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

Libertarianism is a modern political philosophy[1] that strongly advocates the maximization of individual rights, private property rights, and free market capitalism. Specifically, libertarian politics holds that a person's freedom to dispose of his body and private property as he sees fit should be unlimited as long as that person does not initiate coercion on others. Libertarians define "coercion" as the use of physical force, the threat of such, or deception (fraud), that alters, or is intended to alter, the way individuals would use their body or property. The libertarian political principle prohibiting coercion is known as the non-aggression principle, and many libertarians consider it a defining tenet from which spring all their political views. Libertarians see themselves as consistent supporters of maximum freedom and minimum state intervention in all human activities (where "freedom" is defined as negative liberty).

Libertarians hold that no one should be restrained by initiatory coercion. Thus, they oppose the idea of government intervening in private affairs to forcibly prevent peaceful "victimless crimes." In the modern libertarian political view, if one consents then there is no victim and no crime. As such, libertarians support the legalization of drugs, gambling, euthanasia, and prostitution, among others. They believe that individuals should have the liberty to make their own moral choices as long as they do not use coercion to prevent others from having that same liberty. They believe government should not only refrain from preventing individual moral choice but also refrain from imposing any supposed moral obligation on individuals. For libertarians, government should only intervene to prevent coercion.

In the economic realm, libertarians uphold strong private property rights. Some oppose taxation entirely (e.g. anarcho-capitalists), but most support taxation as long as its use is limited to protecting individuals from coercion (minarchism). Libertarians maintain that protecting individuals from coercion is the only, or one of the few, legitimate political functions of government. Thus, they generally oppose the tax-funded provision of public services such as universal health care, welfare, social security, and public education, preferring that all or most of these functions be left to the private sector. Libertarians oppose governmental regulation of business other than regulations against coercion and fraud. To the extent that libertarians advocate any government at all, its functions tend to be limited to protecting civil liberties and the free market through a police force, a military (with no conscription), and the courts.

Historically, libertarianism has grown out of classical liberalism; although the two philosophies are not exactly the same, they overlap in many areas - and a significant number of libertarians refer to themselves as classical liberals.

Criticism of libertarianism from the left tends to focus on its economic aspects, claiming that capitalism of a radical laissez-faire (free market) character undermines individual liberty, or creates poverty and harms society and the economy. Both left- and right-wing critics claim that libertarian ideas about individual economic and social freedom are contradictory, untenable or undesirable. Libertarianism's proponents claim it to be a sound rethinking of classical ideologies and a rejection of harmful statist policies. They further claim that personal responsibility, private charity, and liberal economic policies (laissez-faire) are more effective, and/or more ethical, in eliminating poverty than government intervention and tax-funded programs.

Libertarians believe that the means of production should be privately owned and that investments, production, distribution, income, and prices should be determined through the operation of a free market rather than by centralized state control. Hence, in opposition to statism and socialism, they support capitalism. According to libertarians, government interventions such as taxation and regulation are at best necessary evils (as they involve coercion and disrupt markets). Libertarians contend that independent, subjective valuations by individuals interacting in a free market are the only sensible means of making economic decisions and that any attempt by a centralized authority to override these decisions by decree will fail or have overall negative consequences (see Austrian School). Libertarians favor separation of government and economy; therefore, they also oppose all collusion between government and corporations (see crony capitalism) that would override the free market.

Libertarians oppose initiatives that would seek to forcibly "redistribute" resources in an egalitarian manner. One reason is the belief of many libertarians that welfare programs serve as a perverse incentive to keep individuals from working to earn a living and that they tend to perpetuate unemployment and poverty.[11] The maximization of economic freedom, they assert, would reduce poverty by making the economy more efficient, obviating the perceived need for tax-funded programs. Moreover, they believe that any temporary equality of outcome gained by redistribution would quickly collapse without continuous coercion, reasoning that people's differing economic decisions would allow those that were more productive or served others more effectively to quickly gain disproportionate wealth again. They see economic inequality as an outcome of people's freedom to choose their own actions, which may or may not be profitable.

