On December 12 2011 09:11 BobTheBuilder1377 wrote: [quote] Yeah, the same guy who defended our freedoms from the National Defense Authorization Act that takes away our 4th amendment rights. youtube.com/watch?v=aUHh1iqe43w&feature=relmfu Also, he use to help people for free as a doctor... youtube.com/watch?v=6Dzsfn7m63E So, I have no idea what BS you are talking about.
Watch this :
In this video, Rand Paul declares with a straight face that saying that people have a right to healthcare is equivalent to "believing in slavery". I'm pretty sure that qualifies as BS. He purposively paints a completely deceptive image of a right to healthcare in order to argue that doctors would then be slaves at the disposition of patients. Last time I checked there is something in the Bill of Rights called the "right to counsel", do you consider lawyers to be slaves or will you admit he was spouting BS?
If someone has a right to healthcare, therefore another individual has to provide it no matter if they object or not. Therefore, any right derived from the actions of another individual constitutes slavery. If everyone said no to provide to you this right, how is it a right? And if it is a right, then force is compelled to make these non-compliant individuals to provide you with it. If every material good is a right everyone is compelled to satiate this right with their labor, time, and property. How again is this not slavery? No one has the obligation to provide another individual with any such good or service. You only have rights to life, liberty, and property (self-ownership and the just products derived from such ownership).
Now, there is a difference between chattel slavery and the slavery of say any Socialist State. One is so-called public, and one is private in nature. However, there really is no meaningful difference to those individuals on the other end. Why is healthcare a right, and not a TV? Why not transportation? Why not the internet? On what basis do you derive these 'rights' to goods and services? Are you to have a right of food and shelter? Who is to provide to you this right which you by nature you are endowed? Having a right to anothers labor, property, and time is slavery any way you dice it.
Besides the fact that like Rand Paul you seem to have some difficulty understanding the definition of "slavery", you are with your argument guilty of a fallacy/strawman: the right to healthcare that Sanders evokes would not be opposable to other individuals but to the State - just like the right to counsel or the right to a civil trial by jury that appear in the US Bill of Rights (again, do you consider lawyers to be slaves?). The state wouldn't force any single individual to treat patients, it would provide financial retribution to those individuals willing to treat them (if you don't understand how this works, read this).
Where does the State get its money? The State is a giant farm, and we are its subjugates. If I say no to taxation, I am either kidnapped and put in a cage called jail, or, if I resist the State from taking my property, I am killed. How am I not a slave to the State? I have no choice whether to give my property to the State or not. The State is the antithesis of liberty, and therefore by definition I am a slave to the State. Sure, it says I have a few 'rights' inside their farm, but I am not free. I am still a slave. If the plantation owner gave to his slaves a bit more rights than we enjoy today, he would still be a slave, because he is not a freeman or woman. I think Lysander Spooner put it best:
In truth, in the case of individuals, their actual voting is not to be taken as proof of consent, even for the time being. On the contrary, it is to be considered that, without his consent having ever been asked, a man finds himself environed by a government that he cannot resist; a government that forces him to pay money, render service, and forego the exercise of many of his natural rights, under peril of weighty punishments. He sees, too, that other men practise this tyranny over him by the use of the ballot. He sees further that, if he will but use the ballot himself, he has some chance of relieving himself from this tyranny of others, by subjecting them to his own. In short, he finds himself, without his consent, so situated that, if he use the ballot, he may become a master; if he does not use it, he must become a slave. And he has no other alternative than these two. In self-defence, he attempts the former. His case is analogous to that of a man who has been forced into battle, where he must either kill others, or be killed himself. Because, to save his own life in battle, a man attempts to take the lives of his opponents, it is not to be inferred that the battle is one of his own choosing. Neither in contests with the ballot -- which is a mere substitute for a bullet -- because, as his only chance of self-preservation, a man uses a ballot, is it to be inferred that the contest is one into which he voluntarily entered; that he voluntarily set up all his own natural rights, as a stake against those of others, to be lost or won by the mere power of numbers. On the contrary, it is to be considered that, in an exigency, into which he had been forced by others, and in which no other means of self-defence offered, he, as a matter of necessity, used the only one that was left to him.
or
A man is none the less a slave because he is allowed to choose a new master once in a term of years.
or perhaps
But this theory of our government is wholly different from the practical fact. The fact is that the government, like a highwayman, says to a man: 'Your money, or your life.' And many, if not most, taxes are paid under the compulsion of that threat. The government does not, indeed, waylay a man in a lonely place, spring upon him from the roadside, and, holding a pistol to his head, proceed to rifle his pockets. But the robbery is none the less a robbery on that account; and it is far more dastardly and shameful. The highwayman takes solely upon himself the responsibility, danger, and crime of his own act. He does not pretend that he has any rightful claim to your money, or that he intends to use it for your own benefit. He does not pretend to be anything but a robber. He has not acquired impudence enough to profess to be merely a 'protector,' and that he takes men's money against their will, merely to enable him to 'protect' those infatuated travellers, who feel perfectly able to protect themselves, or do not appreciate his peculiar system of protection. He is too sensible a man to make such professions as these. Furthermore, having taken your money, he leaves you, as you wish him to do. He does not persist in following you on the road, against your will; assuming to be your rightful 'sovereign,' on account of the 'protection' he affords you. He does not keep 'protecting' you, by commanding you to bow down and serve him; by requiring you to do this, and forbidding you to do that; by robbing you of more money as often as he finds it for his interest or pleasure to do so; and by branding you as a rebel, a traitor, and an enemy to your country, and shooting you down without mercy, if you dispute his authority, or resist his demands. He is too much of a gentleman to be guilty of such impostures, and insults, and villanies as these. In short, he does not, in addition to robbing you, attempt to make you either his dupe or his slave.
Without the state you have no rights that can not be taken away at a whim by anyone who would hold more power then you do.
Not true. Even if it was, you are saying the State is my owner because he is more powerful than I am, and therefore dictates to me what acceptable behavior parameters I can have. You have just agreed with me that I am a slave to the State who is the master and owner of all of my property and self. He can tell me what I can do and can't do, how much property I can or can't own, and what I can voice and not voice. Rights are natural, unalienable, and as self-evident as man acts. No one has the authority to take from me my natural liberties and rights. Sure, they may do so at the barrel of a gun, but it is neither acceptable, or moral to do so. Just as a robber takes my property without my consent, the State does, but neither act makes it right, acceptable, or moral.
I still hold you have yet to prove your premise. I further hold that the State is merely an artificial construct which can at any time be torn down and replaced as Etienne La Boetie posited in the 16th Century:
Resolve to serve no more, and you are at once freed. I do not ask that you place hands upon the tyrant to topple him over, but simply that you support him no longer; then you will behold him, like a great Colossus whose pedestal has been pulled away, fall of his own weight and break into pieces.
“It is incredible how as soon as a people become subject, it promptly falls into such complete forgetfulness of its freedom that it can hardly be roused to the point of regaining it, obeying so easily and willingly that one is led to say that this people has not so much lost its liberty as won its enslavement.”
I say the states are a necessary evil that arise out mans natural tendency to band together to protect themselves from outside threat. These bands of people create a system of governance which essentially creates a small scale state where individual liberties are sometimes imposed on for what is felt like the greater good. This happens on the scale of tribal groups to city-states to full scale nations.
Well, Franz Oppenheimer and Albert Jay Nock disagree about the genesis of the State. I tend to agree with them.
Unlike Locke and others, Oppenheimer rejected the idea of the "social contract" and contributed to the "conquest theory" of the state:
"The State, completely in its genesis, essentially and almost completely during the first stages of its existence, is a social institution, forced by a victorious group of men on a defeated group, with the sole purpose of regulating the dominion of the victorious group over the vanquished, and securing itself against revolt from within and attacks from abroad. Teleologically, this dominion had no other purpose than the economic exploitation of the vanquished by the victors." "No primitive state known to history originated in any other manner. [1] Wherever a reliable tradition reports otherwise, either it concerns the amalgamation of two fully developed primitive states into one body of more complete organisation, or else it is an adaptation to men of the fable of the sheep which made a bear their king in order to be protected against the wolf. But even in this latter case, the form and content of the State became precisely the same as in those states where nothing intervened, and which became immediately 'wolf states'." (p. 15)
History backs this up, as does as any simple thought process.
To say that a state is created when one group conquers another is to ignore the fact that the group is operating as a state before it's conquers anyone. At some point, people have to come together for the mutual good or towns and cities would have never developed in the first place. Of course, I feel you may argue that towns were only formed as a result of the conquest of others and as a means to keep them contained.
In this video, Rand Paul declares with a straight face that saying that people have a right to healthcare is equivalent to "believing in slavery". I'm pretty sure that qualifies as BS. He purposively paints a completely deceptive image of a right to healthcare in order to argue that doctors would then be slaves at the disposition of patients. Last time I checked there is something in the Bill of Rights called the "right to counsel", do you consider lawyers to be slaves or will you admit he was spouting BS?
If someone has a right to healthcare, therefore another individual has to provide it no matter if they object or not. Therefore, any right derived from the actions of another individual constitutes slavery. If everyone said no to provide to you this right, how is it a right? And if it is a right, then force is compelled to make these non-compliant individuals to provide you with it. If every material good is a right everyone is compelled to satiate this right with their labor, time, and property. How again is this not slavery? No one has the obligation to provide another individual with any such good or service. You only have rights to life, liberty, and property (self-ownership and the just products derived from such ownership).
Now, there is a difference between chattel slavery and the slavery of say any Socialist State. One is so-called public, and one is private in nature. However, there really is no meaningful difference to those individuals on the other end. Why is healthcare a right, and not a TV? Why not transportation? Why not the internet? On what basis do you derive these 'rights' to goods and services? Are you to have a right of food and shelter? Who is to provide to you this right which you by nature you are endowed? Having a right to anothers labor, property, and time is slavery any way you dice it.
Besides the fact that like Rand Paul you seem to have some difficulty understanding the definition of "slavery", you are with your argument guilty of a fallacy/strawman: the right to healthcare that Sanders evokes would not be opposable to other individuals but to the State - just like the right to counsel or the right to a civil trial by jury that appear in the US Bill of Rights (again, do you consider lawyers to be slaves?). The state wouldn't force any single individual to treat patients, it would provide financial retribution to those individuals willing to treat them (if you don't understand how this works, read this).
