Man, I wish the poor would stop whining...Follow

Financial freedom outweighs the right to medical care and education, for example?


You just buy them, silly.

I didn't say it was "bad". Not inherently. I said that those things need to be weighed carefully, because each one represents an imposition on our liberties. I say this because from what I keep reading here, many people seem to have the attitude that there's no "cost" to taking money from those who have it to provide endless government services to "the people".

I'm simply pointing out that there is a very real cost involved, and that each and every time we consider raising taxes to pay for something, this cost to liberty must be considered. Because if you don't, you'll easily conclude that all that matters is the good you'll do with that money in the hands of the government.

And that often seems to be the entire argument, right? If you oppose some government program, it's assumed you do so because you don't like the group of people that program is designed to benefit. So if I don't think that welfare is good, I must hate the poor. If I don't think changing the marriage status requirement to allowing gay couples to qualify is a good idea, I must hate gay people. If I don't think that socialized medicine is a good idea, I must hate poor unhealthy people...


That's simplistic rhetoric and it's an easy and cheap way to attack anyone who opposes government programs. My point is that you'll never run out of things that the government could spend money on that would benefit some group of people. Ever. So at some point, we have to draw a line and say "Wait a minute!".


I'm not even saying where that line should be. I'm just trying to get people to acknowledge that there should be one, and *why*.




Of course it doesn't. However, the "right to medical care and education" means that the government can't prevent you from obtaining medical care and education.


You're talking about a program that provides those things "for free" to people. That's not a right. It's a benefit. You're asking the wrong question. But don't feel bad. Decades of re-education has been involved in trying to get as many people as possible to put the word "right" into a sentence like the one you just wrote. Cause it's easier to convince people they must pay higher taxes to provide these things if you first get them to call them "rights"...




How's that for an answer?

I make about four times more money then I did as a graduate student. The percentage of my income I pay as income tax to the federal government as income tax, etc, has dropped by more then half. And it has been this way for some time. It's called buying a home. It is crazy to hand out such a huge benefit, and it would be very hard to get rid of.

The superrich, on the other hand, mostly get paid stock and keep it for a few years thus qualifying for tiny rates of taxation.

No way around this.

Wrong.

Even more naive than usual, tonight, I see. Wouldn't have though that possible, but you've really brought it to a whole new level.

Ok. But this is a misleading statement. It's not that people making over that amount don't pay any payroll taxes, it's that they only pay it on the first X dollars they make. So someone making 200k (for example) is paying the same amount of payroll taxes as someone making 97k (or 102k or whatever it is exactly).

As I've pointed out, you cap out on the benefits waaaaaaaaaaaaaay before you hit that income level (unless you work for a very small number of years in your lifetime of course).


Yeah, who cares? You asked how much more someone who made $200,000 was paying than someone who made $80,000. The answer, last year, was like $12.

It's not my fault you ask ignorant rhetorical questions that disprove the argument they're meant to be proving.

I see. So you believe that the government should pay to build churches and temples? Afterall, we have the right to "free exercise of religion", right...?




No. Freedom means that the government doesn't prevent you from doing something. It doesn't prevent you from speaking, but it doesn't have to provide a bullhorn and soapbox and speechwriters.

You (and most liberals to be honest) have this completely backwards. It's why I often point to this as the single most significant difference between liberals and conservatives. Almost all other disagreements between the two philosophies derive from this one.

Better get used to it.

Providing free education and/or medical care is *not* in anyway a component of protecting people's liberties. Thus, it's *not* a core requirement for government. They're just nice things that we could do if we decide it's worth the cost.

Yeah, that argument hasn't actually applied to "government" for about 400 years now.

It's a nice theory, but so is agrarian socialism.

Neither one is even slightly relevant today. The welfare state won 100 years ago. Time to ******* let it go.

The welfare state is a relatively new and hotly contested idea.

Yeah hotly contested because states without one have been sooo successful. Somalia's a ******* garden paradise.


You said 400 years ago earlier in the same post. Which is it?

No, I said your idea of government was outdated by 400 years. The welfare state is far, far, far, from the opposite of your idea of government.

Two separate concepts, chief. That's why I put them, in separate sentences, explaining each.

You can call that "quaint" if you want, but that doesn't make our ideas go away, as much as you'd like them to.

No, moron, CAPITALISM makes your ideas go away.