Libertarians oppose forcing individuals to subsidize unprofitable businesses through taxation (see corporate welfare). Likewise, they oppose trade barriers to maintain businesses who would otherwise fail in the face of international competition, as well as oppose tax-funded programs such as The National Endowment for the Arts to support unprofitable artists. Libertarians believe government spending and government programs should be eliminated unless they are directly involved in protecting liberty and that private institutions should replace them wherever possible. When dismantling government services is impossible, many libertarians (like Milton Friedman) prefer market reforms like school vouchers to the status quo while others (like Lew Rockwell) see such programs as a threat to private industry and as a covert means of expanding government.[12]

And this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-capitalist

Anarcho-capitalism is a philosophy based on the idea of individual sovereignty, and a prohibition against initiatory coercion and fraud. It sees the only just basis for law as arising from private property norms and an unlimited right of contract between sovereign individuals. From this basis, anarcho-capitalism rejects the state as an unjustified monopolist and aggressor against sovereign individuals, and embraces anti-statist laissez-faire capitalism. Anarcho-capitalists would aim to protect individual liberty and property by replacing a government monopoly, which is involuntarily funded through taxation, with private, competing businesses.

The philosophy embraces stateless capitalism as one of its foundational principles. The first well-known version of anarcho-capitalism to identify itself thus was developed by economists of the Austrian School and libertarians Murray Rothbard and Walter Block in the mid-20th century, as an attempted synthesis of Austrian School economics, classical liberalism and 19th-century American individualist anarchism. While Rothbard bases his philosophy on natural law, others, such as David Friedman, take a pragmatic consequentialist approach by arguing that anarcho-capitalism should be implemented because such a system would have consequences superior to alternatives.

Because of this embrace of capitalism, there is considerable tension between anarcho-capitalists and other anarchists, who see the rejection of capitalism as being just as essential to anarchist philosophy as rejection of the state. Many anarcho-capitalists believe that much of the source of dispute is a definitional problem, with the classical anarchists using the term "capitalism" in reference to state capitalism, where government grants businesses monopoly rights and special privileges over individuals ÔÇö something anarcho-capitalists oppose. In contrast, most anarchists believe the dispute over more than a definition, as they hold that profit is exploitative for a number of reasons. Despite this tension, some anarcho-capitalists see their philosophy as evolving from the American individualist anarchism tradition that includes classical liberal thinkers such as Lysander Spooner.

Anarcho-capitalism can be considered a radical development of classical liberalism. Its grounding in liberalism stems from Gustave de Molinari. Many proponents of anarcho-capitalism argue that Molinari was the first anarcho-capitalist, though traditional anarchists often hold that Molinari is more properly understood as a laissez-faire liberal. Even Rothbard admitted that, "Molinari did not use the terminology, and probably would have balked at the name" anarcho-capitalist. Nonetheless, Molinari did argue for a free market and against a state monopoly on force, and his thoughts were influential on Rothbard and his contemporaries.

The axiom of non-aggression is not necessarily a pacifist doctrine, it is a prohibition against the initiation of (interpersonal) force. Like classical liberalism, anarcho-capitalism permits the use of force, as long as it is in the defense of persons or property.

However, the permissible extent of this defensive use of force is an arguable point among anarcho-capitalists. Some argue that the initiator of any aggressive act should be subject to a retributive counter-attack beyond what is solely necessary to repel the aggression. The counter-argument is that such a counterattack is only legitimate insofar as it was defined in an agreement between the parties.

Another controversial application of "defensive" aggression is the act of revolutionary violence against tyrannical regimes. Many anarcho-capitalists admire the American Revolution as the legitimate act of individuals working together to fight against tyrannical restrictions of their liberties. In fact, according to Murray Rothbard, the American Revolutionary War was the only war involving the United States that could be justified.[19] But, illustrating their general ambivalence toward war, these same people also sharply criticize the revolutionaries for the means used ÔÇö taxes, conscription, inflationary money ÔÇö and the inadequacy of the result: a state.

While some anarcho-capitalists believe forceful resistance and revolutionary violence against the state is legitimate, most believe the use of force is a dangerous tool at best, and that violent insurrection should be a last resort.

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And here I thought schools where suppose to teach us about the Constitution, I learned more from reading Sobacks, Prez's and everyone else's replys than I did from being taught in grade/high school

Keep it up people!

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Nice work Soback, I (*gasp*) actually agree with you on this on. I was trying to make the point Liberalism has it's roots in personal freedoms, and you've taken that a step further and provided even more clarification.

I think Jag was referring to modern liberalism as more leaning towards socialism (correct me if I'm wrong Jag.)

