How do you feel about next November?

[COOL_BREEZE2]

Meh, nothing I can't handle. I don't want to cause any conflict.

I find you've been kinda quite lately (at least a few weeks)...with the exception of a few times in between. Not like the ole AEF I looked forward to seeing. I've always liked seeing your posts altho I fun around at times. I hope you know that.

If something is bothering you PM me and we'll discuss it ok?

 

[All Else Failed]

I find you've been kinda quite lately (at least a few weeks)...with the exception of a few times in between. Not like the ole AEF I looked forward to seeing. I've always liked seeing your posts altho I fun around at times. I hope you know that.

If something is bothering you PM me and we'll discuss it ok?

Nothing is bothering me. I just get tired of arguing over the same things over and over again.

 

[LiberalVichy]

So? You get to live better now. Plus, I really don't think people would object their taxes going towards important research that will help them in the end.

By what criterion do I live better? Because my money was taken, or because it was spent by on something I didn't want? I mean, what do you think it would disappear if I had it? Ever consider I might have done something BETTER with it?
If people don't mind, why are they robbed under threat of imprisonment (and, by implication, death) in order to obtain this money? If they want research so much, why aren't they willing to fund it.
Also, government corrupts research and scientists just as it corrupts everything else, soon reality and service aren't the standards, government pull is.

 

[Peter Parka]

Produced with resources which were taken from people who actually produced them and thus diverted from where people would actually desire to put those resources. Also, it's an economic fact that the government cannot produce a Pareto-superior condition, it can only DECREASE wealth since - by definition - it took resources and put them into places that the actual creators and consumers of that wealth did not desire them (or else taxation wouldn't be necessary!).
All those services the government 'provides' were provided at cost to myself and others by services forgone and are typically 'provided' by the government because competition is forbidden or extremely restricted.

You are really failing to see the bigger picture here. As an example, take the Australian railway system.Before it was a national thing each state had different track gauges which meant you would have to swap systems every time you crossed state lines. Now imagine if it was down to individuals to produce railway lines without any co operation with anyone else, transport by train would be impossible.

 

[LiberalVichy]

You are really failing to see the bigger picture here. As an example, take the Australian railway system.Before it was a national thing each state had different track gauges which meant you would have to swap systems every time you crossed state lines. Now imagine if it was down to individuals to produce railway lines without any co operation with anyone else, transport by train would be impossible.

Yeah, because people like making freight transport as expensive as possible. Profit-minimization is the norm. Jesus christ.

 

[All Else Failed]

By what criterion do I live better? Because my money was taken, or because it was spent by on something I didn't want? I mean, what do you think it would disappear if I had it? Ever consider I might have done something BETTER with it?
If people don't mind, why are they robbed under threat of imprisonment (and, by implication, death) in order to obtain this money? If they want research so much, why aren't they willing to fund it.
Also, government corrupts research and scientists just as it corrupts everything else, soon reality and service aren't the standards, government pull is.

Well, you're not dying of a vast number of diseases that were prevalent before now. You're life expectancy is long, you have clean water, electricity, transportation, cloths, a job, the internet....

I do think, however, that how and where taxes are spent should be more transparent. Not just "take them and spend them any way you like". A perfect example is our over funded military. Our military budget needs to be drastically reduced.


I'm sure people would be throwing money at research programs that were going to make their well being and every day life better if given the chance.

 

[Peter Parka]

Yeah, because people like making freight transport as expensive as possible. Profit-minimization is the norm. Jesus christ.

Erm, you still need a form of government to achieve anything with it.:unsure:

 

[COOL_BREEZE2]

Nothing is bothering me. I just get tired of arguing over the same things over and over again.

Ok. I guess we all have our times.

Keep cool AEF.

 

[LiberalVichy]

All Else Failed: No government = more wealth directed towards things people want, faster accumulation of capital which = more wealth to do things you want with. The idea that we'd be 'better off' having it stolen and spent for us (with a healthy chunk for bureacrats and the like) is literal nonsense.

Peter: That's begging the question. You're simply asserting what you allege to prove.

 

[Peter Parka]

Peter: That's begging the question. You're simply asserting what you allege to prove.

:horse Erm...no!

You are really failing to see the bigger picture here. As an example, take the Australian railway system.Before it was a national thing each state had different track gauges which meant you would have to swap systems every time you crossed state lines. Now imagine if it was down to individuals to produce railway lines without any co operation with anyone else, transport by train would be impossible.

 

[All Else Failed]

All Else Failed: No government = more wealth directed towards things people want, faster accumulation of capital which = more wealth to do things you want with. The idea that we'd be 'better off' having it stolen and spent for us (with a healthy chunk for bureacrats and the like) is literal nonsense.

Peter: That's begging the question. You're simply asserting what you allege to prove.

