Alas, nowadays it’s the norm, even if the attempt to back-port it as traditional and consistent with American ideals is a shallow and remarkably stupid lie. After the Chicago school and Friedman’s big con, making excuses for corporate greed has become the great American pastime for libertarian lickspittles, who seem to think if they brownnose evil enough they might get a kickback or something. So now there are thousands of fawning dupes/rubes on the internet happy to spew forth shallow, dishonest, historically illiterate ramblings praising monsters and excusing greed.
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Nonsense. If you aren’t making it, you just aren’t trying hard enough.
HORATIO ALGER UBER ALLES!
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Born to a poor single working mother of color in a low-income area with a bad education system, minimal chances of parental educational support, higher education, or upward economic mobility from the situation you were born into?
You chose poorly.
Born to a white middle class family in a middle income area with a good educational system, parents who are able to invest significantly in your educational opportunities, and provide both pressure and support to allow you to pursue higher education and improved economic status?
Well done, rugged individualist.
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I know, right?
Nothing is as much fun as someone born on second base, pea-cocking like they hit a double. /s
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“Unanimity” means “we all agree.” Government is “we all pay our taxes and contribute, even if we don’t want to.”
Yes to the latter part. In other words, not “all pulling together”, but “everyone being made to pull in whatever direction the last set of plurality of voters might like”. Doesn’t quite have the same ring, does it ?!
There’s nothing about “all pulling together” that has anything to do with unanimity.
No. Your own chosen virtue-modeling metaphor was “all pulling together”. You were making fun of people wanting to pull in their own direction. All - together - in the same direction - that’s unanimity. That kind of imposed goal following belongs to beasts of burden, not to a free people.
And those people who lack the strength to pull, should they be left behind to die in the streets?
What does that have to do with the subject at hand? Emergency charity funding is a separate discussion.
“the old woman who tosses a few cents into the donation box, which she can ill afford to pay, is holier for doing so than the wealthy people who toss in the big bags of coin”
That’s so quaint, now you’re comparing people based on their “holiness”. I thought y’all liked the separation of church & state.
Going back to Dubai - dumping sewage in the river was already illegal, but it didn’t stop until the government-provided sewage treatment was in place and serving everyone.
So here we have an apparent failure of law enforcement. And instead of curing that problem, they opt to enlarge its footprint in the economy. This is so strange - a government bureaucracy wishing to grow! Has this ever happened before?
But I have you on record: we should have a nanny state holding our hand and telling us everything that we are and are not allowed to do.
“everything”? Stop smoking that stuff. And stop equivocating functions such as basic law, its enforcement, regulation of economic players, and active participation in industry. One may actually disagree about some and agree with others.
And doesn’t lead at all to oil companies pumping carbon into the air […]
Yeah yeah, whatever, consider those law enforcement matters if you really must. Breaking the law is bad for profit. Off topic.
That is: private citizens (or companies) tend to only act in the long-term interest of the greater good insofar as it’s also in the short-term interest of that citizen/company.
How profound! Many good things happen when private interests line up with that of others. If only there was a mechanism for letting different groups of people voluntarily cooperate when their interests agree. “Oh wait.”
And I didn’t assert that they were best “provided” by government; I asserted that private citizens/companies wouldn’t bother to create those services unless the government forced them to, incentivized them to, subsidized. or built it themselves.
The set of such services - that people need but “wouldn’t bother to create” unless forced to - consists of what exactly?
you admit that a group of private citizens and companies can’t run their own sewage system?
That would be a stupid and counterfactual “admission”. Groups of private citizens and even large companies routinely do run their own sewage system here and there. RTFG.
internet
Heavily subsidized. […]
Them goalposts are moving, moving so fast, moving so far. The last version of your claims were that people “wouldn’t bother to create” such national infrastructure. The existence of historical subsidies does not establish that “wouldn’t bother to create”. If it were that simple, even a single dollar received at birth would taint a baby for the rest of her life as “one who couldn’t bother do anything without subsidy”.
Ah, I get it now, we’re coming full circle. The baby didn’t build that either!
companies who have received benefits from taxpayer funds […] have a moral obligation to pay their own taxes and pass those benefits on
So people shoudn’t pay simply for services they consume, no sirree, they are morally obligated to “pay it forward” to others. And the “it” - the terms, amounts, details - is of course completely out of the hands of any reasonable feedback like supply / demand economics. It’s purely political. Because of the Original Sin of having benefited from one’s forefathers.