Where does the State get its money? The State is a giant farm, and we are its subjugates. If I say no to taxation, I am either kidnapped and put in a cage called jail, or, if I resist the State from taking my property, I am killed. How am I not a slave to the State? I have no choice whether to give my property to the State or not. The State is the antithesis of liberty, and therefore by definition I am a slave to the State. Sure, it says I have a few 'rights' inside their farm, but I am not free. I am still a slave. If the plantation owner gave to his slaves a bit more rights than we enjoy today, he would still be a slave, because he is not a freeman or woman. I think Lysander Spooner put it best:
In truth, in the case of individuals, their actual voting is not to be taken as proof of consent, even for the time being. On the contrary, it is to be considered that, without his consent having ever been asked, a man finds himself environed by a government that he cannot resist; a government that forces him to pay money, render service, and forego the exercise of many of his natural rights, under peril of weighty punishments. He sees, too, that other men practise this tyranny over him by the use of the ballot. He sees further that, if he will but use the ballot himself, he has some chance of relieving himself from this tyranny of others, by subjecting them to his own. In short, he finds himself, without his consent, so situated that, if he use the ballot, he may become a master; if he does not use it, he must become a slave. And he has no other alternative than these two. In self-defence, he attempts the former. His case is analogous to that of a man who has been forced into battle, where he must either kill others, or be killed himself. Because, to save his own life in battle, a man attempts to take the lives of his opponents, it is not to be inferred that the battle is one of his own choosing. Neither in contests with the ballot -- which is a mere substitute for a bullet -- because, as his only chance of self-preservation, a man uses a ballot, is it to be inferred that the contest is one into which he voluntarily entered; that he voluntarily set up all his own natural rights, as a stake against those of others, to be lost or won by the mere power of numbers. On the contrary, it is to be considered that, in an exigency, into which he had been forced by others, and in which no other means of self-defence offered, he, as a matter of necessity, used the only one that was left to him.
or
A man is none the less a slave because he is allowed to choose a new master once in a term of years.
or perhaps
But this theory of our government is wholly different from the practical fact. The fact is that the government, like a highwayman, says to a man: 'Your money, or your life.' And many, if not most, taxes are paid under the compulsion of that threat. The government does not, indeed, waylay a man in a lonely place, spring upon him from the roadside, and, holding a pistol to his head, proceed to rifle his pockets. But the robbery is none the less a robbery on that account; and it is far more dastardly and shameful. The highwayman takes solely upon himself the responsibility, danger, and crime of his own act. He does not pretend that he has any rightful claim to your money, or that he intends to use it for your own benefit. He does not pretend to be anything but a robber. He has not acquired impudence enough to profess to be merely a 'protector,' and that he takes men's money against their will, merely to enable him to 'protect' those infatuated travellers, who feel perfectly able to protect themselves, or do not appreciate his peculiar system of protection. He is too sensible a man to make such professions as these. Furthermore, having taken your money, he leaves you, as you wish him to do. He does not persist in following you on the road, against your will; assuming to be your rightful 'sovereign,' on account of the 'protection' he affords you. He does not keep 'protecting' you, by commanding you to bow down and serve him; by requiring you to do this, and forbidding you to do that; by robbing you of more money as often as he finds it for his interest or pleasure to do so; and by branding you as a rebel, a traitor, and an enemy to your country, and shooting you down without mercy, if you dispute his authority, or resist his demands. He is too much of a gentleman to be guilty of such impostures, and insults, and villanies as these. In short, he does not, in addition to robbing you, attempt to make you either his dupe or his slave.
Without the state you have no rights that can not be taken away at a whim by anyone who would hold more power then you do.
Not true. Even if it was, you are saying the State is my owner because he is more powerful than I am, and therefore dictates to me what acceptable behavior parameters I can have. You have just agreed with me that I am a slave to the State who is the master and owner of all of my property and self. He can tell me what I can do and can't do, how much property I can or can't own, and what I can voice and not voice. Rights are natural, unalienable, and as self-evident as man acts. No one has the authority to take from me my natural liberties and rights. Sure, they may do so at the barrel of a gun, but it is neither acceptable, or moral to do so. Just as a robber takes my property without my consent, the State does, but neither act makes it right, acceptable, or moral.
I still hold you have yet to prove your premise. I further hold that the State is merely an artificial construct which can at any time be torn down and replaced as Etienne La Boetie posited in the 16th Century:
Resolve to serve no more, and you are at once freed. I do not ask that you place hands upon the tyrant to topple him over, but simply that you support him no longer; then you will behold him, like a great Colossus whose pedestal has been pulled away, fall of his own weight and break into pieces.
“It is incredible how as soon as a people become subject, it promptly falls into such complete forgetfulness of its freedom that it can hardly be roused to the point of regaining it, obeying so easily and willingly that one is led to say that this people has not so much lost its liberty as won its enslavement.”
I say the states are a necessary evil that arise out mans natural tendency to band together to protect themselves from outside threat. These bands of people create a system of governance which essentially creates a small scale state where individual liberties are sometimes imposed on for what is felt like the greater good. This happens on the scale of tribal groups to city-states to full scale nations.
Well, Franz Oppenheimer and Albert Jay Nock disagree about the genesis of the State. I tend to agree with them.
Unlike Locke and others, Oppenheimer rejected the idea of the "social contract" and contributed to the "conquest theory" of the state:
"The State, completely in its genesis, essentially and almost completely during the first stages of its existence, is a social institution, forced by a victorious group of men on a defeated group, with the sole purpose of regulating the dominion of the victorious group over the vanquished, and securing itself against revolt from within and attacks from abroad. Teleologically, this dominion had no other purpose than the economic exploitation of the vanquished by the victors." "No primitive state known to history originated in any other manner. [1] Wherever a reliable tradition reports otherwise, either it concerns the amalgamation of two fully developed primitive states into one body of more complete organisation, or else it is an adaptation to men of the fable of the sheep which made a bear their king in order to be protected against the wolf. But even in this latter case, the form and content of the State became precisely the same as in those states where nothing intervened, and which became immediately 'wolf states'." (p. 15)
History backs this up, as does as any simple thought process.
So, you're an anarchist. What are you doing in this topic?
You didn't know? I've seen this guy around before and know his MO. Sorry to derail the topic, but I was feeling a little frisky. I guess I'll leave it be.
Really, it's just hard to tell these days. Libertarians (and people on the far left) often talk in the same language as this guy. They just don't take it as far. It's good to discuss though, because it puts other views from this topic from other posters in perspective.
On December 12 2011 09:11 BobTheBuilder1377 wrote: [quote] Yeah, the same guy who defended our freedoms from the National Defense Authorization Act that takes away our 4th amendment rights. youtube.com/watch?v=aUHh1iqe43w&feature=relmfu Also, he use to help people for free as a doctor... youtube.com/watch?v=6Dzsfn7m63E So, I have no idea what BS you are talking about.
In this video, Rand Paul declares with a straight face that saying that people have a right to healthcare is equivalent to "believing in slavery". I'm pretty sure that qualifies as BS. He purposively paints a completely deceptive image of a right to healthcare in order to argue that doctors would then be slaves at the disposition of patients. Last time I checked there is something in the Bill of Rights called the "right to counsel", do you consider lawyers to be slaves or will you admit he was spouting BS?
If someone has a right to healthcare, therefore another individual has to provide it no matter if they object or not. Therefore, any right derived from the actions of another individual constitutes slavery. If everyone said no to provide to you this right, how is it a right? And if it is a right, then force is compelled to make these non-compliant individuals to provide you with it. If every material good is a right everyone is compelled to satiate this right with their labor, time, and property. How again is this not slavery? No one has the obligation to provide another individual with any such good or service. You only have rights to life, liberty, and property (self-ownership and the just products derived from such ownership).
Now, there is a difference between chattel slavery and the slavery of say any Socialist State. One is so-called public, and one is private in nature. However, there really is no meaningful difference to those individuals on the other end. Why is healthcare a right, and not a TV? Why not transportation? Why not the internet? On what basis do you derive these 'rights' to goods and services? Are you to have a right of food and shelter? Who is to provide to you this right which you by nature you are endowed? Having a right to anothers labor, property, and time is slavery any way you dice it.
Besides the fact that like Rand Paul you seem to have some difficulty understanding the definition of "slavery", you are with your argument guilty of a fallacy/strawman: the right to healthcare that Sanders evokes would not be opposable to other individuals but to the State - just like the right to counsel or the right to a civil trial by jury that appear in the US Bill of Rights (again, do you consider lawyers to be slaves?). The state wouldn't force any single individual to treat patients, it would provide financial retribution to those individuals willing to treat them (if you don't understand how this works, read this).
Where does the State get its money? The State is a giant farm, and we are its subjugates. If I say no to taxation, I am either kidnapped and put in a cage called jail, or, if I resist the State from taking my property, I am killed. How am I not a slave to the State? I have no choice whether to give my property to the State or not. The State is the antithesis of liberty, and therefore by definition I am a slave to the State. Sure, it says I have a few 'rights' inside their farm, but I am not free. I am still a slave. If the plantation owner gave to his slaves a bit more rights than we enjoy today, he would still be a slave, because he is not a freeman or woman. I think Lysander Spooner put it best:
In truth, in the case of individuals, their actual voting is not to be taken as proof of consent, even for the time being. On the contrary, it is to be considered that, without his consent having ever been asked, a man finds himself environed by a government that he cannot resist; a government that forces him to pay money, render service, and forego the exercise of many of his natural rights, under peril of weighty punishments. He sees, too, that other men practise this tyranny over him by the use of the ballot. He sees further that, if he will but use the ballot himself, he has some chance of relieving himself from this tyranny of others, by subjecting them to his own. In short, he finds himself, without his consent, so situated that, if he use the ballot, he may become a master; if he does not use it, he must become a slave. And he has no other alternative than these two. In self-defence, he attempts the former. His case is analogous to that of a man who has been forced into battle, where he must either kill others, or be killed himself. Because, to save his own life in battle, a man attempts to take the lives of his opponents, it is not to be inferred that the battle is one of his own choosing. Neither in contests with the ballot -- which is a mere substitute for a bullet -- because, as his only chance of self-preservation, a man uses a ballot, is it to be inferred that the contest is one into which he voluntarily entered; that he voluntarily set up all his own natural rights, as a stake against those of others, to be lost or won by the mere power of numbers. On the contrary, it is to be considered that, in an exigency, into which he had been forced by others, and in which no other means of self-defence offered, he, as a matter of necessity, used the only one that was left to him.
or
A man is none the less a slave because he is allowed to choose a new master once in a term of years.
or perhaps
But this theory of our government is wholly different from the practical fact. The fact is that the government, like a highwayman, says to a man: 'Your money, or your life.' And many, if not most, taxes are paid under the compulsion of that threat. The government does not, indeed, waylay a man in a lonely place, spring upon him from the roadside, and, holding a pistol to his head, proceed to rifle his pockets. But the robbery is none the less a robbery on that account; and it is far more dastardly and shameful. The highwayman takes solely upon himself the responsibility, danger, and crime of his own act. He does not pretend that he has any rightful claim to your money, or that he intends to use it for your own benefit. He does not pretend to be anything but a robber. He has not acquired impudence enough to profess to be merely a 'protector,' and that he takes men's money against their will, merely to enable him to 'protect' those infatuated travellers, who feel perfectly able to protect themselves, or do not appreciate his peculiar system of protection. He is too sensible a man to make such professions as these. Furthermore, having taken your money, he leaves you, as you wish him to do. He does not persist in following you on the road, against your will; assuming to be your rightful 'sovereign,' on account of the 'protection' he affords you. He does not keep 'protecting' you, by commanding you to bow down and serve him; by requiring you to do this, and forbidding you to do that; by robbing you of more money as often as he finds it for his interest or pleasure to do so; and by branding you as a rebel, a traitor, and an enemy to your country, and shooting you down without mercy, if you dispute his authority, or resist his demands. He is too much of a gentleman to be guilty of such impostures, and insults, and villanies as these. In short, he does not, in addition to robbing you, attempt to make you either his dupe or his slave.