Without a government how will you decide on a single currency? Because you KNOW several groups of people will eventually develop their own little economic systems. So when you want to build that hospital, you'll have several different kinds of currency coming together that will conflict and not add up.

Hell, some people might develop some sort of bartering system. Do your contractors accept goats and sea shells?

 

[LiberalVichy]

Currency will be whatever is valued as a medium of exchange. Gold is a pretty uniform currency, and existed for millenia without any IMF-Fed nonsense.
Anyways, I'm done debating specifics. If you understand the basic economic framework you realise that all this is just the same question phrased 10,000 different ways. Government doesn't work. It can't.
I don't have to know how everything will actually turn out, or what specific organizations will exist, any more than I have to understand a GM plant to buy a car or know that the free market is better at providing them than the Soviet command economy.

 

[Peter Parka]

So you keep saying. I've yet to hear anything to back this up with. All you've done is drone on about the government being a mafia and stealing without specifically offering anything about how your system could work.

 

[All Else Failed]

Currency will be whatever is valued as a medium of exchange. Gold is a pretty uniform currency, and existed for millenia without any IMF-Fed nonsense.
Anyways, I'm done debating specifics. If you understand the basic economic framework you realise that all this is just the same question phrased 10,000 different ways. Government doesn't work. It can't.
I don't have to know how everything will actually turn out, or what specific organizations will exist, any more than I have to understand a GM plant to buy a car or know that the free market is better at providing them than the Soviet command economy.

which could be numerous things of differing value.



"I don't have to know how everything will actually turn out, or what specific organizations will exist"

But see, you do if you're going to claim to be a believer in a diametrically opposed system of running things. Thats the thing I always get from anarchists, they'll have a very broad idea of how things should be, ie "no government" and so on, but when you get into the important details their ideas quickly dissolve. At one point or another, forms of government will evolve with in your anarchist idea of an society. its just how groups of people work. Its an evolutionary trait to divide and conquer, to gather and plan, to organize and label.

 

[LiberalVichy]

I have plenty of specific ideas of how things might work, and I have a perfectly clear vision on how to delianate criminal and non-criminal action as well as determining proportionality for infringement. Furthermore, evolutionary trait or not, voluntary cooperation works better and this 'divide-and-conquer' bullshit with its imaginary group-think just gets a lot of people killed so a few thugs can benefit.

Also, it's fruitless and virtually impossible to discuss political economy with a person who doesn't have the first idea of political theory or economics. Your lack of erudition in the subject precludes detailed discussion, and I am not your professor. There is nothing wrong with being ignorant of these things, which are specialized disciplines, but you have no more grounds for objecting to my refusal on this basis than you would a mathematician who doesn't wish to argue calculus with someone who can't do basic algebra. You don't know enough for meaningful discussion at the level required for you to understand what you want to know.

 

[Peter Parka]

My my, someone's getting very snotty nosed about people shes only talked to in one session here, think you should come down from your soap box before you get a nose bleed and stop being so condesending. If it wasnt for government you so clearly detest, you wouldn't have this medium of the internet to air your views anyway. I agree with AEF, you are a complete hypocrite.

 

[All Else Failed]

I have plenty of specific ideas of how things might work, and I have a perfectly clear vision on how to delianate criminal and non-criminal action as well as determining proportionality for infringement. Furthermore, evolutionary trait or not, voluntary cooperation works better and this 'divide-and-conquer' bullshit with its imaginary group-think just gets a lot of people killed so a few thugs can benefit.

Also, it's fruitless and virtually impossible to discuss political economy with a person who doesn't have the first idea of political theory or economics. Your lack of erudition in the subject precludes detailed discussion, and I am not your professor. There is nothing wrong with being ignorant of these things, which are specialized disciplines, but you have no more grounds for objecting to my refusal on this basis than you would a mathematician who doesn't wish to argue calculus with someone who can't do basic algebra. You don't know enough for meaningful discussion at the level required for you to understand what you want to know.

Its fruitless to discuss political economy with a person who thinks a system that has been proven to be inefficient and incapable of existing with large groups of people to be a good idea.

Face it. You'll never see an anarchist society. People will always develop forms governments.


The first moment a group realizes that if they organize, and develop a system of government (crude or otherwise relatively complex) that will get things done better, is the moment governments will form. Once one government forms, other groups will have to form governments to compete with other ones etc etc etc.

 

[LiberalVichy]

You're welcome to think what you like, but that doesn't in the least refute what I said. The level I'd need to start at in order for you to even dismiss my ideas is far below the level of discussion we're having; fundamental disagreements in premises do not allow for further discussion and I don't have the slightest interest in dealing with your premises or my own.

 

[All Else Failed]

I accept your defeat and apology.

 

[Peter Parka]

Wrong, AEF and myself have refuted everything you said, AEF probably better put than myself. All your response has been is the same old argument that the government is robbing us. No one's saying they arnt in some way but your alternative is not a viable option and you have provided no proof that it is.