And you’re the science-based people, right?
Actually history has shown that breaking laws is very good for profits, at least in the short term, but, as you’ve said, you have no facts to back up what you’re saying. You just fabricate whatever will best help your argument.
It’s funny too that you declare the issue of legality “off topic” considering that your whole argument is based on the premise that there shouldn’t be a government to enforce laws. Is it not your position that what’s profitable is inherently good?
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your whole argument is based on the premise that there shouldn’t be a government to enforce laws
Why do you imagine me having said that ?!
Is it not your position that what’s profitable is inherently good?
I’m not sure what “inherently good” means in this context. All other things equal, being a profitable business is better than an unprofitable one, but of course all other things are not usually equal. So “it depends”.
Pardon me if I misinterpreted your statement that government “a beast, sure” to mean that government should be abolished. To be fair you did add, “Perhaps it can be thinned down to a pet or butler.” I’m not sure how you expect such a creature to enforce laws, although your argument has always been as lacking in details as it has been in examples.
I hope you didn’t hurt yourself dodging the question there. If a business can still be profitable while breaking the law what incentive is there for it to obey the law? Your argument, as I understand it, has always been that what a business should do should be determined by what’s profitable.
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I’m not sure how you expect such a creature to enforce laws
For today, let’s simply posit that we all agree that reasonable set of laws need to be enforced by a government. That was not in controversy, even with the “you didn’t build that” bit about roads & sewers.
If a business can still be profitable while breaking the law what incentive is there for it to obey the law?
That’s a loaded question: it presumes that businesses can get away with breaking the law. (Assuming reasonable law, material degree of law-breaking, etc.) In practice, that is rarely if ever so, and no one in this thread has expressed any support for it.
No one in this thread has expressed any support for businesses breaking the law but I’ll remind you that you claimed “Breaking the law is bad for profit”. With that, and the added “Off topic” you’ve dismissed an important point: businesses do break the law and remain profitable. I’m not saying that’s a good thing but don’t try to pretend it never happens or that the incentive of profit alone is enough to prevent it.
Besides to take the example of coal being dumped into the atmosphere it was–and in many places still is–legal for businesses to do so. As long as environmental degradation remains profitable what incentive is there for businesses to stop doing it? Especially as long as it’s legal.
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I say this as someone who has seen state and Federal programs to aid the disabled (pardon, mainstream them into public schools that don’t have specialized knowledge or dedicated staff to help with specific needs) either as children or adults properly and have seen those programs dwindle to the point where I no longer qualify in spite of vision issues that keep me from driving, social and learning difficulties, and am firmly in the gap between ‘can unaided’ and ‘getting help that isn’t family or friends’ I say this.
It sure as hell ain’t rain.
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You only have to break the law for so long if you have the money to lobby and change the law, right?
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Then indict & convict & punish.
don’t try to pretend it never happens
I do believe crime does once in a while occur.
or that the incentive of profit alone is enough to prevent it.
Who ever said “alone”? You’re so keen to jump to caricature. As a general statement, being unlawful means being unprofitable is accurate and needs no belabouring.
As long as [legal] environmental degradation remains profitable what incentive is there for businesses to stop doing it?
If that degradation is real, significant, and avoidable, then perchance it should not be legal. It it’s not avoidable, then perchance tax it. If it is not real & significant, leave it to the activist crowd to protest about it - some companies are sensitive to that.
Has exactly the same ring as the rest of your commentary.
Wash that ring off the tub when you get out, Cowboy.
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I tried to sing it, but that’s a lot of syllables. Maybe Jello can help us with the phrasing?
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Oh, it’s far worse than that. It’s “everyone being made to pull in whatever direction the people chosen, in a largely unfair process, by the last set of plurality of voters might like.”
Doesn’t change the fact that we’re all pulling together.
If you’re going to critique my debate style, please provide examples. This thread is long, and I don’t want to have to comb through it to find exactly what you’re referring to. I generally don’t like making fun of people (as opposed to ideas), so if you’d please provide an example of where I did what you’re referring to, I’d be gratified so that I can apologize properly and correct my behaviour for future discussions.
