Go live in the woods then. Get off the grid if you don't like it.
A state of some sort claims to "own" just about everything. I'd still be under it's control even if I was a completely independent mountain man. Besides that, the state has no legitimate claim to the things it has, it should get lost instead.
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.
Someone else could provide them, and indeed there was a time when someone else
did provide them. They weren't public goods until the state stepped in and took over, generally in such a way as to run things more poorly than they were beforehand. If Starbucks was the only coffee business allowed to exist, and other coffee shops were closed down by force, it would hardly be "unappreciative" to dislike being forced to get your coffee from then or else having to go without.
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.
I don't recall ever agreeing to anything with the state. The fact that I get to break ties on utterly irrelevant issues between two dirtbags on incredibly rare occasions doesn't count for much.
Cost-benefit is still in your favor.
They spend the money taken from people who may very well have valid uses that go towards, say, increasing capital production, and spend it on things that could be done by other people better and for less cost. The cost-benefit is very much not in my favour, unless I'm a Goldman Sachs banker, a military contractor, a high level bureaucrat or a politician.
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.
So what if I benefit from these services, I didn't ask for them to be provided by the heavy hand of the state and the fact that the state provides them at all crowds out more productive services that otherwise would exist.
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:
Robbing people is harmful too, but when the state does it it isn't called "robbery". You can think up a better word for it if you prefer or even simply replace it with "imprisonment" or "seizing 99% of their assets", it really doesn't matter.
I'm asking you to explain how we take this idea and apply it to modern, current times.
...The only reason it doesn't exist in modern times is because the state regulated the services it provided to the point where it was unfeasible to continue running. Part of this was because major insurance companies, healthcare providers, etc didn't like the competition, and part of it was because the government thought that people in mutual aid associations were a bunch of villainous Communists. In the absence of state intervention in these areas, it would likely still exist.
And his life after it was better than before it, too.
Any given American's life was better in Year X + Y than in Year X, generally speaking. That's because, even in a "mixed economy", technological progress can generally at least partially overcome whatever idiotic barriers the government creates. It's worth mentioning that the New Deal didn't work very well, though, seeing as how the Depression was significantly longer than any other economic recession in American history and only really ended after the Second World War.
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.
On that particular incident it's actually debatable whether the doors were locked or not, since apparently the policy was changed that day and the doors were unlocked, but the workers assumed that they were. Anyhow, the fact of the matter is still that the working environment was unsafe because the owners wanted to increase efficiency by running things in a "loft" rather than a "factory" because of the extra regulatory costs of running a "factory", so it still comes back to NYC's building codes.
Notice the general lack of food poisoning? And yeah, treating the symptoms instead of the disease can only do so much.
Sure, that can generally be ascribed to improvements in food treatment that occurred over the course of the 20th century, especially improvements in refrigeration. In this particular case, though, the food wasn't unsanitary because the meat packers tended towards being unsanitary, it was unsanitary because the meat packers were politically connected and could get away with it (and, indeed, they mostly did). Later FDA regulation, from then on until this day, had less to do with "protecting consumers" and more to do with "protecting gigantic pharmaceutical/food production corporations".
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.
Ugh, arguing about the "Hot Coffee!" warning on coffee cups is going to go nowhere, so I'm gonna drop this one.
It's poorly regulated. Don't get me started on the Fed.
It's "poorly regulated" in the sense that the regulators and the regulated are basically one and the same, and the banks are immune to any and all consequences thanks to support from the relevant Federal agencies, but none of those problems will be solved by "more regulations" unless you plan on nationalizing the banks and completely reforming the financial system.
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.
Did you even read the study provided? It was about as dangerous as any other car of similar design from the same period.
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.
Oh, buddy, you don't even know. A "safety net" is all well and good until the day you realize that you can buy less and less shit with the money you get while the lazy motherfucker that intentionally looks for ways to get more (by, say, having a whole bunch of kids they won't properly take care of) is doing better, and you realize that you really aren't getting a great deal because you're basically being paid a little bit to shut up about all of the ways in which you're being screwed over. Plus, there comes a point when it becomes unfeasible financially to even keep such programs running, and then what happens to the people stuck on them?
When the poor exploit the system, they're horrible. When the rich exploit the system, they're paragons of humanity.
Well no, the rich created the system in the first place, and they benefit quite a bit more in the long run. Welfare systems are just convenient ways to keep the poor in line while they get screwed over in hidden ways.
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