There's a difference between that tax money being spent to maintain the same aristocratic status quo and being spent to improve everyone's standard of living.

But that difference isn't that one is theft and the other is somehow a service. It's theft in both cases because it's all done with or without your consent.

Yeah but its like a thief taking your money to renovate your own house compared to a thief taking your money to fund their crack habit

More like a thief taking your money and then renovating someone else's house with it after he's paid himself for doing so.

Ahhh the American government explained perfectly. Don't forget social security taxing maxes out at $118,000 annual income..

And do you think that's a good or a bad thing?

You should book a one way ticket and go live in Somalia TODAY. You'd be so happy away from civilized society. Think about it: no taxes, guns of all types, enhanced castle doctrine, never feel shamed into sharing or cooperating with others, live your dream of being a warlord, etc. Seriously, you'd be so happy.

Over 200 years ago those same words where often spoken to anyone that didn't want to obey the English crown, except it was to go live in the US. I guess you still obey the crown?

Are we better off now than under british rule? You think you are free? You live under true authoritarian fascism (corporatism) right now. Take your rose-colored "muh founding fathers" fantasy somewhere else.

Furthermore, if obeying the british crown means getting affordable healthcare and not having to pay 100 grand for a broken arm, then hell yes Ill obey the crown instead of this corporatist bs we currently have.

It appears you're having trouble distinguishing whom your master truly is.

Need a hint?

Nah. Move along, citizen.

It's you. Master yourself, and you'll master the universe.

Try mastering others and that's slavery. Plain and simple.

Sure thing, bro.

The government has never done anything that nice for me. And in fact the government blows up people with that money, which is far worse than funding a personal bad habit.

The government has never done anything that nice for me.

There is just no way this is true. Roads? Police? Firefighters? Public schools?

The roads are falling apart. The police are killing us. The firefighters can't stop global warming. Public schools don't teach critical skills necessary for modern survival.

Firefighters can't stop global warming.

That isn't even their job.

Joke.

Public schools don't teach critical skills necessary for modern survival.

Public schools waste time and teach subservience to the state.

Public schools teach so much to students that I'm not sure your complaint can or should even be addressed. As far as teaching subservience, following school rules is easy and it's quite a stretch to say that they're harmful.

I'm talking about more than school rules, also yes a lot is taught but when referencing a waste of time I am commenting on efficiency not total amount.

https://millennialanxieties.wordpress.com/2016/01/17/5-better-ways-to-teach-history/

Depends on the county and sometimes state(sex ed laws). For the most part yeah, public schools are pretty damn good and offer a lot. At my high school they had an excellent advanced math program and would cover tuition at the local university if you wanted to take Calc 3 your senior year. However, there are also a lot of cities, such as Detroit, where the public schools are understaffed, underfunded, and aren't capable of all their students for college.

however what ratio of what is being taught is actually used in modern day to survive? versus what they have to learn on there own once they "grow up" ?

Well is your goal to survive or to be educated?

In my experience, public schools help kids with neither.

Sounds cute, but we both know it's not true.

Firefighters and EMT's are just about the only respectable government work. (I have a half dozen city/state employees in my family.)

The roads are falling apart. The police are killing us. The firefighters can't stop global warming. Public schools don't teach critical skills necessary for modern survival.

Ignoring how much worse most of this would be if no one was even trying, what's the libertarian solution for global warming?

as a libertarian it occurs to me that there is no libertarian global warming solution. Im so glad that our government is in control instead. By giving tax subsidies to oil producers, the animal agriculture industry and auto manufacturers I am confident we will stop this mess.

I read your first line and was going to reply with "Also as a Libertarian, here's why you're wrong..." Glad I read the rest first.

Libertarians believe in minimal government involvement in basically everything. That means no subsidies for basically anything. Without subsidies, no industries have a natural advantage over the others. Without natural advantages, the free market will function the way its supposed to. Unsubsidizing the coal and oil industry won't immediate delete their advantage over every other industry in the entire world, but its a start. Shit, its leagues ahead of anything the Democrats and Republicans plan to do.

No social security? No housing subsidies for elderly? No medical subsidies for low income people?

So basically everyone for themselves?

Social security is a fucking ripoff man. They take 15% of your paycheck that you could use for insurance, to save and invest how you want, start your own business, etc. If you're a normal W-2 worker you pay 7.5% and your employer pays 7.5%.

