Hurry! Quick! Close the door! Cattle are escaping!

This we just can't know as there is no Paris counter example. And, we can't know how much of that money came from pillaging Frances colonies. Is Paris worth genocide? I think ex colonies would beg to differ. Where is THEIR Paris?

Just something to think about.

 

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Yes, and the other difference is you can vote for the leadership of this group of humans...something you cant do with private groups.

 

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We also cant know how much of that money was revenue from France's state owned mines...as opposed to taxation.

This is how governments of antiquity paid most of their bills...money was gold and silver and they owned the gold and silver mines. Mining labour was cheap...they used convicts.

 

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Clearly though, government should NOT be just another group of humans.

Within every population there is a bell curve relative to intelligence and ethics on one side...and stupidity and malice on the other side.

In the middle of the curve is the mediocre majority.

Those who write the laws should be on the right side of the curve...and this can only be insured by requiring IQ testing, a minimum university education, and voting rights earned by passing an aptitude test on constitutional law.

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Yep. Alternatively, he can try farming apples somewhere without the myriad services and benefits his society and government provides.

Being able to profit by farming apples is not a natural state of affairs, you know.

 

And you do it again? HE and people like him ARE society. THEY provide the myriad of services that BENEFIT society. How do we KNOW for a FACT that these services benefit society? Because they're PRIVATE services! Unlike 'Public' services the Farmer isn't pointing a gun in your face and telling you to buy the apple.]

Again, you seem to think 'society' is just 'there'. Or WORSE, you think 'Government' creates society!? Completely backwards.

Lets stop and think of two scenarios, one where there are no Farmers and another where there is no Federal Government. With no Federal Government the farmers will have to pay for the roads they use, the wells they dig, and the fertilizer they use. How will they pay for this? By selling apples at a value that can cover the costs. Without the government the apple farmers do fine because they PRODUCE something of value. And guess what? Farmers DID so for centuries. Farming pre-dates Government. Apples were grown, sold/traded, eaten, and all without a government. It was only when some criminals got together and started stealing the Apples, was a 'Government' formed. But, make no mistake, you need the Apples first.

Now, what of the government? What does it produce? Oh, that's right, Nothing. If it did, it wouldn't BE a government. Unlike the Farmer, the Government acts just like any other criminal gang. It points a gun in the Farmer's face and steals the apples he produced.

Government doesn't create, it destroys. To win over people like you, it hands a few peace of an apple core for you to eat. Being complicit to a violent act, and full well knowing so, you just make up some bullshit in your head like 'The Nation' or 'Democracy' or 'Society' and pretend these concepts change what is a violent act into a voluntary one. If you take a vote on 'raping' a woman, this doesn't make her rape voluntary or it'd be called love. Two completely different concepts.

Why not call on 'The God'. You do know your exactly logic is used by Muslim men to force women to wear viels - for the good of The Nation, The God, The Society. It's so 'GOOD' they have to use violence to force woman to do so and 12 years of public school indoctrination to make sure they 'Learn' the lesson.


Only in your warped view of the world does the person who can ONLY make money through peaceful voluntary trade get vilified and the 'Democratically elected' gang leader who uses violence to steal from the producer get praised.


Without the Government, there will be farmers.
Without the Farmer, there is NO government.

See the difference?

Probably not, not with a hand full of stolen apple cores to eat - yum yum.



The truth is, you're not really interested in peace or voluntarism or society. You just want to take what isn't yours. Democracy, Nationhood, The Church, these are all nothing but excuses to justify thievery. Which means the truth is you just want to steal. In a very real sense, you are everything you claim the 'rich' to be.

 

As soon as you 'require' an IQ test you are in effect saying you're happy with sticking a gun in someone's face and saying 'do it'. This was tried by Communist countries - and it failed spectacularly. A much better approach is to simple allow people to voluntarily interact through peaceful win-win trades. As a matter of fact, this is really the ONLY way to create a prosperous society. Slowly, over time, one trade at a time. Similarly, if you try and make people trade. Then you're using force. That's win-lose. And over time, you will unintentionally erode all of the capital from society. Which is exactly what happened to Communist nations.


