Mr. Furtado, I think you can use Ray's logic here to induce him to make an infinite financial contribution to this site. He makes one already, which is evidence that he likes to give a financial contribution to this site. And if he truly liked it, he would pay more.

I appreciate your honesty in saying this.

Ditto; I disagree with the position, but at least it's intellectually consistent vis. his position on the ACA.

Liberals paid their taxes after being required to. (Oh, one of them forgot to cash his refund check, so that totally counts as voluntarily giving extra tax money to the government.)

It also makes it easier when it comes time to tell all of the people with infectious diseases and can't afford treatment where they should hang out. If we're gonna prefer to let poor people die in the street, we should at least allow them to choose which street they'd like to die on. Though something tells me the Good Face would be pretty quick to call the cops once the corpses started piling up.

No, the exception is that people have an unalienable right not to be murdered or have their homes burglarized.

Lulz! Oh noes, teh poor peoples are going to DIE IN THE STREET! Won't somebody think of the childrens at gunpoint!

So I suppose that everyone who was in my friend's position, but who wasn't in a similar circle, should be required to provide some sort of solemnly sworn proof that he had no private help available before getting government assistance. I suppose he should also be required to sell all of his personal belongings as well. Sounds like a real winner.

It's your stated view that you would find this preferable to requiring hospitals to treat the indigent. You said it yourself. Pretty easy to hold a ridiculous view that you know never has any chance of actually becoming a legal reality.

Either way, what's the point? We've moved on from the compassion angle,

Ok, throughout most of human history, there was no socialized medicine or governmental obligation to provide healthcare. And yet streets existed. And they weren't all the time choked with dying people. Honest.

I know that's an inconvenient angle for people here, but clearly we hadn't "moved on" from it - if we had, there'd have been no post for me on the subject to respond to.

In a perfect world people with attitudes like Good Face's would just be shot on sight and their corpses left to rot.

Now, self-defense, sure. I can delegate my right to self-defense to the state because it's more efficient at exercising that right than I am individually.

Now, self-defense, sure. I can delegate my right to self-defense to the state because it's more efficient at exercising that right than I am individually.

But meanwhile Obama, coming off 2008 where he had quite a few plans for the future, seems to have almost nothing to offer this time except I'm Not Romney.

If the government charged people for the propection of their property rights in proportion to the value of that protection to that individual, rather than in proportion to their income, I'd have a lot more understanding of the libertarian position. In my view, the fact that the government doesn't price security services on market principles pretty much offets any libertarian arguments about the injustice of the violation of property rights by way of taxation.

It doesn't cost any more to hire somebody to protect a diamond than it does a lump of ####.

It doesn't cost any more to hire somebody to protect a diamond than it does a lump of ####.

In a perfect world people with attitudes like Good Face's would just be shot on sight and their corpses left to rot.

There were declines in poverty because the industrial revolution, capitalism, and trade made the world richer.

As always I'm pretty ignorant when it comes to American history, but I know the mid-19th century is a virtual gold mine when it comes to researching questions of how best to provide for the poor.



Where'd ya learn that, some egghead professor in a fancy college? What a snob.

And yet streets existed. And they weren't all the time choked with dying people. Honest.

1. Nobody protects a lump of ####.

1. Nobody protects a lump of ####. So all the people that are paying the government to protect their lump of #### can stop. The people with diamonds will have to stop freeloading on the people with the ####.

2. I must have missed the part in economics class where the price of a good or service is determined purely based on the cost of providing that service.

I feel like a xenobiologist or something. Pretend I'm raising an eyebrow and saying "Fascinating!" if that helps.

Shot on sight for holding a viewpoint you disagree with? Wow.

So much for free expression. Or even free thought.

It doesn't cost any more to hire somebody to protect a diamond than it does a lump of ####.

1. End the war in Iraq. Done.

2. Universal health care. Done. You can quibble about "how" done it is, but it's a lot more done than it was when he took office.

3. Improve our diplomatic standing among other nations. Significant progress.

4. Energy independence. Not nearly done, but there's some progress.

5. Cooperation in DC. Effectively no progress,

It doesn't cost any more to hire somebody to protect a diamond than it does a lump of ####.

Health care is hugely important. If Mitt Romney took office and wanted to replace Obamacare with the package of reforms laid out in "How American Health Care Killed My Father," I'd support him, for I have little faith in the recent reforms. But treating the individual mandate as a particularly dire affront to liberty and elevating its repeal to priority number one in a Romney Administration?

Why would anyone who cares about liberty want that?

I believe that people who can't afford medical care and can't find anybody willing to volunteer to provide it or pay for it should go without.