Check out this Chicago Tribune article that spells out how Social Security just isn't worth it for anyone: http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/sns-201512241600--tms--savagectnts-a20151224-20151224-column.html

You don't realize you pay 30-50%+ of your income in taxes. In a Libertarian world, you would be keeping a MUCH larger percentage of your income. Save it. Give it to family to support them (elderly care). Donate it to charities (conservatives give more to charity on average even if they are poor). People wouldn't NEED to beg the government for their money back to help them in a Libertarian world.

Take the example of JUST removing Social Security, not even the entire swath of other useless programs or agencies that waste our money. If you make $25,000 per year and work for 40 years, You will have made $1 million. Social Security takes 15% of that (if SS didn't exist your employer would be paying you that 7.5% they match instead of the government). At retirement you'd have $150,000 in the bank if you never invested a penny. It's HUGE.

You're right. I should be more clear. Government shouldn't subsidize industry. Government has no place in business, especially in a free market.

EDIT: Although a lot of Libertarians believe in phasing out Social Security.

Well ideally, you're right but we saw what happened when we left it up to corporations to run themselves in the 1800s and early 1900s. If presented with the chance, industries will do anything they can to save a buck including the dumping toxic waste into a field, lake, or river. There would probably be extreme poverty as well if corporations had free reign through the outsourcing of anything the could while still owning the means of production.

Someone using a hammer to hit people in the face is not an argument against a hammer's usefulness

E: also, if you're afraid of agribusiness and the energy industry, why would you assume they'd act better absent any oversight?

You missed his point though. He's not an anarchist. Libertarians aren't anarchists. If we were anarchists, we'd be the Anarchist party. We're Libertarians. We believe in liberty.

His point is that while no one really has a plan for defeating global warming, the Democrats and Republicans who have deeply corrupted the government are actively pursuing the practices that got us here in the first place. Attacking a Libertarian with a question like "What's your party's solution for global warming?" Is like attacking a Democrat or Republican with "How do you plan to achieve world peace in your first 4 years?" No one has a plan for that. Its such a large problem that everyone will have to be on board to fixing essentially everything that we habitually do as a society that got us in this mess. At least Libertarians are advocating for the idea that government not put money directly towards an industry that perpetuates global warming more than anything on the planet.

That's his point. At least we're doing something.

Any consensus solution needed to help solve the issue would be impossible without state sponsorship. It's not that libertarians don't or won't have a plan to fix global warming, it's that they couldn't.

Guess we should all just ride the wave to death then.

I have a plan; switch to renewables. Spend the couple trillion to build a hydrogen cell infrastructure all over the US, with the solar/water/wind/geothermal plants to run it. It'd only cost us about 3/4 an Iraq.

Hell we could start with the major trucking, shipping and rail lines and building that infrastructure would create tons of jobs, plus boost our economy and help along technologies by seeing what works best/breaks down while getting rid of the biggest segment of polluters. That would only cost like 1/10th of an Afghanistan.

Well, personally I agree but... try going to congress saying "If we just invest 3/4 of the money we put into Iraq..."

It's totally doable, you just have to spell out to the military contractors that they're doing civilian work now...you can still have Lockheed manufacture the wind farm turbine blades, you can still give General Dynamics the machining contracts for the Geothermal plants. And when its' done, instead of a war-ravaged hellhole and a generation of terrorists from same, you have an infrastructure to last our country a lifetime.

If you actually believe global warming is a man-made imminent threat, then the LAST thing any rational person would want to do is increase the size of government. The US federal government is the biggest single polluter on the planet, and why would it give a fuck? It steals $3 trillion per year from people and gets away with borrowing another $1 trillion. Nothing about government is efficient. Obama going to Africa takes 100 cars a few planes and hundreds of people to go tell poor people they'll never be able to use air conditioning because fuck them, while he produced more greenhouse gases in that trip than they would with a lifetime of air conditioning.

Disbanding the largest net carbon emitter in the world right off the bat might be a good move I guess. Statists should really not use this one as an example, so few of you actually realise the carbon footprint of your cherished institutions. It's a little sad really.

There's this rhetorical sleight of hand which the argument ventured here always fails to grasp.

A) The climate is changing.

B) Global warming is a constant and increasing thing.

C) It's primarily caused by greenhouse gases.

D) Which are mostly anthropogenic co2 emissions.

E) In fact, solely anthropogenic co2 emissions, because this is the only thing which we can venture that humans have control over and thus make useful as a power lever on the rest of humanity, despite anthropogenic co2 emissions consisting of less than 5% of the total.

F) Therefore the states of the world must unite and impose authoritarian controls on global anthropogenic co2 emissions.

G) This is the only possible solution to this extremely important problem, and it is not at all an attempted lever to get more power for the states.