Without the state you have no rights that can not be taken away at a whim by anyone who would hold more power then you do.
Not true. Even if it was, you are saying the State is my owner because he is more powerful than I am, and therefore dictates to me what acceptable behavior parameters I can have. You have just agreed with me that I am a slave to the State who is the master and owner of all of my property and self. He can tell me what I can do and can't do, how much property I can or can't own, and what I can voice and not voice. Rights are natural, unalienable, and as self-evident as man acts. No one has the authority to take from me my natural liberties and rights. Sure, they may do so at the barrel of a gun, but it is neither acceptable, or moral to do so. Just as a robber takes my property without my consent, the State does, but neither act makes it right, acceptable, or moral.
I still hold you have yet to prove your premise. I further hold that the State is merely an artificial construct which can at any time be torn down and replaced as Etienne La Boetie posited in the 16th Century:
Resolve to serve no more, and you are at once freed. I do not ask that you place hands upon the tyrant to topple him over, but simply that you support him no longer; then you will behold him, like a great Colossus whose pedestal has been pulled away, fall of his own weight and break into pieces.
“It is incredible how as soon as a people become subject, it promptly falls into such complete forgetfulness of its freedom that it can hardly be roused to the point of regaining it, obeying so easily and willingly that one is led to say that this people has not so much lost its liberty as won its enslavement.”
I say the states are a necessary evil that arise out mans natural tendency to band together to protect themselves from outside threat. These bands of people create a system of governance which essentially creates a small scale state where individual liberties are sometimes imposed on for what is felt like the greater good. This happens on the scale of tribal groups to city-states to full scale nations.
Well, Franz Oppenheimer and Albert Jay Nock disagree about the genesis of the State. I tend to agree with them.
Unlike Locke and others, Oppenheimer rejected the idea of the "social contract" and contributed to the "conquest theory" of the state:
"The State, completely in its genesis, essentially and almost completely during the first stages of its existence, is a social institution, forced by a victorious group of men on a defeated group, with the sole purpose of regulating the dominion of the victorious group over the vanquished, and securing itself against revolt from within and attacks from abroad. Teleologically, this dominion had no other purpose than the economic exploitation of the vanquished by the victors." "No primitive state known to history originated in any other manner. [1] Wherever a reliable tradition reports otherwise, either it concerns the amalgamation of two fully developed primitive states into one body of more complete organisation, or else it is an adaptation to men of the fable of the sheep which made a bear their king in order to be protected against the wolf. But even in this latter case, the form and content of the State became precisely the same as in those states where nothing intervened, and which became immediately 'wolf states'." (p. 15)
History backs this up, as does as any simple thought process.
So, you're an anarchist. What are you doing in this topic?
"He's not a congressman, he doesn't have to write up a hardcore plan to enact into a bill. That being said, this is the part where he disappoints me. I support him as a great man and somebody who gives a great deal of consideration to both sides, but he doesn't use enough of his power and prowess to, not only lead the discussion, but to lead the charge as well. Do I think he should come up with a written bill every time he has a great idea? No, but he should bully Congress a LOT more than he does while distancing himself from their ridiculous arguments. He has vested too much into a representative system that historically acts like 20 5-year-olds deciding what game to play next in the pool."
On December 12 2011 09:11 BobTheBuilder1377 wrote: [quote] Yeah, the same guy who defended our freedoms from the National Defense Authorization Act that takes away our 4th amendment rights. youtube.com/watch?v=aUHh1iqe43w&feature=relmfu Also, he use to help people for free as a doctor... youtube.com/watch?v=6Dzsfn7m63E So, I have no idea what BS you are talking about.
In this video, Rand Paul declares with a straight face that saying that people have a right to healthcare is equivalent to "believing in slavery". I'm pretty sure that qualifies as BS. He purposively paints a completely deceptive image of a right to healthcare in order to argue that doctors would then be slaves at the disposition of patients. Last time I checked there is something in the Bill of Rights called the "right to counsel", do you consider lawyers to be slaves or will you admit he was spouting BS?
If someone has a right to healthcare, therefore another individual has to provide it no matter if they object or not. Therefore, any right derived from the actions of another individual constitutes slavery. If everyone said no to provide to you this right, how is it a right? And if it is a right, then force is compelled to make these non-compliant individuals to provide you with it. If every material good is a right everyone is compelled to satiate this right with their labor, time, and property. How again is this not slavery? No one has the obligation to provide another individual with any such good or service. You only have rights to life, liberty, and property (self-ownership and the just products derived from such ownership).
Now, there is a difference between chattel slavery and the slavery of say any Socialist State. One is so-called public, and one is private in nature. However, there really is no meaningful difference to those individuals on the other end. Why is healthcare a right, and not a TV? Why not transportation? Why not the internet? On what basis do you derive these 'rights' to goods and services? Are you to have a right of food and shelter? Who is to provide to you this right which you by nature you are endowed? Having a right to anothers labor, property, and time is slavery any way you dice it.
Besides the fact that like Rand Paul you seem to have some difficulty understanding the definition of "slavery", you are with your argument guilty of a fallacy/strawman: the right to healthcare that Sanders evokes would not be opposable to other individuals but to the State - just like the right to counsel or the right to a civil trial by jury that appear in the US Bill of Rights (again, do you consider lawyers to be slaves?). The state wouldn't force any single individual to treat patients, it would provide financial retribution to those individuals willing to treat them (if you don't understand how this works, read this).
Where does the State get its money? The State is a giant farm, and we are its subjugates. If I say no to taxation, I am either kidnapped and put in a cage called jail, or, if I resist the State from taking my property, I am killed. How am I not a slave to the State? I have no choice whether to give my property to the State or not. The State is the antithesis of liberty, and therefore by definition I am a slave to the State. Sure, it says I have a few 'rights' inside their farm, but I am not free. I am still a slave. If the plantation owner gave to his slaves a bit more rights than we enjoy today, he would still be a slave, because he is not a freeman or woman. I think Lysander Spooner put it best:
In truth, in the case of individuals, their actual voting is not to be taken as proof of consent, even for the time being. On the contrary, it is to be considered that, without his consent having ever been asked, a man finds himself environed by a government that he cannot resist; a government that forces him to pay money, render service, and forego the exercise of many of his natural rights, under peril of weighty punishments. He sees, too, that other men practise this tyranny over him by the use of the ballot. He sees further that, if he will but use the ballot himself, he has some chance of relieving himself from this tyranny of others, by subjecting them to his own. In short, he finds himself, without his consent, so situated that, if he use the ballot, he may become a master; if he does not use it, he must become a slave. And he has no other alternative than these two. In self-defence, he attempts the former. His case is analogous to that of a man who has been forced into battle, where he must either kill others, or be killed himself. Because, to save his own life in battle, a man attempts to take the lives of his opponents, it is not to be inferred that the battle is one of his own choosing. Neither in contests with the ballot -- which is a mere substitute for a bullet -- because, as his only chance of self-preservation, a man uses a ballot, is it to be inferred that the contest is one into which he voluntarily entered; that he voluntarily set up all his own natural rights, as a stake against those of others, to be lost or won by the mere power of numbers. On the contrary, it is to be considered that, in an exigency, into which he had been forced by others, and in which no other means of self-defence offered, he, as a matter of necessity, used the only one that was left to him.
or
A man is none the less a slave because he is allowed to choose a new master once in a term of years.
or perhaps
But this theory of our government is wholly different from the practical fact. The fact is that the government, like a highwayman, says to a man: 'Your money, or your life.' And many, if not most, taxes are paid under the compulsion of that threat. The government does not, indeed, waylay a man in a lonely place, spring upon him from the roadside, and, holding a pistol to his head, proceed to rifle his pockets. But the robbery is none the less a robbery on that account; and it is far more dastardly and shameful. The highwayman takes solely upon himself the responsibility, danger, and crime of his own act. He does not pretend that he has any rightful claim to your money, or that he intends to use it for your own benefit. He does not pretend to be anything but a robber. He has not acquired impudence enough to profess to be merely a 'protector,' and that he takes men's money against their will, merely to enable him to 'protect' those infatuated travellers, who feel perfectly able to protect themselves, or do not appreciate his peculiar system of protection. He is too sensible a man to make such professions as these. Furthermore, having taken your money, he leaves you, as you wish him to do. He does not persist in following you on the road, against your will; assuming to be your rightful 'sovereign,' on account of the 'protection' he affords you. He does not keep 'protecting' you, by commanding you to bow down and serve him; by requiring you to do this, and forbidding you to do that; by robbing you of more money as often as he finds it for his interest or pleasure to do so; and by branding you as a rebel, a traitor, and an enemy to your country, and shooting you down without mercy, if you dispute his authority, or resist his demands. He is too much of a gentleman to be guilty of such impostures, and insults, and villanies as these. In short, he does not, in addition to robbing you, attempt to make you either his dupe or his slave.
Without the state you have no rights that can not be taken away at a whim by anyone who would hold more power then you do.
