00, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: From Harry Browne
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| I'm not going to reply to most of this, as I doubt we'd ever really reach a consensus. It really comes down to what your life is about: 1. Being a part of society 2. Or the accumulation of personal wealth. If you with the best way to succeed in life (...) (24 years ago, 8-Nov-00, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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