And is now happening to us.


Don't you find it interesting how all those 'poor' Chinese that are being 'taken advantaged of' are getting so rich? That's because they are NOT being taken advantage of. No one is forcing anyone to work in factories. They do so because they want to do so. It's a win-win trade where the worker is trading their labor for capital. Each and every single hour they work, is a win. And China is getting immensely wealthy when all these trades are added together.

 

Convict labor is forced labor.

Why on earth would anyone WANT to nationalize something? It really makes no sense.

 

Voting for which criminal gang leader is going to rape you, well, doesn't seem all that good to me

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Private groups of humans ARE society. Toyoda (largest auto company) or Apple (largest tech company) or etc... isn't doing anything to harm you. Just the opposite, they work hard to make you happy. They ARE civilization. Anything else is a return to the jungle.

 

At least you get your choice. You prefer rape by libertarians. Which is fine; whatever floats your boat.

Google "Donora killer fog." Or "Bhopal." Or "Foxconn.'

They work hard to make money. No corporation really cares if you are happy - they only want to get your money. Fortunately, we have a system of law that makes it illegal for them to harm you - thus the only way they can get your money is by offering a product that's a better value than their competitors.

 

Its not just the communists...all governments have laws with penalties for breaking them.

What is necessary is to establish higher qualifications for leadership and suffrage.

 

So is keeping convicts in prison...where it costs $30,000 a year for security, administration and other living expenses.

Where does that money come from...the taypayers.

So in a sense, its the law abiding citizens who are forced to hand over their labour to pay for the incarceration of convicts.

At least if the prisoners work they will pay for their own room and board...instead of punishing the rest of us with more taxation.

 

To avoid forcing you to sacrifice more of your labour as taxation.

For example, when Norway nationalizes their oil production they can use the profits to offset the extortion of labour from the citizenry.

Without nationalization civilization would not even exist...in its place would be little more than a rabble of competing self interests with no coordinated long term vision.

Remember that very little economic activity occurs in isolation. When a person buys a carton of tobacco they might think they are harming only themselves, but in reality they are driving up the price of all the farm land producing food for everyone else. So the government offsets this negative effect by taxing tobacco far higher than other agricultural produce.

 

They do as much harm as they are ALLOWED to do by law.

Read 'A Political History of Japanese Capitalism' to find out just how horrific it was before the dawn of government labour regulations.

http://www.amazon.com/A-Political-History-Japanese-Capitalism/dp/085345471X

 

Interestingly the price of oil in Venezuala is about 15 cents American. They have a state run program that operates all of the oil production so they use the "profits" to run their government which is part of the oil business there. So we see what costs could be if profits weren't so high as is the case in other parts of the world that have free enterprise controlling there oil businesses. To bad, to me, that we can't have some kind of price controls on something as important as oil because we already subsidize farmers to keep prices low for certain types of farm products like milk.

So what about that, price controls for important products that affect everyone ?

 

Its the Chinese government getting wealthy...as they own most of the large corporations.

Their goal is to build up the military...and this requires that the working class be prevented from enjoying a middle class income.

Its called Mercantilism:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercantilism

 

This statement makes no sense, care to explain your rational? Libertarian ideology includes, peaceful voluntary exchange, free markets, sound money, currency competition, private property and law.


RE: Foxcom

Radio show admits broadcast about abuses at Apple factories in China was made up

The truth is since the collapse of socialism in China life has gotten immensely BETTER. China is now in the top 5 most Capitalistic nations and is on course to surpass the USA in the coming decade. Germany is ranked as the most Capitalistic country and is the most wealthiest country in Europe.