These all get bundled up into a neat little package and thrown at anyone daring to question any one of them, ranging from most to least credible in order, as if any single point was in fact equal to all of them, all the while seemingly totally unaware that the largest net emitters of co2 in the world are all state organisations. It's like putting the informal alcoholics anonymous relapse committee in charge of regulating the net intake of society's alcohol, because alcoholism is such a scourge.

Statists should really not use this one as an example, so few of you actually realise the carbon footprint of your cherished institutions.

Speaking of rhetorical leight of hand, I gotta give it up for "Global warming's not a problem, and even if it was, it'd be the government's fault." Clearlthe answer is to replace governmental services with several competing companies trying to fill the vacuum left, that'd knock those emissions down for sure!

It's funny that in a post where I point out that having differing opinions on the separate issues raised is always equated into a single heresy, I get accused of that exact heresy. Thank you for making my point for me so forcefully by example.

Actually I think it may very well be a problem, as I said, most to least credible, the point at which I switch from thinking there may be something to it (despite problems with things above this, like the proportion of anthropogenic to natural co2, co2 as a proportion of greenhouse emissions in net, the long pause in the data for actual global warming, potential solar activity contributions, etc. Despite all that, from the perspective of evaluating the problem, just ignoring it is a bad gamble IMHO) and laughing my ass off at it as the point at which the proposed solution is more power to the state, the exact organisation that most heavily contributes to the exact problem being painted as putting all of humanity in such dire straits.

I think the real, actual solution is likely to be alternative energy, whether that be traditional renewables like Solar and wind solely or supplemented with advanced nuclear fission, thorium fission, or nuclear fusion going forward once the technical hurdles can be cleared.

But instead of focusing on this humanity seems intent on focusing on carbon emissions quotas and cap and trade and other ways for the states of the world to lever their power more rather than actually finishing the problem once and for all, which of course is exactly what you'd expect if it was about increasing the power of the state, rather than solving the actual problem.

Individuals are left to make that decision in a libertarian view. Believe it or not people with money sometimes have altruistic agendas from time to time. Think of the bill gates foundation. He does it with his own money and invites others with money to solve global problems.

Individuals are left to make that decision in a libertarian view. Believe it or not people with money sometimes have altruistic agendas from time to time. Think of the bill gates foundation. He does it with his own money and invites others with money to solve global problems.

Crossing our fingers and hoping we get saved by a billionaire ex machina is a terrible plan

It's not just billionaires it's grassroot organizations as well. But I can see if your point of view.

global warming? its called climate change, and it does this naturally over long periods of time. theres been times when the earth was warmer and theres been times when it was cooler. global warming is just an excuse for carbon taxes.

its called climate change, and it does this naturally over long periods of time.

Dude that argument is fucking idiotic. The anxiety and question about global warming isn't about the earth warming. Of course the earth has warmed before. It's about the earth warming with us on it. Yes the earth has been warmer you moron, the earth was at one point a completely molten rock. Guess what though, there were no humans alive on it at that time were there now?

Humans have never caused this drastic of climate change , and it's only going to get worse and that's just a fact.

How are people still using this stupid argument like it means something?

There have been ice ages and warming periods before human industrialization. What evidence do you have that proves humans are the main cause of any climate change? If you can't give me or if the climate scientists paid for by tax money (definitely conflict of interest) can't show me provable via scientific method evidence that you and I are going to change the world forever and we will all die and shit and whatever, please do. Otherwise, it's all bullshit based on proprietary formulas and guesses. How about I don't want to double my taxes and lower my quality of life for guesses? How about fuck those guys.

I can't believe you people are real.

I'm not going to waste my time showing you the research, I simply don't care enough about this conversation. It's such a unanimous scientific conclusion it wouldn't take you any effort to do it yourself, assuming you have at least a small amount of brainpower.

It wouldn't matter if I did because no matter what I show you, you are just going to scream conspiracy. It's probably part of your identity, the guy who knows better than most of the accepted science on the subject. Hey, good for you, basement dwellers need something. It's good to have skepticism but I legitimately believe you are crazy and stupid.

It's a cop out, but you are definitely a lost cause.

probably because the research is based on bullshit.

Lol

lol as well.

Your reply is basically what everyone says, even the scientists. That's why it seems like a cult or something from the outside.

I'm not the one putting forth the proposition that the world is ending due to human activity and we need to do a paradigm shift in the global economy and governmental control to stop it. The onus is on THOSE people to prove their assertion and to do it sinply without the snobbery and contempt involved that exists.

