Taxes is not Theft

[kiba]

http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-taxestheft.htm

* kiba sigh.

Somebody have the ball to attack one of our idea directly.

Unfortunately, it failed. Roads are not public goods, research certainly can be funded with private dollars, and governments force program upon the people whether they like it or not, democracy elects bad/mediocre official.

Suggestion: please do your research more so that you can give a real criticism of libertarian political thought.

[Anonymous]

then they must not consume the government's goods and services.

I stopped reading right there. This doesn't work well when the government kills any possible alternative.

[kiba]

Countries can deny or allow entry, or requires certain regulation to be followed in the country. So it's not like you can just move between countries.

There's only 200 nations in the world for six billion human beings.

[davout]

Roads are not public goods

Really?

Countries can deny or allow entry, or requires certain regulation to be followed in the country. So it's not like you can just move between countries.
There's only 200 nations in the world for six billion human beings.

Freedom is not given, it's conquered...

[hugolp]

What the fuck is a public good? I never got the concept.

Its either a private good or a government good. I guess you could make something you own public if you signed a contract allowing anyone to use it, but I wonder how that would work.

[kiba]

Public goods are non-rivalrous but roads get traffic congestion as they're used up

[Anonymous]

A public good isn't worth much if it reduces the populace to basking in equal mediocrity.

[grondilu]

Many conservatives and libertarians make the following populist argument:

"If you don't pay your taxes, men with guns will come to your house, arrest you, and seize your property."

The implication here is that you are being extorted to pay taxes, and this theft amounts to a violation of your rights. Although the events described are technically correct -- you should expect such a response from any crime you commit -- the implication that the government is aggressing against you is false, and not a little demagogic.

Taxes are part of a social contract,...

I stopped reading here, for I don't remember having signed anything.

[gene]

Somebody have the ball to attack one of our idea directly.

Did somebody have testicular cancer?

Unfortunately, it failed. Roads are not public goods

They are.

research certainly can be funded with private dollars

Give an example. I hope it won't be underwhelming.

[kiba]

Unfortunately, it failed. Roads are not public goods

They are.

Roads are not non-rivalorous. More people on the road, the more congestion there are.

research certainly can be funded with private dollars

Donating to medical foundation, cancer society, etc.

[Anonymous]

Research without incentive nor efficiency isn't going to achieve much at all anyways. Unless -- like in the case of the Soviet Union -- it is fueled by nationalism and imperialistic goals in mind.

[kiba]

Research without incentive nor efficiency isn't going to achieve much of all anyways. Unless -- like in the case of the Soviet Union -- it is fueled by nationalism and imperialistic goals in mind.

I want to end aging but most people are like pro-aging. 

Death is evil and we should work hard to eliminate it.

Right now I am trying to earn a living so that I can donate 10% of my earning every month to the most efficient charity dedicated to anti-aging I can find.

[Anonymous]

Research without incentive nor efficiency isn't going to achieve much of all anyways. Unless -- like in the case of the Soviet Union -- it is fueled by nationalism and imperialistic goals in mind.

I want to end aging but most people are like pro-aging. 

Death is evil and we should work hard to eliminate it.

Right now I am trying to earn a living so that I can donate 10% of my earning every month to the most efficient charity dedicated to anti-aging I can find.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcor_Life_Extension_Foundation

Cryonics is your best bet at the moment. I am certainly signing myself up. They accept donations but a life insurance plan can cover your body treatment alone.

[kiba]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcor_Life_Extension_Foundation

Cryonics is your best bet at the moment. I am certainly signing myself up. They accept donations but a life insurance plan can cover your body treatment alone.

On the other hand, I think donating to a few charity that took different approach is a good idea.

[grondilu]

When I think about it, I realise that this is exactly why we should not vote.

Because if some people like this guy argue that taxe is part of a social contract, then the closest thing to this contract is the vote.  Basically when you vote you accept the idea that you will obey to people who are elected, even if you did not vote for them.


I think I will never ever vote again.

[kiba]

If we're supposed to sign a social contract? Where is the document?

Is our "citizenship" and "passport" a social contract? Is the constitution a social contract?

[Anonymous]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcor_Life_Extension_Foundation

Cryonics is your best bet at the moment. I am certainly signing myself up. They accept donations but a life insurance plan can cover your body treatment alone.

On the other hand, I think donating to a few charity that took different approach is a good idea.

Specialized research rarely ever achieves the desired result. We shouldn't put faith in frivolous miracles that may come from these causes. Results are produced by stringent purpose and through actually knowing that results WILL be actually achieved. Invest your dollar in businesses that will achieve genuine innovation.

[ribuck]

research certainly can be funded with private dollars

Give an example. I hope it won't be underwhelming.

Bell Labs, and Xeroc PARC. They were spectacularly successful research centers that weren't funded by stolen money.

They flourished in the 1960s and 1970s, before it became more profitable for big corporations to spend their R&D dollars building up government-enforced patent portfolios instead of doing real research.

I still remember when Bell Labs announced that they had invented the spell checker. From memory, this was in the early 1970s. I still recall the press release, where a guy with a beard ten times the size of Stallman's was holding a computer printout with misspelled words on it.

This was revolutionary for its time. Back then, the mainstream didn't even accept that computers had a role to play in text processing (just numerical processing and data processing).

Some other things to come out of Bell Labs included the transistor, the laser, the C programming language and Unix.

PARC was responsible for the invention and/or maturation of bitmap graphics, graphical user interfaces, WYSIGYG word processing, page description languages, ethernet, object oriented programming, IDEs and Smalltalk.

Underwhelming enough for you?

[gene]

Bell labs was part of Ma Bell.

A massive state-subsidized monopoly.

 

[kiba]

Bell labs was part of Ma Bell.

A massive state-subsidized monopoly.

 

Date and period when it was a state-subsidized monopoly?