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I've lived in Belarus till the age of 11. My cousins still live there, family, aunts, grandfather, ect...

In US, by the age of 18 I was the ownder of my second car and first motorcycle, by the age of 20 I became a commercial pilot, by 21 I was already onto my third car and my 3rd motorcycle. What allowed me to have so much fun, fullfill my childhood dreams of becoming a pilot, and accomplishing whatever I dreamed up is CAPITALISM.

If I was back in Belarus. I would've never been able to obtain a car (maybe by 25, and it wouldn't have been a new one), I would have never been able to fly airplanes commercially, I would have been working away my days, paying for every lazy, crippled, dumb, corrupt leech that happened to live in the same country. Everyone but me profitting off of my labor. My cousins have that life now, they hate it, but because they have never experienced economic freedom, personal freedom, and freedom of oportunity, they gripe about it, but never would take the initiative to do anything about it, for the simplest reason of there's nothing else possible in that forsaken country, short of throwing an outright revolution.

On another note, when I was growing up, my mother had to work long hours, struggle, walk or take public transportation everywhere. Everywhere you look there's corruption. The ONLY people living good were the officials. Everything was government controlled, and the only slogan was "for the good of the people". It was for the good of the people that as a student in school you had an obligation during your summer break to work in "kolhoz" (for the farmers), not to pursue your own agenda. It was for the good of the people that your pay was so you never had enough to put away. ANYTHING that you would do for yourself was sneered upon, you were labeled an egoistic, self serving, egocentric, ect...words and phrases that were drilled into kids heads to be the worst insult a person could get. Everything that was for the good of the society however, ended up being the worst thing for you as an individual. It held down those with ambition as they could never accomplish anything that would give them a return on their labor, be it an inventor working his nights away on something new (he recieved NOTHING but a nice plaq for his labors, every invention counted as peoples national resource), or some head of nationalized factory working late evenings to maximize production (he still made only fractionaly more than the genator did, which fostered massive corruption among the to "CEO's if you will" and the barter system prevailed among them *you give me a car from your factory, I'll give you a tv from mine*), or the lowliest laborer that actually cared about the quality of his work (he would still get the same pay and the same recognition as the guy who showed up drunk, *yes that was prevalent too, because as you worked for the government, nobody would care about the quality of your work*).

Me and my mother came here when I was 11 with less than a $1000 dollars. During the 13 years here, I have accomplished more for my mom and I than a person living in Belarus could in their entire lifetime. As an example, my cousins are married, and still live in the same home they were born in (government assigned housing), and raising the 3rd generation (their own kids) in the same appartment. They don't have money put away for property, they get paid peanuts, and whatever enterprises they are involved in on the side (the country is becoming capitalistic little by little) are not enough to make much difference to affect their kids lives or their retirement in the long run (such as buying property, new car, or saving up to travel the world).

As US government is chipping away at our rights here. As it becomes more socialistic, when I hear about wellfare increases, medicare, public social programs, ect...it's like a stab in my heart. For every dime that is spent on that, comes out from my labor, and others labor, to go towards something that is at it's very core a socialist agenda, some leech, some looter, or some corrupt politician. It is taken to better the life of someone, at the cost of me bettering mine. When I look how much I pay out in medicare or social security, it makes me feel sick. Because I could make 4 payments on MY house with that money, for my own retirement and my own medical care.

A little side story, when I crashed my motorcycle on the freeway a couple of years ago. I ended up with a broken wrist, and had no medical insurance. The night I went to the hospital, there was some guy that was all smelly, ragedy, and barely spoke English that was receiving medical care for some cold (in the emergency room). I ended up emptying out my savings account to pay for the x-rays, and examination. Tell me that his care didn't come from my "contributions" (that's what it's called on the paycheck) to medicare. I would rather have kept those contributions and put them towards half of my own medical insurance payments than have it take away and spend on someone who is nothing more than a leech.