Why are you not distrusting of an establishment that gives your future to wall street via quantitative easing and who have killed more than a million innocents in Iraq and Afghanistan and spent $4 trillion+ on based on lies? The same government that proves it isn't worthy of trust time and time again to anyone who seriously reads history. Gulf of tonkin. Bay of pigs. Etc etc etc.

What if they're wrong? It will destroy the progress of third world nations for generations and because it would be such strong government authoritarian economic control they may never ever develop and prosper because they'll lose the knowledge to produce profitable goods and services because they were forced into a fake zero sum economy by global governance? It's about the most serious potential change in human history. Doubt more for your own good.

Because the government isn't the one telling us global warming is real, more than 98% of the scientific consensus is telling us that global warming is real.. If anything the establishment that sent us to Afghanistan and spent more than 4 trillion dollars based on lies is on YOUR side of this conversation! It's much more profitable for them to ignore the fact that global warming is happening.

Dude, occam's razor. Which one of our arguments has less assumptions? In the past two hundred years humans have been using machines that emit c02 exponentially more than anything in the past. C02 emissions raise the global temperature. Don't you think that scenario is far more likely than 98% of the world's scientists are coming together to conspire against the world so that they can convince the government to charge a carbon tax? Wtf is that? That's the stupidest shit I've ever heard you donkey brain.

Dude I think you're falling for the propaganda from the same government you distrust. It's so much more in their interest for you to distrust the scientific community than them.

You're so ass backwards it's appalling. I'm not going to respond to you any more it's a huge waste of time.

I was very polite the whole time, never insulted you, presented reasoned arguments. You reply with cursing and insults. You'll never change anyone's mind being an asshole. Take note for future interactions with other "donkey brained ass backward" people.

You are not intelligent

Reading through your previous posts, neither are you. You really really hope people think otherwise though.

Humans have never experienced this drastic of climate change

that's just a fact.

show me your factual proof to back up your claim, it doesnt exist.

how in the fuck do you know? were you alive 20,000 years ago, i didnt think so.

you're argument sounds a lot dumber than what i said.

Global Warming(tm) believers are just that, believers. There is no damning evidence otherwise it wouldn't be so controversial to give global governments untold power to lower our quality of lives and FURTHER pick economic winners and losers via crony capitalism and corporatism. When you talk to them, they often have never read a scientific paper or even a scientific article that's more than 1 page on the topic, it's just marketing imprinting (hearing something over and over again, just like Hitler said. If you say something enough people will think it's true). It's like telling devout religious people God doesn't exist and they will just laugh and ignore you or whatever because you are too dumb to understand the "Truth(tm)".

Just follow the money. Al Gore was a stupid politician and now he's a super-millionaire. He doesn't create products or services, he works for the fucking government. If you get rich working for the government you're a corrupt piece of shit because those are all tax dollars taken by gunpoint and threat of jail to pay for his fat ass.

ahh its refreshing to converse with someone else who actually has a brain. seems like the shills have taken over the conspiracy sub. +1 for you sir.

Wow. The ignorance is incredible.

That best part about this is that the evidence actually does exist!

That's how we know you didn't do your research, and you're just spouting off stupid shit you thought of on the toilet or heard some Republican congressman say!

You obviously believe we have solid evidence of the fact that Earth was hotter in the past. How do you think we know that? Were people alive 10 million years ago? Nope. Were people alive during the ice age? Nope. But we do know the temperature of the Earth's climate during these periods. You believe that. Which is a good thing, by the way, because that much is true.

But how do we know this? Because we have people that study rocks and those tell us a helluva lot about Earth's past. We can carbon date rocks to specific eras and we can also carbon date human fossils to specific eras and we can say things like "Oh, because this human fossil and this rock come from the same era and the same place, the Earth's climate during this period was roughly _ degrees. Cool!"

That's how we know what temperatures humans existed in. That's how we know this is the hottest period humans have ever existed in.

Not overstating the effects would be a good start.

Not very surprising, "Ignore the problem and hope it solves itself" is pretty par for the course with y'all

Creating crazy scenarios of doom and destruction is a pretty classic and well known way for governments to take more money from its population. FYI

Public schools don't teach critical skills necessary for modern survival.

Not true at all. They teach obedience to authority, punctuality and helplessness, which is perfect training for the corporate job environment.

It's perfect for living under a big government. At least at a corporate job you aren't harming people by your existence (not using taxes taken by gunpoint from innocent people). You are taught not to question the new taxes, the new regulations, why the cops are beating you. Pick up that can!