There's not exactly a shortage of supply of people wllling to provide private security services; when I walk around Manhattan it seems like that's the only growth industry. In a world without government security, the rich would be able to hire their own protection relatively cheaply -- I mean, they already do so anyway.

People like that can wantonly consign entire classes of people to undeserved deaths, and that's just "free speech"?

I know that the macho boys like to flaunt how Big and Tough they are

As was my reaction to it, which at least had the virtue of targeting but one person for oblivion rather than several million

There's not exactly a shortage of supply of people wllling to provide private security services; when I walk around Manhattan it seems like that's the only growth industry. In a world without government security, the rich would be able to hire their own protection relatively cheaply -- I mean, they already do so anyway.

And yet you're the guy talking about killing perfect strangers on the intarwebs.

Here? "Turnabout is fair play" doesn't work unless you're actually responding to those specific people.

To the extent that the Iraq war was not about defense, then nobody should have been compelled to pay for it, and any funding for it should have been voluntary, yes. (Of course, it's not that the Pentagon should have relied on voluntary contributions, but that the whole thing should have been done privately, w/o Pentagon involvement.)

1. End the war in Iraq. Done.

Despite Ray's refusal to acknowledge it, a big part of ACA was about bringing down insurance costs across the board, for everyone.

Shot on sight for holding a viewpoint you disagree with? Wow.

Liberals act as if government is the only solution. Families can solve problems also, and often do. Friends. Etc.

So you want market based solutions but only within the context of a government monopoly?

We're already doing it, and it's incredibly inefficient, which is why we worked to get a different system passed.

Well, not the ones who were previously paying $0!

Are you in favor of laws that require all cars to be giant inflatable cubes

Not only that, but it’s not the way systems of government work. This goes back (he says once more to the wind) to when we first organized it a way that didn’t depend just on voluntary action. The superior in tribes give to the less fortunate (or inferior, if you will) because it is expected of them. If you don’t do it, you’re not of the tribe. It’s an instrument of cohesion—it makes the group stronger. Everybody doing what they want without any official sanction is not a strategy for keep an organization going. Only the incorrigibly solipsistic and demonically dishonest and deceptive pretend otherwise.

It's cute to see you and Ray put so much effort into defending free riders.

Once more: not having insurance doesn't make you a free rider. Not paying for what you get does.

Yeah--they're not defending free riders; they're just defending a system that inevitably turns some people INTO free riders (see 873). That's totally different, man.

Once more: not having insurance doesn't make you a free rider. Not paying for what you get does.

The superior in tribes give to the less fortunate (or inferior, if you will) because it is expected of them. If you don’t do it, you’re not of the tribe. It’s an instrument of cohesion—it makes the group stronger.

What makes you think that? It's not philanthropic. It's what you, the individual, owe the group if you want to belong. If you don't want to belong, or don't think you owe the group, take a hike.

In a world without government security, what prevents your private security guard from simply taking your stuff if he's more powerful than you? The government doesn't have any ability to discipline. Attila Jr. will be the world's richest man.

(1) His own sense of morality. Most people aren't thieves.

(2) I wouldn't just hire a random person off the street, I'd likely (pool with my neighbors and) contract with a reputable private security company, and that company would do the work to make sure they were hiring trustworthy people. And they'd have insurance coverage in the event that one of their employees walked off with my stuff. This is effectively how private security works now, I imagine. It might be more expensive in a world where there was no government security, but I'd also have money that I was no longer paying in taxes.

EDIT: Just to be clear, I'm not advocating for this. I don't even remember how we ended up on this topic, but I thought it was interesting to b.s. about.

And when the mugger points a gun at me, he's not stealing from me, he's just setting the price which I owe in return for being granted the boon of remaining on this mortal coil.

Yes, contained within the contract. If Ray signed a contract that said that he agrees to pay every one of Morty's health problems that result from eating three hamburgers a night, then obviously he would be compelled to pay for Morty's health problems.

But meanwhile Obama, coming off 2008 where he had quite a few plans for the future, seems to have almost nothing to offer this time except I'm Not Romney. I understand that issues are often less important in Presidential elections than impressions and personalities, but this seems a particularly stark example. (Partly because everyone's mind seems so made up on defining issues these days there's little point in campaigning on them.)

The problem I have with the worldview Morty expresses here is that all roads eventually lead to "the guys with the biggest guns win. What're you gonna do about it?"

What is is what should be. OK, fine. But then you don't get to complain when things don't go your way.

I think TGF is pretty much a troll, but saying he should be shot is beyond the pale, obviously.

Hey, it's the Patriot Act argument

Ah, so Morty's intellectual underpinning is "bend over and take it, you might as well enjoy the ride."