What incentive do you have to perform, to invent, to work harder, to sweat, to stay up nights, to labor if you know that ALL the hardships that you have to encounter on the way will get you NOTHING in return. You can work 12 hour days, feel like your spine is splitting in two when you come home for a 5 hour sleep and make only marginally more than a guy who worked 8 hours because of higher taxes on overtime. You can work 2 fulltime jobs, and instead of seeing your paycheck double, you see it only go up by 40%, with exponentially more going towards CA disability, social security, medicare, and EVEN MORE towards taxes. And then when you go out to a national or state park for the weekend, you end up paying a "FEE" for park maintenance, when you know that that "fee" was already taken out in your federal taxes or state taxes (depending on which park). Or when you have an ignorant, incompetent DMV employee tell you that they can't help you with something because the "computer won't let them" (and that's coming from the DMV MANAGER, it makes you wonder why you are paying taxes for their employees paychecks, medical, and insurance.

That's the reasons I hate socialism. It is a cancer. It literally eats away at the society, country, individuals. It fosters laziness, incompetence. It provides a safety net to those who would starve to death at the cost of a second car to a family with 4 kids, at the cost of private education for someone elses child, at the cost of me emptying out my savings after an accident, at the cost of someone buying a house instead of renting, at the cost of a two week vacation in Hawaii for a couple that worked 10 hour days, ect...The leeches will never have enough, EVER. The person that has to sweat away and see the fruits of his labor dissapear into a bottomless pit with screams coming out of it "more, need more, give more, want more, you have more" will.

I could write dozens of pages more. Personal experiences, their outcomes and my thoughts. But you get the idea. It is my right, as a free human being, to recieve the product of my labor, and keep it for my own purposes and gain. Nobody should have the right to take it away from me. Paying for government to run smoothly, such as roads, infrastructure (mail, miscelaneous paperwork processing, ect..) is one thing, paying for every bum, every crippled, every lazy, every social service, is another. You do know that there's NO government disability insurance for self employed, yet they STILL pay for disability and social services fees from their paychecks, WHY? Just as they self employed have to purchase their own dissability insurance, and put money towards their own retirement, so should EVERYONE ELSE, because their life, their decissions, the products of their labor is theirs to recieve, and they should NOT recieve more at the cost of you keeping less.

[ 11-14-2005, 10:24 PM: Message edited by: Soback ]

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If you are pro socialism, Aapen Post, or anyone who is for that matter.

Tell me, what right does one person have to take something away from another. Is it just because they themselfs have less than another or nothing at all.

Does the condition of poverty give you the right to someone elses money?

Does the condition of sickness gives you the right to have someone else pay for your medical care?

Does the condition of being stupid give you the right to live off of someone elses labors?

Why do you feel that I am responsible for someone I have never met?

Why do you feel that if I make 20 thousand a year, then I am poor but if I make 80 thousand then I am too rich and should take on the responsibility to care for another instead of the responsibility to care for myself, my wife, my parents and my children.

Why is it that the society gets to decide how much is enough for me to live on, and at what point in my income I should have more money taken away to give to another instead of spending more on my family.

Have you heard a phrase "Only a slave does not get to keep the product of his labor" Well, now that you have, tell me. If you don't get to keep the product of your labor but instead have it taken away from you for the benefit of that who hasn't earned it, are you not a slave to the lowest, poorest, sickest, dumbest neediest in our society?

Why do you feel that those who produce, own even a single dime of involuntary "contribution" to those who do not?

And the final question, as ones country becomes more and more socialist. Takes more and more of your earnings, your labors, ect... What is the incentive for YOU to work harder, if the harder you work, the exponentially less you keep. Think about it, how much better is it if you work 8 hour days and rent your own place, buy your own food, pay for your own medical insurance, and save for your own retirement versus not working at all but geting free appartment, free food, free medical care, and not have to worry about retirement. When does one reach a point where it's just becomes better to give up, have your standard of living drop a little but the "benefit" of not having to work.

Why do I have to live for the benefit of another? Is my life not my own?

Do not try to justify all of the above by, "civilized society", "kindness to another", "egotistic", "egocentric", "selfish", "to the benefit of the people", "to the benefit of society", or any of the nonsensical statements. Give me a coherent, logical explanation of:

Why it's ok to have legalized looting and redistribution of wealth backed by the government with proclamation of "Your money or our jails", yet it's illegal for the same poor person to pull out a gun and proclaim "Your wallet or your life". Isn't it the same thing, either they get their living paid for by you with the government as intermediary, or they get the money from you directly without the waste of burocracy. Either way, it's your money that ends up in their pockets without your concent.