Not true. Even if it was, you are saying the State is my owner because he is more powerful than I am, and therefore dictates to me what acceptable behavior parameters I can have. You have just agreed with me that I am a slave to the State who is the master and owner of all of my property and self. He can tell me what I can do and can't do, how much property I can or can't own, and what I can voice and not voice. Rights are natural, unalienable, and as self-evident as man acts. No one has the authority to take from me my natural liberties and rights. Sure, they may do so at the barrel of a gun, but it is neither acceptable, or moral to do so. Just as a robber takes my property without my consent, the State does, but neither act makes it right, acceptable, or moral.
I still hold you have yet to prove your premise. I further hold that the State is merely an artificial construct which can at any time be torn down and replaced as Etienne La Boetie posited in the 16th Century:
Resolve to serve no more, and you are at once freed. I do not ask that you place hands upon the tyrant to topple him over, but simply that you support him no longer; then you will behold him, like a great Colossus whose pedestal has been pulled away, fall of his own weight and break into pieces.
“It is incredible how as soon as a people become subject, it promptly falls into such complete forgetfulness of its freedom that it can hardly be roused to the point of regaining it, obeying so easily and willingly that one is led to say that this people has not so much lost its liberty as won its enslavement.”
I say the states are a necessary evil that arise out mans natural tendency to band together to protect themselves from outside threat. These bands of people create a system of governance which essentially creates a small scale state where individual liberties are sometimes imposed on for what is felt like the greater good. This happens on the scale of tribal groups to city-states to full scale nations.
Well, Franz Oppenheimer and Albert Jay Nock disagree about the genesis of the State. I tend to agree with them.
Unlike Locke and others, Oppenheimer rejected the idea of the "social contract" and contributed to the "conquest theory" of the state:
"The State, completely in its genesis, essentially and almost completely during the first stages of its existence, is a social institution, forced by a victorious group of men on a defeated group, with the sole purpose of regulating the dominion of the victorious group over the vanquished, and securing itself against revolt from within and attacks from abroad. Teleologically, this dominion had no other purpose than the economic exploitation of the vanquished by the victors." "No primitive state known to history originated in any other manner. [1] Wherever a reliable tradition reports otherwise, either it concerns the amalgamation of two fully developed primitive states into one body of more complete organisation, or else it is an adaptation to men of the fable of the sheep which made a bear their king in order to be protected against the wolf. But even in this latter case, the form and content of the State became precisely the same as in those states where nothing intervened, and which became immediately 'wolf states'." (p. 15)
History backs this up, as does as any simple thought process.
To say that a state is created when one group conquers another is to ignore the fact that the group is operating as a state before it's conquers anyone. At some point, people have to come together for the mutual good or towns and cities would have never developed in the first place. Of course, I feel you may argue that towns were only formed as a result of the conquest of others and as a means to keep them contained.
In this video, Rand Paul declares with a straight face that saying that people have a right to healthcare is equivalent to "believing in slavery". I'm pretty sure that qualifies as BS. He purposively paints a completely deceptive image of a right to healthcare in order to argue that doctors would then be slaves at the disposition of patients. Last time I checked there is something in the Bill of Rights called the "right to counsel", do you consider lawyers to be slaves or will you admit he was spouting BS?
If someone has a right to healthcare, therefore another individual has to provide it no matter if they object or not. Therefore, any right derived from the actions of another individual constitutes slavery. If everyone said no to provide to you this right, how is it a right? And if it is a right, then force is compelled to make these non-compliant individuals to provide you with it. If every material good is a right everyone is compelled to satiate this right with their labor, time, and property. How again is this not slavery? No one has the obligation to provide another individual with any such good or service. You only have rights to life, liberty, and property (self-ownership and the just products derived from such ownership).
Now, there is a difference between chattel slavery and the slavery of say any Socialist State. One is so-called public, and one is private in nature. However, there really is no meaningful difference to those individuals on the other end. Why is healthcare a right, and not a TV? Why not transportation? Why not the internet? On what basis do you derive these 'rights' to goods and services? Are you to have a right of food and shelter? Who is to provide to you this right which you by nature you are endowed? Having a right to anothers labor, property, and time is slavery any way you dice it.
Besides the fact that like Rand Paul you seem to have some difficulty understanding the definition of "slavery", you are with your argument guilty of a fallacy/strawman: the right to healthcare that Sanders evokes would not be opposable to other individuals but to the State - just like the right to counsel or the right to a civil trial by jury that appear in the US Bill of Rights (again, do you consider lawyers to be slaves?). The state wouldn't force any single individual to treat patients, it would provide financial retribution to those individuals willing to treat them (if you don't understand how this works, read this).
Where does the State get its money? The State is a giant farm, and we are its subjugates. If I say no to taxation, I am either kidnapped and put in a cage called jail, or, if I resist the State from taking my property, I am killed. How am I not a slave to the State? I have no choice whether to give my property to the State or not. The State is the antithesis of liberty, and therefore by definition I am a slave to the State. Sure, it says I have a few 'rights' inside their farm, but I am not free. I am still a slave. If the plantation owner gave to his slaves a bit more rights than we enjoy today, he would still be a slave, because he is not a freeman or woman. I think Lysander Spooner put it best:
In truth, in the case of individuals, their actual voting is not to be taken as proof of consent, even for the time being. On the contrary, it is to be considered that, without his consent having ever been asked, a man finds himself environed by a government that he cannot resist; a government that forces him to pay money, render service, and forego the exercise of many of his natural rights, under peril of weighty punishments. He sees, too, that other men practise this tyranny over him by the use of the ballot. He sees further that, if he will but use the ballot himself, he has some chance of relieving himself from this tyranny of others, by subjecting them to his own. In short, he finds himself, without his consent, so situated that, if he use the ballot, he may become a master; if he does not use it, he must become a slave. And he has no other alternative than these two. In self-defence, he attempts the former. His case is analogous to that of a man who has been forced into battle, where he must either kill others, or be killed himself. Because, to save his own life in battle, a man attempts to take the lives of his opponents, it is not to be inferred that the battle is one of his own choosing. Neither in contests with the ballot -- which is a mere substitute for a bullet -- because, as his only chance of self-preservation, a man uses a ballot, is it to be inferred that the contest is one into which he voluntarily entered; that he voluntarily set up all his own natural rights, as a stake against those of others, to be lost or won by the mere power of numbers. On the contrary, it is to be considered that, in an exigency, into which he had been forced by others, and in which no other means of self-defence offered, he, as a matter of necessity, used the only one that was left to him.
or
A man is none the less a slave because he is allowed to choose a new master once in a term of years.
or perhaps
But this theory of our government is wholly different from the practical fact. The fact is that the government, like a highwayman, says to a man: 'Your money, or your life.' And many, if not most, taxes are paid under the compulsion of that threat. The government does not, indeed, waylay a man in a lonely place, spring upon him from the roadside, and, holding a pistol to his head, proceed to rifle his pockets. But the robbery is none the less a robbery on that account; and it is far more dastardly and shameful. The highwayman takes solely upon himself the responsibility, danger, and crime of his own act. He does not pretend that he has any rightful claim to your money, or that he intends to use it for your own benefit. He does not pretend to be anything but a robber. He has not acquired impudence enough to profess to be merely a 'protector,' and that he takes men's money against their will, merely to enable him to 'protect' those infatuated travellers, who feel perfectly able to protect themselves, or do not appreciate his peculiar system of protection. He is too sensible a man to make such professions as these. Furthermore, having taken your money, he leaves you, as you wish him to do. He does not persist in following you on the road, against your will; assuming to be your rightful 'sovereign,' on account of the 'protection' he affords you. He does not keep 'protecting' you, by commanding you to bow down and serve him; by requiring you to do this, and forbidding you to do that; by robbing you of more money as often as he finds it for his interest or pleasure to do so; and by branding you as a rebel, a traitor, and an enemy to your country, and shooting you down without mercy, if you dispute his authority, or resist his demands. He is too much of a gentleman to be guilty of such impostures, and insults, and villanies as these. In short, he does not, in addition to robbing you, attempt to make you either his dupe or his slave.
Without the state you have no rights that can not be taken away at a whim by anyone who would hold more power then you do.
Not true. Even if it was, you are saying the State is my owner because he is more powerful than I am, and therefore dictates to me what acceptable behavior parameters I can have. You have just agreed with me that I am a slave to the State who is the master and owner of all of my property and self. He can tell me what I can do and can't do, how much property I can or can't own, and what I can voice and not voice. Rights are natural, unalienable, and as self-evident as man acts. No one has the authority to take from me my natural liberties and rights. Sure, they may do so at the barrel of a gun, but it is neither acceptable, or moral to do so. Just as a robber takes my property without my consent, the State does, but neither act makes it right, acceptable, or moral.
I still hold you have yet to prove your premise. I further hold that the State is merely an artificial construct which can at any time be torn down and replaced as Etienne La Boetie posited in the 16th Century:
Resolve to serve no more, and you are at once freed. I do not ask that you place hands upon the tyrant to topple him over, but simply that you support him no longer; then you will behold him, like a great Colossus whose pedestal has been pulled away, fall of his own weight and break into pieces.
“It is incredible how as soon as a people become subject, it promptly falls into such complete forgetfulness of its freedom that it can hardly be roused to the point of regaining it, obeying so easily and willingly that one is led to say that this people has not so much lost its liberty as won its enslavement.”
I say the states are a necessary evil that arise out mans natural tendency to band together to protect themselves from outside threat. These bands of people create a system of governance which essentially creates a small scale state where individual liberties are sometimes imposed on for what is felt like the greater good. This happens on the scale of tribal groups to city-states to full scale nations.
Well, Franz Oppenheimer and Albert Jay Nock disagree about the genesis of the State. I tend to agree with them.
Unlike Locke and others, Oppenheimer rejected the idea of the "social contract" and contributed to the "conquest theory" of the state:
"The State, completely in its genesis, essentially and almost completely during the first stages of its existence, is a social institution, forced by a victorious group of men on a defeated group, with the sole purpose of regulating the dominion of the victorious group over the vanquished, and securing itself against revolt from within and attacks from abroad. Teleologically, this dominion had no other purpose than the economic exploitation of the vanquished by the victors." "No primitive state known to history originated in any other manner. [1] Wherever a reliable tradition reports otherwise, either it concerns the amalgamation of two fully developed primitive states into one body of more complete organisation, or else it is an adaptation to men of the fable of the sheep which made a bear their king in order to be protected against the wolf. But even in this latter case, the form and content of the State became precisely the same as in those states where nothing intervened, and which became immediately 'wolf states'." (p. 15)
History backs this up, as does as any simple thought process.
So, you're an anarchist. What are you doing in this topic?
You didn't know? I've seen this guy around before and know his MO. Sorry to derail the topic, but I was feeling a little frisky. I guess I'll leave it be.