When you figure that out, you'll move on the adult phase of political philosophy.

No. You're still not getting it. My position is that you are labeling anything you think is "good" as a "right".

I made not assertion that only things that are "rights" (as I define them) should exist. In fact I said on several occasions that we certainly can provide those things if we wish. I'm simply asking that we correctly realize that many of the things some people label as "rights" aren't. They're just nice things that we could do for the people if we choose to.

A "right" implies that it's somehow "wrong" if we don't provide it to the people. Of course, that's exactly why those who want to create all these government programs label the things they want to provide "rights". Kinda obvious I'd think, but apparently not so much to some people...



I don't agree with that statement. See. True conservatives (technically classical liberalists, like the folks who wrote such meaningless documents as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution) don't believe that positive rights are actually rights at all. They are benefits that a government may confer, but does not have to. They are "nice things", but aren't "rights" in that sense.



Why? Here's my problem. So far, the bulk of arguments I keep hearing are assumptive in nature. You assume that I'm wrong, but haven't yet said *why* that is the case. Argue your point without simply saying "You're wrong" in a half dozen different creative ways. Can you do that? I'd think if you're so sure of this, that you should be able to intellectually defend your position on this.



Um... Ok. But as I've already stated, those aren't "real rights". I would label all of those things as benefits of the state. Remember when I said that man in his natural state is completely "free", but his freedom is vulnerable (actually, Locke said that, but I repeated it). Man gives up some of his liberty in order to protect the rest. Structures like a military, police/laws, firefighters (which must be funded), and all of those things are "necessary" to protect those liberties (in this case protecting your properties and person), but are in fact impositions on your liberties. They aren't "rights" in the sense that a right to free speach is a right.


They are the things that government provides to us in exchange for us agreeing to live under the government's rules and regulations. As I've pointed out repeatedly, some of those things are "necessary" in that without them our other liberties are at risk (they are part of those things we receive in return for our liberties and thus must help protect the remainder). You do remember when I talked about things that government "must do", right? These are some of those things.

Other things, like education, medical care, housing assistance, welfare, etc, are *not* things that government "must do" to ensure the protection of the remainder of our liberties. Thus, we no longer have a fair trade. We are willing to give up some liberties in exchange for protection of the remainder. But with these other programs, we're giving up more liberties for things that don't protect anything at all. They give us a little comfort (or in some cases, give others some more comfort at our expense), but aren't protecting any essential liberty at all.

That's a pretty significant difference, and many of you seem completely unaware of it.




Er? That's your own missapplication of the term "rights". A "right" does not (or should not!) involve anyone having to do anything for you. What education you can get is your own choice, and you're own responsibility. The "right" comes in that the government can't prevent you from becoming educated. One can argue strongly that the current public education system is actually a violation of even that negative right, since public education restricts the kind of education you can receive. If the government takes my property in the form of taxes and promises me an education in return, but only if I take the one form of education they're providing, that's a further reduction of my liberties.

Prior to that system, I was free to spend that money on any education I wanted. Now, I have lost that money and that choice *and* I don't get a say in the education either. It's a double loss of liberty, yet you seem to want to say this is the fulfillment of a "right"?

Absurd. That's like saying that we have a "right to go to prison" as justification for why the government can pass laws with a punishment involving imprisonment. That's not a right! Labeling it one does not make it one.



Funny. Because I'm thinking the same thing. I've made my point over and over. I've linked to classical philosophical sources to support my point. I've used logic. I've used reason. I've gone step by step through an explanation of what I believe and why.

All you've done is simply insist that your definitions of rights are correct. No discussion. No explanation. No use of example or logical process to support it. Just assumptive declaration.

Is this what passes for debate? Prove your point. Explain to me why publicly funded education is a "right", but publicly funded prisons is not?

Disprove my assertion that you're simply labeling anything "good" that government may do as a "right" of the people?

And for extra credit, explain to me how this same argument can't be used to justify *any* expense? If providing free icecream to everyone is "good", then does that mean we all have a "right to icecream"? Why not? What criteria are you using here?

Edited, Apr 18th 2008 7:54pm by gbaji

the most basic human right is the right to live.


Only for fetuses. Once you're out of the womb, you're on your own, little fella.

And don't forget vegetables. If someone in your family decides to pull the plug, congress can and will interject on your brain dead behalf.