[ 11-14-2005, 11:07 PM: Message edited by: Soback ]

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I not saying that I am pro socialism , at least not in the way you have experienced it. But I donÔÇÖt se that there is any wrong in having social benefits like free healthcare, and public social programs designed to get people out of unemployment.

Does the condition of poverty give you the right to someone elseÔÇÖs money?

No, but the government has to take care of itÔÇÖs citizens, and most poor people are unemployed and are looking for work. If you can help them get a job by supporting them financially so they can get an education the society will gain from it.

Does the condition of sickness gives you the right to have someone else pay for your medical care?

-You pay for medical care thru taxes,

Does the condition of being stupid give you the right to live off of someone elseÔÇÖs labours?

-Many stupid people work for a living,. I meet some at my last workplace. And what do you mean by stupid people?

Why do you feel that I am responsible for someone I have never met?

-IÔÇÖm not saying that you are responsible for someone you never met, but the government are responsible for itÔÇÖs citizenÔÇÖs and you help the government do itÔÇÖs job by paying taxes.

Why is it that the society gets to decide how much is enough for me to live on, and at what point in my income I should have more money taken away to give to another instead of spending more on my family.

- everyone need a minimum income so support themselves, when you make more than that you have to pay more in taxes to help the government build roads, support the police, fire departments, FBI, CIA, social services, wage war on other countries. Etc. that is why the percentage of how much you pay in tax increase when you make more money.

Why do you feel that those who produce, own even a single dime of involuntary "contribution" to those who do not?

- There are many reasons why people donÔÇÖt produce. For many that reason is that there are no jobs they can take. And is it OK for you to have large numbers of the population starve to death because they can not afford food, or have to commit crimes to afford it?

And the final question, as ones country becomes more and more socialist. Takes more and more of your earnings, your labours, ect... What is the incentive for YOU to work harder, if the harder you work, the exponentially less you keep. Think about it, how much better is it if you work 8 hour days and rent your own place, buy your own food, pay for your own medical insurance, and save for your own retirement versus not working at all but getting free apartment, free food, free medical care, and not have to worry about retirement. When does one reach a point where it's just becomes better to give up, have your standard of living drop a little but the "benefit" of not having to work.

- You donÔÇÖt get free food, you get a small amount of money so you can buy food, pay various bills. -You donÔÇÖt get a car, and other luxuries items like that, you can not afford them. You only get enough to support yourself. You donÔÇÖt get enough to live a life where you can what you want.

-How much pension you get when retire is decided by how much money you make when you work. The more you make, the more you get when you retire.

-Free medical care: thatÔÇÖs was taxes are for. (You probably disagree with me on that one.)

Why it's ok to have legalized looting and redistribution of wealth backed by the government with proclamation of "Your money or our jails"

- If you donÔÇÖt like the current taxes: vote for a party that promise to lower them. ThatÔÇÖs how it works in Democracy.

If you look at the HDI index made by the UN you will se that Norway is the best country to live in. And we are what you might call a social democratic country. WE ARE NOT LIKE BELARUS.

I believe that if you had moved to Norway when you where 11, you would have another opinion on what Europe is like.

And when you say Europe: do you mean the EU or Europe?

And Prez: thx for the welcome.

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No problem.

quote:

When does one reach a point where it's just becomes better to give up, have your standard of living drop a little but the "benefit" of not having to work.


The major difference is that in a Socialist environment, there is no incentive to work harder because any money made through your own added effort has only minimal benefit to YOU. All of your added wealth is seized for re-distribution. Simply not ethical.

Conversely, in our society in the U.S., for example, there are many barriers to success, true, and some may seem insurmountable, but ALL may be overcome with hard work and persistence. No one, and I will repeat it, NO ONE is stuck where they are if they choose not to be. Opportunity is always there, but unfortunately our nation's "poverty pimps" like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton (just to name 2) only enhance the victim mindset of the poor, shamelessy exploiting them for the political gain to be had by large amounts of disgruntled poor constituents.

In my view, the evil of socialism is two-fold:

1) It fosters the entitlement mentality; that hard work isn't necessary because the world owes you everything you need.

2) It victimizes society's hardest workers and biggest contributers, discouraging further success by stifling the value that hard work normally yields without the arbitrary robin hood concept of stealing from the "rich" and giving to the "poor".

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First of all. You keep saying the government is "supposed" to take care of it's citizens.