There is nothing Statist about people congregating together voluntarily. A city, town, or otherwise can have no State, and a lot of the early towns were completely voluntary in nature without a State. There was no initiation of force from a body of people referring to their institutions as a monopoly on the provision of law, security, and justice. Indeed, many of the early societies were based upon customary and traditional law. There was a time when outlaw actually meant something. Now, I fail to see how people cannot come together voluntarily to form a city or town. It is up to you to prove that only force and aggression and compulsion can create such environments. I wager that such actions are destructful and dangerous to Civilization as did Ludwig von Mises. I am not opposed to Mutual Aid, in fact I am a heavy proponent as if you read David Beito's work on the matter we were far better off before FDR Nationalized and Socialized such compacts, organizations, institutions, and charitable networks. There are even pieces from Doctors in the NY Times in the early 1900s arguing against these Orders, Lodges, and other Mutual Aid networks because the doctors were providing care very cheaply.
Then of course the Government got involved with the Flexner Report, the AMA Guild, and a host of other impositions upon civil and free society.
I would call myself a Voluntaryist as in the vein of the English Levellers:
If someone has a right to healthcare, therefore another individual has to provide it no matter if they object or not. Therefore, any right derived from the actions of another individual constitutes slavery. If everyone said no to provide to you this right, how is it a right? And if it is a right, then force is compelled to make these non-compliant individuals to provide you with it. If every material good is a right everyone is compelled to satiate this right with their labor, time, and property. How again is this not slavery? No one has the obligation to provide another individual with any such good or service. You only have rights to life, liberty, and property (self-ownership and the just products derived from such ownership).
Now, there is a difference between chattel slavery and the slavery of say any Socialist State. One is so-called public, and one is private in nature. However, there really is no meaningful difference to those individuals on the other end. Why is healthcare a right, and not a TV? Why not transportation? Why not the internet? On what basis do you derive these 'rights' to goods and services? Are you to have a right of food and shelter? Who is to provide to you this right which you by nature you are endowed? Having a right to anothers labor, property, and time is slavery any way you dice it.
This is hilarious. We have free (pretty much) healthcare in Sweden, and this means that the goverment pays the costs. It does not mean that we can walk into a hospital and demand a full body scan for free. The doctors get paid, it's just that the government pays it, or well, we pay it through taxes.
On the contrary, the Government does not pay. You pay. Your fellow taxpayers pay, regardless if they consent to this or not. Whether they use the service or not. They have no choice, but the ballot box, and that is guarded by the majority whom does what it wants to the minority. If the minority withholds their own property from the prying hands of the State, they are jailed or killed. That is not a slave? What choice is there?
We pay because we want to. If the ppl wanted to abolish our health care system for tax cuts, we would've done that already. Health care is something that everybody needs, some ppl more than others, but we agree that it's fair that we share the financial burden. Sickness is something that hits you unexpectedly, so having a safety-net is a great thing, and for the average person the costs evens out in the end. You could say it's like a mandatory health insurance, except you don't have to deal with insurance companies who are trying to scam you.
I don't get your stuff about slavery at all. Are the ppl slaves because they have to pay taxes for healthcare? You seem to believe that we are slaves of the government, which we aren't. The government represents us, including you. You may think they have power over you, but it's the opposite actually. If you're not happy with how the government operates, you can replace it by using your right to vote. Yes, your power alone is negligle, but you still have your share of power. If we didn't have a functional government, then who would maintain things like roads?, and what about the justice system? If we didn't have a government and someone killed your son, you wouldn't be able to do anything about it, unless you took the matter in your own hands, but then it would be a question of power. The same person could walk up to your property and threaten you with a rifle to pass the ownership over to him, and your only options would be to fight back or surrender to his demands.
If you own a piece of land in the US, you don't own it entirely. All citizens of USA owns your land through the state, and they have allowed you to be its caretaker, which means that you have the right to do everything you want with it, with some exceptions. Because the american citizens owns your piece of land, they also make sure that your rights are preserved, which means they protect you if someone tries to claim ownership of your property. If someone threatens you to leave your property through violence, you just call the police, and then the problem is pretty much solved. This is why we need a government, to keep our society civil, where power is distributed through rules and regulations.
If someone has a right to healthcare, therefore another individual has to provide it no matter if they object or not. Therefore, any right derived from the actions of another individual constitutes slavery. If everyone said no to provide to you this right, how is it a right? And if it is a right, then force is compelled to make these non-compliant individuals to provide you with it. If every material good is a right everyone is compelled to satiate this right with their labor, time, and property. How again is this not slavery? No one has the obligation to provide another individual with any such good or service. You only have rights to life, liberty, and property (self-ownership and the just products derived from such ownership).
Now, there is a difference between chattel slavery and the slavery of say any Socialist State. One is so-called public, and one is private in nature. However, there really is no meaningful difference to those individuals on the other end. Why is healthcare a right, and not a TV? Why not transportation? Why not the internet? On what basis do you derive these 'rights' to goods and services? Are you to have a right of food and shelter? Who is to provide to you this right which you by nature you are endowed? Having a right to anothers labor, property, and time is slavery any way you dice it.
This is hilarious. We have free (pretty much) healthcare in Sweden, and this means that the goverment pays the costs. It does not mean that we can walk into a hospital and demand a full body scan for free. The doctors get paid, it's just that the government pays it, or well, we pay it through taxes.
On the contrary, the Government does not pay. You pay. Your fellow taxpayers pay, regardless if they consent to this or not. Whether they use the service or not. They have no choice, but the ballot box, and that is guarded by the majority whom does what it wants to the minority. If the minority withholds their own property from the prying hands of the State, they are jailed or killed. That is not a slave? What choice is there?
We pay because we want to. If the ppl wanted to abolish our health care system for tax cuts, we would've done that already. Health care is something that everybody needs, some ppl more than others, but we agree that it's fair that we share the financial burden. Sickness is something that hits you unexpectedly, so having a safety-net is a great thing, and for the average person the costs evens out in the end. You could say it's like a mandatory health insurance, except you don't have to deal with insurance companies who are trying to scam you.
well the majority has decided for you then. If someone doesn't want to pay for it he can't do this, and that's the problem. Why do you need to have mandates based on what the majority wants? Forcing someone to pay for something he doesn't want isn't right. State enforcement isn't right.
As for scams... that's why you have courts, if someone is involved in fraudulent behavior, it's illegal, and they should be sued.
The real difference is that if someone is involved in fraudulent behavior while working for Socialized - government supported healthcare, when you take them to court the government is on their side.
I don't get your stuff about slavery at all. Are the ppl slaves because they have to pay taxes for healthcare? You seem to believe that we are slaves of the government, which we aren't. The government represents us, including you. You may think they have power over you, but it's the opposite actually. If you're not happy with how the government operates, you can replace it by using your right to vote. Yes, your power alone is negligle, but you still have your share of power. If we didn't have a functional government, then who would maintain things like roads?, and what about the justice system? If we didn't have a government and someone killed your son, you wouldn't be able to do anything about it, unless you took the matter in your own hands, but then it would be a question of power. The same person could walk up to your property and threaten you with a rifle to pass the ownership over to him, and your only options would be to fight back or surrender to his demands.
Saying someone has the right to something taht's made by another person is analogous to slavery, how can you have the right to something that's not yours? it basically means that you have the right to have another person work for you regardless of whether he agrees or not.
Now, yes this isn't exactly the case, because instead the government collects money and gives that money to doctors who provide healthcare, but they don't collect money willingly. They force you to pay, from forcing you to deposit money in personal private account to just pooling all the money together, and then using it to pay for people's healthcare first-come first-served, or by another system, it removes a person's ability to decide what he does with his hard-earned money.
If you own a piece of land in the US, you don't own it entirely. All citizens of USA owns your land through the state, and they have allowed you to be its caretaker, which means that you have the right to do everything you want with it, with some exceptions. Because the american citizens owns your piece of land, they also make sure that your rights are preserved, which means they protect you if someone tries to claim ownership of your property. If someone threatens you to leave your property through violence, you just call the police, and then the problem is pretty much solved. This is why we need a government, to keep our society civil, where power is distributed through rules and regulations.
What is this? I'm pretty sure if you own a piece of land in the US you own it. Of course, there are some laws you must follow, because you part of the US, and the US have the constitution which should be the supreme law of the land, and then it also has federal/state/regional rules, and you pay taxes for all the benefits that you get from having your land located where it's located, but overall the land is yours at least with relation to other people.
Yeah, we need the government to protect our civil liberties like you said, but having healthcare isn't a civil liberty.
Thing about democracy is this: Majority rules. By being a US citizen, you sign an imaginary contract that says you understand and respect the wishes of the majority, for the majority, by the majority. If at any time in your adult life you decide that things aren't exactly the way you want, you can vote and volunteer to try to change things, you can go into politics yourself to try to get more influence, or you can leave.
It's that simple.
EDIT: At guy above me: Some basic rights of a US citizen are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. You might be familiar with that phrase if you have ever attended a first or second grade History/Gov't class. Logically speaking, you can't just give people "Life" but you can do the things necessary to ensure that they live. Things like public services (law enforcement, fire dept, etc.) and things like healthcare. Sooner or later, disease and the like catch up with all of us. Healthcare does the best it can to ensure that we live despite it.
Also, on your whole slavery thing. Sure, I'll cede that we are all slaves to each other. But that's fine. As long as it means that the majority is better off.
Selfishness is not the reason the human species is still around. In every part of history that we, as a species, were faced with something that could potentially destroy us all, our ability to work together, for the greater good, is what saved us.
Not sure why Gingrich is referred to as Speaker Gingrich when it's not his current position. Is Romney referred to as Governor Romney? Honest question.
If someone has a right to healthcare, therefore another individual has to provide it no matter if they object or not. Therefore, any right derived from the actions of another individual constitutes slavery. If everyone said no to provide to you this right, how is it a right? And if it is a right, then force is compelled to make these non-compliant individuals to provide you with it. If every material good is a right everyone is compelled to satiate this right with their labor, time, and property. How again is this not slavery? No one has the obligation to provide another individual with any such good or service. You only have rights to life, liberty, and property (self-ownership and the just products derived from such ownership).
Now, there is a difference between chattel slavery and the slavery of say any Socialist State. One is so-called public, and one is private in nature. However, there really is no meaningful difference to those individuals on the other end. Why is healthcare a right, and not a TV? Why not transportation? Why not the internet? On what basis do you derive these 'rights' to goods and services? Are you to have a right of food and shelter? Who is to provide to you this right which you by nature you are endowed? Having a right to anothers labor, property, and time is slavery any way you dice it.
