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 11:47:34 GMT
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Viewed:
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583 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Christopher L. Weeks writes:
> 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.
Yes, in retrospect, it is a little simplistic.
>
>
> > > > 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. Things would be too reactive - cute puppies would get all the $$$. Ugly
issues like Aids Research etc would be moved town the agenda.
> 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.
That is your perspective, others will differ.
>
> > > > 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
I don'y view them as charities.
> in our system too. You do that, and I'll teach illiterate adults how
> to read.
Why not do both? What happens to your cause if you get run over by a bus?
> 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.
So who is doing it now? Were you trained to do it any way?
>
> > > > 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?
Some do. Others only spend on themselves.
> 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.
If the question is - Should earners be obliged to support the the society
they live in - the answer is yes. If the fail to pay, should the money be
sequestrated? Again yes.
> 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?
Society.
> 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,
me me me me me me me. I want everyone to be happy. I don't want them to be
happy in my way, but the their way.
> 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.
You sound like you'd rather not?
>
> > > 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.
sounds like survival of the fitest.
>
> > > 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.
All this reminded me of one of Louis Theroux Weird Weekends
What to you make of these guys, heroes or villians:
http://weirdweekends.bravotv.com/episodes/head_hills/clip_nwo_items_lofi.html
More weird weekends:
http://weirdweekends.bravotv.com/
This one is still funny:
http://weirdweekends.bravotv.com/episodes/nationalists/clip_beethoven.html
Scott A
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: From Harry Browne
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| Oddly, I'm with both of you :-) (...) 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. (...) Great! I, for one, am truely glad that you've hooked up with a system that (...) (24 years ago, 8-Nov-00, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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