Why are those same citizens are not supposed to take care of themselfs and leave the government to do what it's SUPPOSED to do, which is protect the rights of the people, not redistribute money, not loot from those who earn, not support the unemployed, not provide retirement or medical care. The only thing the government is supposed to do, is PROTECT THE FREEDOM OF THE PEOPLE. That's it.

Let me correct you on that one. The government DOES NOT make the money. It DOES NOT create wealth. PEOPLE DO.

When I ask "Does the condition of poverty give you the right to someone elseÔÇÖs money?

" and you answer "No, but the government has to take care of itÔÇÖs citizens" it means, people who work and pay taxes have to take care of those who do not. You see, that "taking care by the government" is actually done by me and others who make a paycheck, not by the government.

When I ask "Does the condition of sickness gives you the right to have someone else pay for your medical care? " and you answer "You pay for medical care thru taxes" again, what you fail to realize is that medical care COSTS MONEY to those who pay taxes and is FREE to those who do not. Therefore, does the condition of sickness entitle you to FREE (because you HAVE NOT PAID FOR IT, people who paid taxes did, and lets even say that 100% of population works, WHY is it that a guy who paid 50% of his paycheck in taxes gets the same care as the guy that paid 20%? Isn't the guy who paid 50% in that case paying for the other one?) medical care?

When I ask "Why do you feel that I am responsible for someone I have never met?" and you answer "IÔÇÖm not saying that you are responsible for someone you never met, but the government are responsible for itÔÇÖs citizenÔÇÖs and you help the government do itÔÇÖs job by paying taxes. " Again, doesn't that mean that I AM RESPONSIBLE? The government collects taxes FROM ME, and gives it to those who have less than me. So therefore you make ME responsible for other peoples lack of ....money, initiative, knowledge to get a better job, skill, experience, ect....whatever they lack, I become responsible for.

Another question. WHY do you say the GOVERNMENT (which means people who PRODUCE) is responsible for the less fortunate, the sick, the poor, the leeches and the lowliest in our society? Why are THEY NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THEMSELFS? Why is it that if a person makes 70 thousand then his life is his own responsibility, but if another makes 15 thousand then it becomes the everyones responsibility?

Why does the percentage increase when I make more? When I make more, doesn't that mean I work more? Doesn't that mean I either spend more of my life going through school? Or that my job is more dangerous? Or that my job requires more skill? Therefore WHY is it that if I spend more of my life going to school, risk my life flying a plane as opposed to pushing paperwork behind the desk, or put out fires, or make over 100,000 doing brain surgery, WHY do I have to pay more? The reason I MAKE MORE is because my job DEMANDS MORE, yet socialism seeks to collect more and make my pay equal to that of a waiter at burger king.

When you say "- You donÔÇÖt get free food, you get a small amount of money so you can buy food, pay various bills. -"

So that food is not free to those who collect benefits? When you get something you haven't earned, it's FREE. Your working neighbor however, PAID for it, after all, where do you think those "small ammounts of money" come from.

"Free medical care: thatÔÇÖs was taxes are for."

Again, where do the taxes come from? If they are collected from a person that earned it, and goes to pay for medical care for the person who hasn't. How is that different than that same person walking up to you with a gun, and demanding your money because he needs his cough medicine?

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quote:

The major difference is that in a Socialist environment, there is no incentive to work harder because any money made through your own added effrot has only minimal benefit to YOU. All of your added wealth is seized for distribution. Simply not ethical.


This is how the taxes are divided in Norway:

Income over(USD) Tax%

0 : 28%

58 615 : 40%

123 077 : 55%

So it's not like all of your money is siezed for distribution. And if we werenÔÇÖt happy with the way our contry is run we would wote for another government

quote:

Why are those same citizens are not supposed to take care of themselfs and leave the government to do what it's SUPPOSED to do, which is protect the rights of the people, not redistribute money, not loot from those who earn, not support the unemployed, not provide retirement or medical care. The only thing the government is supposed to do, is PROTECT THE FREEDOM OF THE PEOPLE. That's it.


ThatÔÇÖs your opinion, and I respect that. But I disagree on that the only thing the government is supposed to do is protect the rights of the people. In my opinion it has other tasks as well. And why is wrong for the government to help itÔÇÖs citizens to improve their current situation. If the government can help itÔÇÖs people to get jobs, so they can contribute to the socity everybody will profit.

