The problem isn't charging payment for goods and services, the problem is that you can't get them from anywhere else and you have no choice in the matter.
Go live in the woods then. Get off the grid if you don't like it.
If a guy gives me his computer, he can't realistically demand that I pay for the computer I didn't ask for and furthermore didn't need, simply because he gave it to me. The government takes a person's money and uses it to maintain roads, but (A) only a fraction of this money actually goes towards such things rather than, say, killing children in foreign countries with drones, and (B) these services are monopolized by the government and may very well be of poorer quality/quantity than what would otherwise exist.
I agree that our tax dollars are improperly managed in favor of guns as opposed to butter.
The thing is, there are many things you do ask for, do need, and do use. That is also true of the public. You expect these things and would be upset if they didn't exist. Hypothetically, someone else could provide them, but realistically, they're not, because they're public goods.
Generally speaking, you agree to certain terms with a landlord beforehand, and they won't demolish/remake the house, arbitrarily change the conditions, or demand you start buying x, y, and z products from the local grocery store.
And generally speaking, you agree to certain laws and regulations by living in an area, and by participating in the democratic process at multiple levels. If you don't like the way things are being managed, then take action.
But all the money that the government took could have gone to any number of other things.
Cost-benefit is still in your favor.
Just because they did provide people with roads, educations, etc with some of the money doesn't mean those things wouldn't exist, possibly in an even better state, had they not done so. By this vein of logic, an old Soviet citizen could argue that ending the old system wouldn't work because the shoe factories are owned by the government, therefore if it wasn't for the government there would be no shoes.
Just because a hypothetical entity could possibly do these things does not change the fact that these things exist, and that you are and will constantly benefit from these services.
Let me go back to your original quote:
I honestly do not give a single solitary fuck about HOW it gets done
Let me finish that quote for you.
The government just happens to be the most efficient; if someone can seriously propose a solution that will help at least the same number of those people who legitimately need help, provide at least the same amount of effective assistance to those people, get the help to them at least as quickly, and is at least as certain to accomplish these goals, I'll be all ears.
Since I don't need to go into detail about how murdering people is obviously harmful, my response to your straw argument is as follows:
What, mutual aid? It was a "system" in the late 19th to early 20th century in which poor people, especially with similar ethnic backgrounds or ideological views, pooled their money for certain things and helped each other out in bad times (and if you've ever been low on money, you know how annoying it is to be a few hundred bucks short of the bills because something broke at the wrong time). Since they had a fair amount of money when pooled, they tended to save costs by, for example, hiring a lodge doctor to treat members. Because no one involved wanted a few bums to increase costs by living off of the backs of the other members, they tended to have moral codes that members were required to follow, preventing abuse of the system. They furthermore often opened up hospitals and operated pseudo-insurance companies, though they charged in such a way as to benefit members of the societies first and foremost.
I'm asking you to explain how we take this idea and apply it to modern, current times.
...Yet after the industrial revolution, people tended to starve to death a lot less than before it, government intervention or not. Furthermore, almost all of the huge examples of mass starvation were either intention or unintentional attempts by the government to redistribute wealth. The fare of the poor American man in pre-New Deal America was leaps and bounds above that of a Ukrainian under Stalin, or just about anyone during the Great Leap Forward.
And his life after it was better than before it, too.
If you're talking about the same incident I'm thinking of, the primary issue was that the owners bought a loft rather than a factory to avoid the high costs and regulations that existed regarding factories of the time, since they were immigrants themselves and couldn't afford high costs. They worked in the same building themselves, and their own sister was one of the workers at the factory, so obviously they weren't simply cold-hearted monsters with no care for safety. The fire was tragic, but it was a function of New York City's ridiculous laws relating to land and zoning, the effects of which still exist today (hence why NYC rent is so high).
Chaining and locking the doors to the stairs shut was also part of the problem, and the guy went on to continue to do so even after the fire. And the whole thing about doors that were supposed to open outwards, too. Also, there's the whole "There was a strike to protest working conditions years before the fire" thing, too.
I'm (obviously) not saying they were evil people who deliberately went out of their way to make a firetrap, I'm saying that steps taken to improve efficiency lead to deaths.
The result of cronyism between the US government and a handful of well connected corporations. Cronyism is still very much alive and well, so I don't see what regulations did to stop it
Notice the general lack of food poisoning? And yeah, treating the symptoms instead of the disease can only do so much.
Those corporate monsters! How dare they sell hot coffee to innocent and unsuspecting customers! They should be required to sell coffee at room temperature!
Try to not selectively read what you want to knock down straw opponents. There is a difference between hot coffee and third-degree-burn inducing coffee.
Oh man, the financial market is so incredibly messed up by constant interventions by the Treasury and the Federal Reserve that I can't even take anyone seriously when they try to claim that it is even close to being "unregulated".
It's poorly regulated. Don't get me started on the Fed.
Which was confirmed by later studies to be, in fact, complete and utter nonsense. Unless you're referring to something other than the Ford Pinto.
Yeah, only 27 people died from those fires. And they did try to get around safety regulations, as well as punitive damages. Arguably, this is a case of setting foxes to watch the henhouse.
Most people don't benefit, because such safety nets are illusory and don't actually improve the lives of those they're supposed to.
Five internet bucks says you've never had to use them. Speaking as a person who had to, I can safely tell you the ability to eat food improved my life in noticeable manners.
At the end of the day, the "moral" person who lives within their means and tries to work hard to avoid burdening everyone else with their problems gains far less than the person who intentionally exploits the system for their own benefit. They furthermore create dependency on such systems, with all the problems that entails.
When the poor exploit the system, they're horrible. When the rich exploit the system, they're paragons of humanity.
Poll
7 (6.5%)
Author
Topic: Bay12 Election Night Watch Party (Read 837509 times)