RE: Your cynicism regarding motives

Firstly, do YOU go to work because you want to make the world a better place or because you're a greedy SOB trying get as much as you can doing as little as you have to? I ask because Corporations don't DO anything. People do things. Your statement is logically inconsistent at that point. If you truely think that people in society suck, that's has nothing to do with corporations - that's people. You may want to ask what role 80 years of Progressive policies played in creating such a sucky society.

Secondly, you're wrong. The evidence suggests that successful people (who start corporations) where taught to think in terms of win-win negotiations as children and that as corporate leaders this is how they think when conducting business. Further, those that truly create loved products are inspired to make the world a better place and this is WHY they want to create business. They like the feeling they get when people find value in their creations. VERY different from the type of person who becomes a worker cog or government employee.

Lastly, it really doesn't matter what the motivations of an individual are. So long as the trade is voluntary then it's a win-win. Or else the trade would not have occurred. Over time when added together all of these win-win trades create the prosperity we enjoyED as a society. To the point where we toss things in the trash as junk other nations of people would save due to their poor win-lose based society (like a water bottle). Again, see China under socialism.




I find it interesting how everyone worries big scary Google and Skype and scary scary Toyota and Walmart are going to one day harm them (how no one knows - they just know if government wasn't there they'd be dne for). Even though these companies only make money by offering to conduct voluntary trade. Compare with the government who is protecting them, it steals over half their labor and sells bonds on their children's labor to the point we are now Trillions and Trillions in debt with obligations running close to a hundred Trillion, which will have to be defaulted on. It brainwashes Citizens and sends them off to die in war. I was just listening to a solder talk about how a few months back he was in. A breifing where a video of a Muslim was shown where this man as literally blown to bits and pieces. Everyone high-fived and laughed. YOUR lovely government is training people to enjoy the murdering of other people, and when the War ends, they'll be living next to you and your children. Their kids will be peer pressuring yours in Government school.

Google is the last thing I worry about.


I wonder, would you feel more safe in a private mall with nearly unnoticeable private security or would you feel more safe with US military patrols walking the mall with machine guns? Which makes you feel safer? The Private security OR Public military? Because I've been a few countries with where machine gun touting State security are the norm - I promise, it is not a comforting feeling.

 

Singapore is wealthy and has no Nationalized Oil. KSA OTOH does and has many poor. So, having a nationalized resource is not required to be prosperous and can actually end in the opposite happening.

I think this is a fallacy to think a Nation must exist for civilization to exist. All that has to exist is private property, law and trade. Civilization MUST have occurred before Nations. I mean, how the hell do you GET to Nationhood without beginning with civil society?

Who said anything about being isolated? Libertarians support voluntary trade. This requires exchange not isolation.


In a free market if a person buys tobacco then they pay a higher premium for health insurance. As a matter of fact, when the government subsidizes healthcare it actually ENCOURAGES unhealthy behavior because everyone else is made to pay for the smokers unhealthy choice. IF the smoker were forced to pay very high premiums, they'd probably think about not smoking. I actually hear cardiopulmonary specialists saying exactly this, and its bankrupting Medicare.

 

Can you given some examples? When did the 'dawn' happen? Japan didn't have a culture of private property rights and self ownership is a somewhat modern concept relative to the West.

 

This makes little sense in terms of say Toyota or Google. Why on earth would anyone buy products form a company out to harm them? They wouldnt.

BUT if you do believe this to be the case, then the LAST thing you'd want is a government. A government can by law legally violate your private property and does do so all the time. Many chemical companies secure pollution rights so that they can't be sued.

That said, our economic system is so screwed up, anything is possible. I mean, take the Banks. Yeah, under the current immoral monetary system we need protected FROM banks. BUT as we saw, that didn't happen, they just bought off the government and are actually a part OF government. However, in a free market in money, they wouldn't be able to do this because competition in currency would favor sound money. So, again, it's Government that's working like hand in glove with corporations in a regulated tax farm that makes life horrid.