And the unemployment rate in Norway is at the moment 3,4% of the total work stock. So itÔÇÖs not the poor, the leeches, that has decided how Norway is run. We like to call our country a welfare state. And it will NEVER become a country like Belarus, where you have/had a nationalised industry, no freedom of speech, corruption, etc.

And we have an oil found that is designed to pay for future pensions.

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quote:

Originally posted by Prez:

2) It victimizes society's hardest workers and biggest contributers, discouraging further success by stifling the value that hard work normally yields without the arbitrary robin hood concept of stealing from the "rich" and giving to the "poor".

People seem to like assuming that socialism requires tax percentage to increase with income bracket. Which it doesn't.

Soback:

If a goverment helps a person who "fell on hard times" by giving them education and nessities for a relatively short amount of time, then the person can(if they choose) become a productive member of sociaty, which could mean they end up injecting more cash into the system then they used. Unfortunatly, most(all?) goverments don't seem to like that idea.

What is the goverment's job then?

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The whole premise of Socialism is to take from the "haves" and give to the "have-nots". Faced with that choice, I'd be more inclined to sit on my butt and let society support me rather that be one of the ones who works hard and has the fruits of his labor re-distributed without his consent.

That is precisely what has taken hold in many U.S. cities, giving birth to the welfare state.

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Hence why I said that the a goverment shouldn't do that indefinitely for people who choose not work when they are able to.

And I missed the last part of Soback's post that answered my question. And in any event, the goverment would need large amounts of downsizing if that was true.

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quote:

Hence why I said that the a government shouldn't do that indefinitely for people who choose not work when they are able to.

And they don't do that, people that for varius reasons are unable to work recive this per household, per month. has to cover everything they need.

1 adult USD 832

2 adult's USD 1420

increase per child in the house 0ÔÇô5(age) USD 396

increase per child in the house 6ÔÇô10(age) USD 414

increase per child in the house 11ÔÇô18 (age) USD 603

And becouse of the high living cost's in Norway this is bearly enough to cover people's basic needs. And when people are used to a high living standard why would they chose this way of life when they can get a crapy job where they can make 30000 USD a year. And a Single person living alone only recive 9984 USD a year to pay for everything from, food, clothes, rent, water, electricity.. etc......

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That's what I always thought, too. But when I lived in a small Pennsylvania town in the early '90's, people did just that. I lived next to a family on welfare who had 7 kids. Down the street a single woman of about 28 had three kids and was pregnant with her fourth.

The point is, there is no decent living to be had off of welfare, yet people do it all the time. I was a welfare recipient for a while, and the shame I felt was immense. I don't know how someone can stand to live like that. I joined the military to try to make a better life for myself and my wife.

I have no tolerance for able-bodied men sitting at home, collecting others' money when they should be making their own, nor can I stomach the thought of women digging themselves deeper in the hole by continuing to have children.

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quote:

Originally posted by Aapen Post:

quote:

Hence why I said that the a government shouldn't do that indefinitely for people who choose not work when they are able to.

And they don't do that, people that for varius reasons are unable to work recive this per household, per month. has to cover everything they need.

1 adult USD 832

2 adult's USD 1420

increase per child in the house 0ÔÇô5(age) USD 396

increase per child in the house 6ÔÇô10(age) USD 414

increase per child in the house 11ÔÇô18 (age) USD 603

And becouse of the high living cost's in Norway this is bearly enough to cover people's basic needs. And when people are used to a high living standard why would they chose this way of life when they can get a crapy job where they can make 30000 USD a year. And a Single person living alone only recive 9984 USD a year to pay for everything from, food, clothes, rent, water, electricity.. etc......


France has this same system, and guess what? It's STILL burning....
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quote:

I have no tolerance for able-bodied men sitting at home, collecting others' money when they should be making their own, nor can I stomach the thought of women digging themselves deeper in the hole by continuing to have children.


Neither do I. There rules are that if you receive social benefits, you have to take any job that is offered to you. And statistics on how much income a household have shows that, households that have an income from 0-44626 USD are populated by an average 2,6 people. And we have an OIL FOUND that is designed to cover the cost of pension and other social services in the future.

and take a look at this link.

http://hdr.undp.org/reports/global/2004/pd...h='hdi%20index'

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