This is hilarious. We have free (pretty much) healthcare in Sweden, and this means that the goverment pays the costs. It does not mean that we can walk into a hospital and demand a full body scan for free. The doctors get paid, it's just that the government pays it, or well, we pay it through taxes.
On the contrary, the Government does not pay. You pay. Your fellow taxpayers pay, regardless if they consent to this or not. Whether they use the service or not. They have no choice, but the ballot box, and that is guarded by the majority whom does what it wants to the minority. If the minority withholds their own property from the prying hands of the State, they are jailed or killed. That is not a slave? What choice is there?
We pay because we want to. If the ppl wanted to abolish our health care system for tax cuts, we would've done that already. Health care is something that everybody needs, some ppl more than others, but we agree that it's fair that we share the financial burden. Sickness is something that hits you unexpectedly, so having a safety-net is a great thing, and for the average person the costs evens out in the end. You could say it's like a mandatory health insurance, except you don't have to deal with insurance companies who are trying to scam you.
well the majority has decided for you then. If someone doesn't want to pay for it he can't do this, and that's the problem. Why do you need to have mandates based on what the majority wants? Forcing someone to pay for something he doesn't want isn't right. State enforcement isn't right.
As for scams... that's why you have courts, if someone is involved in fraudulent behavior, it's illegal, and they should be sued.
The real difference is that if someone is involved in fraudulent behavior while working for Socialized - government supported healthcare, when you take them to court the government is on their side.
I don't get your stuff about slavery at all. Are the ppl slaves because they have to pay taxes for healthcare? You seem to believe that we are slaves of the government, which we aren't. The government represents us, including you. You may think they have power over you, but it's the opposite actually. If you're not happy with how the government operates, you can replace it by using your right to vote. Yes, your power alone is negligle, but you still have your share of power. If we didn't have a functional government, then who would maintain things like roads?, and what about the justice system? If we didn't have a government and someone killed your son, you wouldn't be able to do anything about it, unless you took the matter in your own hands, but then it would be a question of power. The same person could walk up to your property and threaten you with a rifle to pass the ownership over to him, and your only options would be to fight back or surrender to his demands.
Saying someone has the right to something taht's made by another person is analogous to slavery, how can you have the right to something that's not yours? it basically means that you have the right to have another person work for you regardless of whether he agrees or not.
Now, yes this isn't exactly the case, because instead the government collects money and gives that money to doctors who provide healthcare, but they don't collect money willingly. They force you to pay, from forcing you to deposit money in personal private account to just pooling all the money together, and then using it to pay for people's healthcare first-come first-served, or by another system, it removes a person's ability to decide what he does with his hard-earned money.
If you own a piece of land in the US, you don't own it entirely. All citizens of USA owns your land through the state, and they have allowed you to be its caretaker, which means that you have the right to do everything you want with it, with some exceptions. Because the american citizens owns your piece of land, they also make sure that your rights are preserved, which means they protect you if someone tries to claim ownership of your property. If someone threatens you to leave your property through violence, you just call the police, and then the problem is pretty much solved. This is why we need a government, to keep our society civil, where power is distributed through rules and regulations.
What is this? I'm pretty sure if you own a piece of land in the US you own it. Of course, there are some laws you must follow, because you part of the US, and the US have the constitution which should be the supreme law of the land, and then it also has federal/state/regional rules, and you pay taxes for all the benefits that you get from having your land located where it's located, but overall the land is yours at least with relation to other people.
Yeah, we need the government to protect our civil liberties like you said, but having healthcare isn't a civil liberty.
There are a lot of things that we have to pay for. We're paying taxes for schooling, for maintenance of public property. We're also paying the politicians for their services. What if you were to decide that you want to home-school your kids? Should you get a tax cut for that? I don't think so. We are paying X amounts of tax money, and this money is then distributed into areas that we think deserves financial aid. Public schooling and health-care are just two of those areas.
The question is how large portion of the wealth in the country that you want the government to distribute. Socialism is deep-rooted in Scandinavia, so the goverments in Sweden and Norway have control over a larger percentage of the income than in most countries, especially compared to the US. There are pros and cons of both systems, but I wouldn't say it's a question of freedom.
About owning land. I'm not exactly sure how it works, but I'm positive that any soil inside the borders of USA belongs to the country and thus its people. If that wasn't the case you would have unlimited freedom over your land, which we know noone has. That doesn't mean that the government can retract land that you rightfully have bought though, because that would probably break the contract. Anyway, remember Russia sold Alaska to the US. Alaska as a property belongs to USA and it's people, which is represented by the government. Any power or wealth that the government seems to have is just an illusion.
On December 12 2011 14:43 ryanAnger wrote: Some basic rights of a US citizen are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.
Isn't it funny that USA have legal death penalty when it totally contradicts the first basic right.....but that's another subject I guess.
On December 12 2011 11:54 BobTheBuilder1377 wrote: So, you're a Democrat. What are you doing here?
"He's not a congressman, he doesn't have to write up a hardcore plan to enact into a bill. That being said, this is the part where he disappoints me. I support him as a great man and somebody who gives a great deal of consideration to both sides, but he doesn't use enough of his power and prowess to, not only lead the discussion, but to lead the charge as well. Do I think he should come up with a written bill every time he has a great idea? No, but he should bully Congress a LOT more than he does while distancing himself from their ridiculous arguments. He has vested too much into a representative system that historically acts like 20 5-year-olds deciding what game to play next in the pool."
I guess you believe, "if he's not with us, he's against us!" I identify as an independent. I will admit I have more leanings with Democrats as of late, but that's more of a statement of how much Republicans have taken a sharp turn to the right.
As for the workings of government, I believe every branch should flex it's power to the fullest, especially during times of crisis. Regardless if it's Obama or McCain in the office, it annoys me to see the President attempt to put all his cards in Congress. I see that as a weakness of him as a President. Other than that, his positions on nearly everything are acceptable. Nothing too crazy that would break the economy or any industries.
The Republicans in Congress have adopted a tactic, though, which has driven their positions to the far right. In order to adhere to their strict opposition tactic, they have to take all compromise out of reach, no matter how far right the debate moves. It's pushed them to the edge on the right, adopting stances I believe are extremely dangerous to the economy and industries. This has shifted the Presidential nominees to the far right as well, so that many "front-runners" would be considered insane. Romney is reasonable, and has largely kept his ground while the Tea Party has pushed around him to get him to shift to take ridiculous positions. Gingrich is also reasonable, policy wise, but the guy has almost 0 ethical grounds to stand on. The rest of the field are a bunch of nuts trying to vie for support from a fickle group of voters.
I'm sorry I try to be reasonable to both sides of the moderate aisle. At least I'm not arguing for the dissolution of all government, which, if I'm not mistaken, would be a position no candidate would take.
On December 12 2011 15:00 DrTJEckleburg wrote: Not sure why Gingrich is referred to as Speaker Gingrich when it's not his current position. Is Romney referred to as Governor Romney? Honest question.
It's just a courtesy and it's common for any position but especially for former Presidents.
On December 12 2011 14:43 ryanAnger wrote: Some basic rights of a US citizen are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.
Isn't it funny that USA have legal death penalty when it totally contradicts the first basic right.....but that's another subject I guess.
Isn't it equally funny that we have imprisonment when it totally contradicts the 2nd basic right?
The right to liberty can threaten the liberty of others if allowed to some people. The right to life will not threaten the right to life of others if the right to liberty has already been restricted. To put it in simple terms, it can be justified only when protecting the people and only as the lesser of two evils.
@aksfjh Nah. It's not even about that. My point is that you seem biased towards Ron Paul with some of your comments and now I see why. The fact of the matter is RP is not like your average Republicans right now. Most of the Republicans in office right now are neo-conservatives who aren't really conservative but, for bigger government spending. Also, they tend to lean towards warmongering and expanding the US empire which is bankrupting this country. Well see if this country can be changed within the coming weeks in Iowa.
P.S. All those candidates you just mentioned are bought off. No point in believing in them because those same corrupted people are destroying this country.
While neo-conservatives are not as fiscally conservative compared to 40 years ago, they still maintain a socially conservative stance. Their stance on domestic spending is still conservative though, as is their policy on government policy. Conservatism isn't about rolling back government as much as possible, but rather slowing the rate of governmental influence, or slightly reversing the gains made recently. You become conservative when you believe what we have now (or before recent changes) is the best option. It's about defending the society that we've built from progressives, who think the best has yet to be realized. This is part of the reason why I do not like Paul, since he does not fit the label of "conservative," but does fit the label of "libertarian."
Interestingly enough, it seems that a lot of the warmongering has taken a chill pill since Obama has been advocating many of the stances they petitioned for. While they take a very hard-line with nations like Iran, it seems like the serious candidates (and even Paul) would exercise extreme caution when considering military action. I'm not 100% sure how they would handle Afghanistan and Pakistan, but it's certainly not a popular choice to continue any significant military presence over there.
As for politicians, they're all "bought off." Paul isn't any different. All the candidates believe they would be the best for the country, otherwise they wouldn't be running. They make deals on the way, accepting the necessary evils to put themselves in the position to gain the office. While Paul may not find his donors from the organizations we know we detest, he no doubt has many powerful interests which would bend his ear (or the ears of his aides). They would either suggest to him seemingly benign requests or sell him ideas which seem ideologically in step with his own. This is how the system works, and will continue to work, as long as the election system remains the way it is.
In this video, Rand Paul declares with a straight face that saying that people have a right to healthcare is equivalent to "believing in slavery". I'm pretty sure that qualifies as BS. He purposively paints a completely deceptive image of a right to healthcare in order to argue that doctors would then be slaves at the disposition of patients. Last time I checked there is something in the Bill of Rights called the "right to counsel", do you consider lawyers to be slaves or will you admit he was spouting BS?
If someone has a right to healthcare, therefore another individual has to provide it no matter if they object or not. Therefore, any right derived from the actions of another individual constitutes slavery. If everyone said no to provide to you this right, how is it a right? And if it is a right, then force is compelled to make these non-compliant individuals to provide you with it. If every material good is a right everyone is compelled to satiate this right with their labor, time, and property. How again is this not slavery? No one has the obligation to provide another individual with any such good or service. You only have rights to life, liberty, and property (self-ownership and the just products derived from such ownership).
Now, there is a difference between chattel slavery and the slavery of say any Socialist State. One is so-called public, and one is private in nature. However, there really is no meaningful difference to those individuals on the other end. Why is healthcare a right, and not a TV? Why not transportation? Why not the internet? On what basis do you derive these 'rights' to goods and services? Are you to have a right of food and shelter? Who is to provide to you this right which you by nature you are endowed? Having a right to anothers labor, property, and time is slavery any way you dice it.