From wiktionary:
unanimity (countable and uncountable, plural unanimities)
- The condition of agreement by all parties, the state of being unanimous.
unanimous (not comparable)
- Based on unanimity, assent or agreement. The debate went on for hours, but in the end the decision was unanimous.
- Sharing the same views or opinions, and being in harmony or accord. We were unanimous: the President had to go.
I’ll be the first to admit that the government incentivizes, coerces, and even uses force to get people all going in the same direction. Agreement, assent, harmony, accord - these things are not compatible with coercion.
Every system imposes goal following, imposes behaviour that is or is not acceptable. “Don’t murder people” is an imposed goal. “Repel the invading army” is an imposed goal. “Build roads” is an imposed goal. If you don’t have a structure telling people to do what is best for the community, they’ll do what’s best for Number One first, and then, if they can spare a moment’s leisure time, help the community.
This has everything to do with the discussion. We’re talking about contributing to the tax system, and you were complaining that people are riding the cart for free. If there is no job available that, based on a person’s abilities, that person can fill, if charities don’t have enough money to help these people, if the choice is between pulling these people onto the cart or letting them starve on the street, what should the government do?
I could use different words, if you’d like. The poor woman is sacrificing more. She is contributing more. She is pulling more than the rich people are, because she feels the cost more deeply.
And yet, to “cure the problem” your way, a different government bureaucracy would have to grow: the one involving law enforcement. Why is it any better to have the government pay police officers the same amount of money to hunt down those who break the law, instead of providing a service that gives them no reason to break the law?
Tangentially - there was clearly money to be made in Dubai by starting a private sewage treatment facility - why did no one step up to the plate until the government did?
You’re saying that, if the interest of a private individual does not align with the interest of the country, they should be incentivized until the two align.
When Obamacare did that, it was lambasted as being the action of a nanny-state.
(And please look up the definition of “equivocating.” To quote a famous Spaniard, “I do not think that word means what you think it means.”)
First: the Japanese fishing boats are fishing in international waters. Who, do you suggest, should be enforcing the laws? Japan certainly doesn’t seem to have any will to do so. As for breaking the law being bad for profit, I refer you back to Dubai. Breaking the law is only bad for profit if it costs more money to fight, bribe, or hide your way out of the problem than you make in profit - and it generally doesn’t.
In order to make it more expensive to fight, bribe, or hide your way out of the problem, the government would need to massively increase their law enforcement, investigation, and legal departments (and root out corruption, which, to be honest, is not in a politician’s interest one that politician has gotten into office). If you’re going to be spending that money anyway, why not just solve the problems that are causing people to break the law in the first place?
You seem to be ignoring the “only” bit.
Safety inspections, environmental protection, internal affairs… Basically, anything that holds the people with wealth and power accountable won’t be created unless someone with more wealth or more power wills it into being, and the only people with more wealth and more power than the rich are The People (acting through the government).
As for things that wouldn’t be created without subsidies, well, you gave me a good list yourself.
For a whole municipality, or a community large enough to be considered one? Please, provide me an example.
I don’t distinguish between “the government maintaining the Interstate system” and “the government contracting out to private companies to maintain the Interstate system.” If taxpayer dollars (and this argument has always been about taxpayer dollars) are funding it, why should I care if the actual paving is done by the Yourstate Department of Paving, WePaveUSA Inc, or Johnnie G’s Fountainhead Paving?
If they never take taxpayer dollars, and never use a service paid for by taxpayer dollars, then I don’t see why they should be forced to pay money forward.
Can you find me an example of such a person?
Again, supply / demand economics is accountable only to short-term profits, not to the long-term good of the country (see the six things that socialist countries are better at).
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You forgot to add “mournfully, apologetically, and gratefully”.
Says the same individual with a history of consistently misrepresenting other peoples’ arguments.
Edited to add:
“activist crowd”
File that under “caricature”.
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I have to, because the redundant argument may as well be set to some theme music:
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Sealabia tried but blew themselves up with nukes.
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Can you name A SINGLE privatization effort which benefited end users/consumers/ordinary citizenry?
Can you name A SINGLE deregulation effort which benefited end users/consumers/ordinary citizenry?
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