Besides the fact that like Rand Paul you seem to have some difficulty understanding the definition of "slavery", you are with your argument guilty of a fallacy/strawman: the right to healthcare that Sanders evokes would not be opposable to other individuals but to the State - just like the right to counsel or the right to a civil trial by jury that appear in the US Bill of Rights (again, do you consider lawyers to be slaves?). The state wouldn't force any single individual to treat patients, it would provide financial retribution to those individuals willing to treat them (if you don't understand how this works, read this).
Where does the State get its money? The State is a giant farm, and we are its subjugates. If I say no to taxation, I am either kidnapped and put in a cage called jail, or, if I resist the State from taking my property, I am killed. How am I not a slave to the State? I have no choice whether to give my property to the State or not. The State is the antithesis of liberty, and therefore by definition I am a slave to the State. Sure, it says I have a few 'rights' inside their farm, but I am not free. I am still a slave. If the plantation owner gave to his slaves a bit more rights than we enjoy today, he would still be a slave, because he is not a freeman or woman. I think Lysander Spooner put it best:
In truth, in the case of individuals, their actual voting is not to be taken as proof of consent, even for the time being. On the contrary, it is to be considered that, without his consent having ever been asked, a man finds himself environed by a government that he cannot resist; a government that forces him to pay money, render service, and forego the exercise of many of his natural rights, under peril of weighty punishments. He sees, too, that other men practise this tyranny over him by the use of the ballot. He sees further that, if he will but use the ballot himself, he has some chance of relieving himself from this tyranny of others, by subjecting them to his own. In short, he finds himself, without his consent, so situated that, if he use the ballot, he may become a master; if he does not use it, he must become a slave. And he has no other alternative than these two. In self-defence, he attempts the former. His case is analogous to that of a man who has been forced into battle, where he must either kill others, or be killed himself. Because, to save his own life in battle, a man attempts to take the lives of his opponents, it is not to be inferred that the battle is one of his own choosing. Neither in contests with the ballot -- which is a mere substitute for a bullet -- because, as his only chance of self-preservation, a man uses a ballot, is it to be inferred that the contest is one into which he voluntarily entered; that he voluntarily set up all his own natural rights, as a stake against those of others, to be lost or won by the mere power of numbers. On the contrary, it is to be considered that, in an exigency, into which he had been forced by others, and in which no other means of self-defence offered, he, as a matter of necessity, used the only one that was left to him.
or
A man is none the less a slave because he is allowed to choose a new master once in a term of years.
or perhaps
But this theory of our government is wholly different from the practical fact. The fact is that the government, like a highwayman, says to a man: 'Your money, or your life.' And many, if not most, taxes are paid under the compulsion of that threat. The government does not, indeed, waylay a man in a lonely place, spring upon him from the roadside, and, holding a pistol to his head, proceed to rifle his pockets. But the robbery is none the less a robbery on that account; and it is far more dastardly and shameful. The highwayman takes solely upon himself the responsibility, danger, and crime of his own act. He does not pretend that he has any rightful claim to your money, or that he intends to use it for your own benefit. He does not pretend to be anything but a robber. He has not acquired impudence enough to profess to be merely a 'protector,' and that he takes men's money against their will, merely to enable him to 'protect' those infatuated travellers, who feel perfectly able to protect themselves, or do not appreciate his peculiar system of protection. He is too sensible a man to make such professions as these. Furthermore, having taken your money, he leaves you, as you wish him to do. He does not persist in following you on the road, against your will; assuming to be your rightful 'sovereign,' on account of the 'protection' he affords you. He does not keep 'protecting' you, by commanding you to bow down and serve him; by requiring you to do this, and forbidding you to do that; by robbing you of more money as often as he finds it for his interest or pleasure to do so; and by branding you as a rebel, a traitor, and an enemy to your country, and shooting you down without mercy, if you dispute his authority, or resist his demands. He is too much of a gentleman to be guilty of such impostures, and insults, and villanies as these. In short, he does not, in addition to robbing you, attempt to make you either his dupe or his slave.
Without the state you have no rights that can not be taken away at a whim by anyone who would hold more power then you do.
Not true. Even if it was, you are saying the State is my owner because he is more powerful than I am, and therefore dictates to me what acceptable behavior parameters I can have. You have just agreed with me that I am a slave to the State who is the master and owner of all of my property and self. He can tell me what I can do and can't do, how much property I can or can't own, and what I can voice and not voice. Rights are natural, unalienable, and as self-evident as man acts. No one has the authority to take from me my natural liberties and rights. Sure, they may do so at the barrel of a gun, but it is neither acceptable, or moral to do so. Just as a robber takes my property without my consent, the State does, but neither act makes it right, acceptable, or moral.
I still hold you have yet to prove your premise. I further hold that the State is merely an artificial construct which can at any time be torn down and replaced as Etienne La Boetie posited in the 16th Century:
Resolve to serve no more, and you are at once freed. I do not ask that you place hands upon the tyrant to topple him over, but simply that you support him no longer; then you will behold him, like a great Colossus whose pedestal has been pulled away, fall of his own weight and break into pieces.
“It is incredible how as soon as a people become subject, it promptly falls into such complete forgetfulness of its freedom that it can hardly be roused to the point of regaining it, obeying so easily and willingly that one is led to say that this people has not so much lost its liberty as won its enslavement.”
I say the states are a necessary evil that arise out mans natural tendency to band together to protect themselves from outside threat. These bands of people create a system of governance which essentially creates a small scale state where individual liberties are sometimes imposed on for what is felt like the greater good. This happens on the scale of tribal groups to city-states to full scale nations.
Well, Franz Oppenheimer and Albert Jay Nock disagree about the genesis of the State. I tend to agree with them.
Unlike Locke and others, Oppenheimer rejected the idea of the "social contract" and contributed to the "conquest theory" of the state:
"The State, completely in its genesis, essentially and almost completely during the first stages of its existence, is a social institution, forced by a victorious group of men on a defeated group, with the sole purpose of regulating the dominion of the victorious group over the vanquished, and securing itself against revolt from within and attacks from abroad. Teleologically, this dominion had no other purpose than the economic exploitation of the vanquished by the victors." "No primitive state known to history originated in any other manner. [1] Wherever a reliable tradition reports otherwise, either it concerns the amalgamation of two fully developed primitive states into one body of more complete organisation, or else it is an adaptation to men of the fable of the sheep which made a bear their king in order to be protected against the wolf. But even in this latter case, the form and content of the State became precisely the same as in those states where nothing intervened, and which became immediately 'wolf states'." (p. 15)
History backs this up, as does as any simple thought process.
To say that a state is created when one group conquers another is to ignore the fact that the group is operating as a state before it's conquers anyone. At some point, people have to come together for the mutual good or towns and cities would have never developed in the first place. Of course, I feel you may argue that towns were only formed as a result of the conquest of others and as a means to keep them contained.
On December 12 2011 11:36 aksfjh wrote:
On December 12 2011 11:32 Wegandi wrote:
On December 12 2011 11:25 Myles wrote:
On December 12 2011 11:21 Wegandi wrote:
On December 12 2011 11:14 Myles wrote:
On December 12 2011 11:08 Wegandi wrote:
On December 12 2011 10:57 kwizach wrote:
On December 12 2011 10:30 Wegandi wrote: [quote]
If someone has a right to healthcare, therefore another individual has to provide it no matter if they object or not. Therefore, any right derived from the actions of another individual constitutes slavery. If everyone said no to provide to you this right, how is it a right? And if it is a right, then force is compelled to make these non-compliant individuals to provide you with it. If every material good is a right everyone is compelled to satiate this right with their labor, time, and property. How again is this not slavery? No one has the obligation to provide another individual with any such good or service. You only have rights to life, liberty, and property (self-ownership and the just products derived from such ownership).
Now, there is a difference between chattel slavery and the slavery of say any Socialist State. One is so-called public, and one is private in nature. However, there really is no meaningful difference to those individuals on the other end. Why is healthcare a right, and not a TV? Why not transportation? Why not the internet? On what basis do you derive these 'rights' to goods and services? Are you to have a right of food and shelter? Who is to provide to you this right which you by nature you are endowed? Having a right to anothers labor, property, and time is slavery any way you dice it.
Besides the fact that like Rand Paul you seem to have some difficulty understanding the definition of "slavery", you are with your argument guilty of a fallacy/strawman: the right to healthcare that Sanders evokes would not be opposable to other individuals but to the State - just like the right to counsel or the right to a civil trial by jury that appear in the US Bill of Rights (again, do you consider lawyers to be slaves?). The state wouldn't force any single individual to treat patients, it would provide financial retribution to those individuals willing to treat them (if you don't understand how this works, read this).
Where does the State get its money? The State is a giant farm, and we are its subjugates. If I say no to taxation, I am either kidnapped and put in a cage called jail, or, if I resist the State from taking my property, I am killed. How am I not a slave to the State? I have no choice whether to give my property to the State or not. The State is the antithesis of liberty, and therefore by definition I am a slave to the State. Sure, it says I have a few 'rights' inside their farm, but I am not free. I am still a slave. If the plantation owner gave to his slaves a bit more rights than we enjoy today, he would still be a slave, because he is not a freeman or woman. I think Lysander Spooner put it best:
In truth, in the case of individuals, their actual voting is not to be taken as proof of consent, even for the time being. On the contrary, it is to be considered that, without his consent having ever been asked, a man finds himself environed by a government that he cannot resist; a government that forces him to pay money, render service, and forego the exercise of many of his natural rights, under peril of weighty punishments. He sees, too, that other men practise this tyranny over him by the use of the ballot. He sees further that, if he will but use the ballot himself, he has some chance of relieving himself from this tyranny of others, by subjecting them to his own. In short, he finds himself, without his consent, so situated that, if he use the ballot, he may become a master; if he does not use it, he must become a slave. And he has no other alternative than these two. In self-defence, he attempts the former. His case is analogous to that of a man who has been forced into battle, where he must either kill others, or be killed himself. Because, to save his own life in battle, a man attempts to take the lives of his opponents, it is not to be inferred that the battle is one of his own choosing. Neither in contests with the ballot -- which is a mere substitute for a bullet -- because, as his only chance of self-preservation, a man uses a ballot, is it to be inferred that the contest is one into which he voluntarily entered; that he voluntarily set up all his own natural rights, as a stake against those of others, to be lost or won by the mere power of numbers. On the contrary, it is to be considered that, in an exigency, into which he had been forced by others, and in which no other means of self-defence offered, he, as a matter of necessity, used the only one that was left to him.
or
A man is none the less a slave because he is allowed to choose a new master once in a term of years.
or perhaps
But this theory of our government is wholly different from the practical fact. The fact is that the government, like a highwayman, says to a man: 'Your money, or your life.' And many, if not most, taxes are paid under the compulsion of that threat. The government does not, indeed, waylay a man in a lonely place, spring upon him from the roadside, and, holding a pistol to his head, proceed to rifle his pockets. But the robbery is none the less a robbery on that account; and it is far more dastardly and shameful. The highwayman takes solely upon himself the responsibility, danger, and crime of his own act. He does not pretend that he has any rightful claim to your money, or that he intends to use it for your own benefit. He does not pretend to be anything but a robber. He has not acquired impudence enough to profess to be merely a 'protector,' and that he takes men's money against their will, merely to enable him to 'protect' those infatuated travellers, who feel perfectly able to protect themselves, or do not appreciate his peculiar system of protection. He is too sensible a man to make such professions as these. Furthermore, having taken your money, he leaves you, as you wish him to do. He does not persist in following you on the road, against your will; assuming to be your rightful 'sovereign,' on account of the 'protection' he affords you. He does not keep 'protecting' you, by commanding you to bow down and serve him; by requiring you to do this, and forbidding you to do that; by robbing you of more money as often as he finds it for his interest or pleasure to do so; and by branding you as a rebel, a traitor, and an enemy to your country, and shooting you down without mercy, if you dispute his authority, or resist his demands. He is too much of a gentleman to be guilty of such impostures, and insults, and villanies as these. In short, he does not, in addition to robbing you, attempt to make you either his dupe or his slave.
Without the state you have no rights that can not be taken away at a whim by anyone who would hold more power then you do.
Not true. Even if it was, you are saying the State is my owner because he is more powerful than I am, and therefore dictates to me what acceptable behavior parameters I can have. You have just agreed with me that I am a slave to the State who is the master and owner of all of my property and self. He can tell me what I can do and can't do, how much property I can or can't own, and what I can voice and not voice. Rights are natural, unalienable, and as self-evident as man acts. No one has the authority to take from me my natural liberties and rights. Sure, they may do so at the barrel of a gun, but it is neither acceptable, or moral to do so. Just as a robber takes my property without my consent, the State does, but neither act makes it right, acceptable, or moral.
I still hold you have yet to prove your premise. I further hold that the State is merely an artificial construct which can at any time be torn down and replaced as Etienne La Boetie posited in the 16th Century:
Resolve to serve no more, and you are at once freed. I do not ask that you place hands upon the tyrant to topple him over, but simply that you support him no longer; then you will behold him, like a great Colossus whose pedestal has been pulled away, fall of his own weight and break into pieces.
“It is incredible how as soon as a people become subject, it promptly falls into such complete forgetfulness of its freedom that it can hardly be roused to the point of regaining it, obeying so easily and willingly that one is led to say that this people has not so much lost its liberty as won its enslavement.”
I say the states are a necessary evil that arise out mans natural tendency to band together to protect themselves from outside threat. These bands of people create a system of governance which essentially creates a small scale state where individual liberties are sometimes imposed on for what is felt like the greater good. This happens on the scale of tribal groups to city-states to full scale nations.
Well, Franz Oppenheimer and Albert Jay Nock disagree about the genesis of the State. I tend to agree with them.
Unlike Locke and others, Oppenheimer rejected the idea of the "social contract" and contributed to the "conquest theory" of the state:
"The State, completely in its genesis, essentially and almost completely during the first stages of its existence, is a social institution, forced by a victorious group of men on a defeated group, with the sole purpose of regulating the dominion of the victorious group over the vanquished, and securing itself against revolt from within and attacks from abroad. Teleologically, this dominion had no other purpose than the economic exploitation of the vanquished by the victors." "No primitive state known to history originated in any other manner. [1] Wherever a reliable tradition reports otherwise, either it concerns the amalgamation of two fully developed primitive states into one body of more complete organisation, or else it is an adaptation to men of the fable of the sheep which made a bear their king in order to be protected against the wolf. But even in this latter case, the form and content of the State became precisely the same as in those states where nothing intervened, and which became immediately 'wolf states'." (p. 15)
History backs this up, as does as any simple thought process.
So, you're an anarchist. What are you doing in this topic?
You didn't know? I've seen this guy around before and know his MO. Sorry to derail the topic, but I was feeling a little frisky. I guess I'll leave it be.
There is nothing Statist about people congregating together voluntarily. A city, town, or otherwise can have no State, and a lot of the early towns were completely voluntary in nature without a State. There was no initiation of force from a body of people referring to their institutions as a monopoly on the provision of law, security, and justice. Indeed, many of the early societies were based upon customary and traditional law. There was a time when outlaw actually meant something. Now, I fail to see how people cannot come together voluntarily to form a city or town. It is up to you to prove that only force and aggression and compulsion can create such environments. I wager that such actions are destructful and dangerous to Civilization as did Ludwig von Mises. I am not opposed to Mutual Aid, in fact I am a heavy proponent as if you read David Beito's work on the matter we were far better off before FDR Nationalized and Socialized such compacts, organizations, institutions, and charitable networks. There are even pieces from Doctors in the NY Times in the early 1900s arguing against these Orders, Lodges, and other Mutual Aid networks because the doctors were providing care very cheaply.
Then of course the Government got involved with the Flexner Report, the AMA Guild, and a host of other impositions upon civil and free society.
I would call myself a Voluntaryist as in the vein of the English Levellers:
Specifically his work An Arrow Against All Tyrants.
The problem is "prestate" the state had no monopoly on violence so violence was incredibly common. And the family unit/tribe/town still functioned like a state. ie No subgroup had a monopoly on violence, but violence was still used to enforce the decisions of the "powerful" in society.
Voluntaryist society relies on a particular culture. (now that is true of all societies, but in this case the culture must be overwhelmingly near unanimous) Because only "noncoercive/nonaggressive" force relies on some societal method of judging coercive v. noncoercive. (ie acceptable v. nonacceptable force) and that judgment is then enforced by society. And when parts of society disagree on whether force is "acceptable" or "not" then force is potentially used to settle that disagreement.
The problem is as soon as you have Any type of force, you have the problem of the "state". (the state may be disorganized, but that does not make the problems with it go away, some get better, others get worse). You can argue the cartels in Mexico are "states" (and they do act like brutal disorganized states in areas they control)
And tying it back in. The general rule (Currently) in the US politics is conservative=limited state + cultural conservatism + 'aggressive' foreign policy (in varying degrees) liberal=expansive state + cultural 'progressivism' + 'passive' foreign policy (in varying degrees)
I think to put it in simpler terms, without the state "might makes right" - whoever is strongest, or has the most influence, takes control.
Its kind of ridiculous to think that humanity suddenly became violent went states started to exist. Obviously humans are the problem, not the organizational structure...if you don't have a state to protect you then you'll be vulnerable to the same negative elements of force and violence in uncontrolled human populations (as John Stuart Mill writes in his introduction to "On Liberty").
People simply prefer living under the protection of a state than living in the wilds, unprotected against thugs and criminals. They would rather sacrifice a little freedom to guarantee a strong measure of safety. Its actually a really simple argument. I've asked some 'popular' anarchists on youtube the same question about "might makes right"...all they say is that its government propaganda, and that I've been fooled. *sigh* I'm glad I no longer listen to people like Stefan Molyneux
ALSO: Back on topic (I didn't see this mentioned recently) Trump's debate with NewsMax now only has two candidates left - Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich. Its kind of sad that nearly everybody has abandoned him, he got burned a lot during this presidential campaign, makes me feel sorry for him!
Hmmm.... But how can one increase military spending(the MIC) and where investment should go, IMO, to Space Programs:
Judging from his tone, Mitt Romney must have been hoping to paint Newt Gingrich as a spendthrift nut when he brought up Gingrich’s past support for a “lunar colony” at Saturday’s GOP debate, but Gingrich hit back with his usual bravado and made an important point:
“I’m proud of trying to find things that give young people a reason to study science and math and technology and telling them that some day in their lifetime, they could dream of going to the moon, they could dream of going to Mars,” he told the Ames, Iowa crowd. “And I’m happy to defend the idea that America should be in space and should be there in an aggressive, entrepreneurial way.”
He’s right.
We used to have a visceral connection to space. When NASA put a man on the moon in 1969, space flight turned overnight into the personification of the American spirit, an attitude that lasted well into the ’80s. I knew the astronauts’ names in kindergarten, and almost everybody I knew at the time could tell you who said “one giant leap for mankind.” The biggest movie franchise in the world was Star Wars — and Democrats even co-opted that term, derisively, of course, for President Reagan’s missile defense plan. But subsequent shuttle missions failed to capture the public imagination and cuts to NASA’s budget along with accidents with the Challenger and Columbia seemed to hamper space exploration. Congress pulled the plug on NASA’s involvement in the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) program in 1993. George W. Bush’s proposal for a manned mission to Mars fizzled. And last summer, NASA launched its last space shuttle.
In other news, Glenn Beck is throwing Newt under the bus, labeling him a "progressive" and stating that he'd support Ron Paul as a third party candidate over Gingrich.
Look, I like both Beck and Savage, but they've gone WAAAYYYY off the deep end here -- particularly Beck. Newt isn't a perfect conservative, but calling him progressive is ridiculous. Who was the last republican politician on the national stage who actually did something fiscally conservative and reduced government? Here's a hint: it was wasn't Bush. It was Gingrich.
Ughh, I can't even begin to say how much this pisses me off. I'm tired of the imperfections of the republican candidates being the focus of this nomination process. The bigger picture of what these candidates offer is so much more important.
Firstly, you guys have the absolute most liberal interpretation of the concept of "slavery" that I've ever seen. Equating universal health care with slavery is both historically naive, and incredibly demeaning and dismissive of the millions of people whom were actually born, spent their entire lives in, and died in bondage.
Secondly, and this is mostly aimed at Wegandi, what is your alternative to the state? What is your solution to our federal Masters whom own us all? Can you explain *practically* what your solution/alternative is, and how it would not negatively affect the lives of millions of Americans? You speak as if any form of government is inherently evil and serves only to restrict your "rights", and completely ignore the standard of life that we all enjoy which is made possible by a structured and orderly society. Like, I get it, you don't like paying taxes. So what does your "dream" world look like, and what is the quality of life for its citizens?
EPT