You're using the internet right now. Developed by the military. Look up ARPANET.

You mean funded by the tax payer.

That should go without saying I think?

Ehh you'd be surprised.

You are right, without the military making it happen people would have never figured out how to have computers communicate with each other.

I can see you're being sarcastic but people thought computers were useless for end consumers and had little-to-no commercial value in the middle of the 20th century. Even the idea of a personal computer was laughable.

For you to snidely suggest that a large group of highly skilled people in a new, esoteric field were going to invest untold amounts of time, money, and resources into achieving something for which there was no known customers or even a feasible way to market it is pretty ridiculous.

Would it have happened eventually? Probably. Would that company or group have given out the tech and released the standards publicly and would the technology be as decentralized as it is now? Unlikely.

It's easy to look at the state of things now and say how obvious something was, but I think that's being incredibly ignorant.

I can see you're being sarcastic but people thought computers were useless for end consumers and had little-to-no commercial value in the middle of the 20th century. Even the idea of a personal computer was laughable.

For you to snidely suggest that a large group of highly skilled people in a new, esoteric field were going to invest untold amounts of time, money, and resources into achieving something for which there was no known customers or even a feasible way to market it is pretty ridiculous.

Would it have happened eventually? Probably. Would that company or group have given out the tech and released the standards publicly and would the technology be as decentralized as it is now? Unlikely.

It's easy to look at the state of things now and say how obvious something was, but I think that's being incredibly ignorant.

the personal computer's progress had nothing to do with the internet. networking computers and the progress of networks had nothing to do with the internet. there were modems before tcp/ip. have you heard of token ring before, or any of the other techs before the tcp/ip stack.

Also look at the "googles" of the day: bell labs, xerox, etc. They were just waiting for the technology to get better.

Someone here is ignorant, but it's not me.

The personal computer wouldn't have progressed if it weren't for the work Claude Shannon did at MIT he discovered that arrangements electromechanical relays could be used to solve problems in Boolean Algebra. Following that he worked on a defense funded projects at Bell Labs which critical to computer design. I'm not sure about the funding of his thesis at MIT and whether it was funded by a grant from the gov or a donor but private and public universities both receive grants from the government that lead to many scientific and technological breakthroughs.

Making computers talk to each other has nothing to do with the progress of computers? Are you even listening to yourself? There's no incentive to do the R&D to make computers talk to each other if there's not even a market for computers.

If Token Ring was so good we'd be using that instead. You can sit here all day and argue that IBM or Xerox were just about to invent the internet as we know it, but they didn't. The contention was that the government doesn't do anything good. I presented a counter example and your response is, "But someone else probably would have eventually done it!" Which is a completely moot point.

Making computers talk to each other has nothing to do with the progress of computers? Are you even listening to yourself? There's no incentive to do the R&D to make computers talk to each other if there's not even a market for computers.

You are showing your age. As an example, the apple 2 was deployed in many households, not just businesses, and had no networking (although, i think it had an expansion slot). Hell, desktops didn't come with ethernet built in until recently.

To counter your other point, we use mp3, a codec that has many licensing issues, can't be easily cut in the middle of a frame, etc.; instead of vorbis, a free very good codec without these problems. Why do we do this? because it got market share, not because the government made it, not because it was free, and not because it was better.

You are showing your age. As an example, the apple 2 was deployed in many households, not just businesses, and had no networking (although, i think it had an expansion slot). Hell, desktops didn't come with ethernet built in until recently.

And ARPANET's creation and deployment predated the Apple II by about a full decade and as you admit the Apple II still didn't include any network connectivity. ARPANET was developed DESPITE the lacking demand, that is exactly my point. So we already had a working packet switching technology using TCP/IP when there was little-to-no market demand and no motivation for private industries to develop. I suppose in your world we would have had to wait until the 80's when there may have been significant demand until we got something resembling what was introduced in the 60's.

I'm not sure what your point is on the codecs. MP3 suffers from many of those problems you listed exactly because it was developed as a proprietary technology.

Yeah I mean I guess you can just imagine private citizens would get around to it eventually, but that doesn't change the fact that back here in reality government beat them to the punch.

That's because the people that decide what to do with the tax money have adopted the interests of the wealthiest multi-national businesspeople. If the government sensibly spent tax money to improve the conditions of the public, you would likely see massive infrastructure/public transpo/communications investment to increase economic opportunities, less waste on police because of alarmism and duh scary drugs/black people.

Schools, don't know. But if economic conditions improved in areas, you bet the schools would improve. Education has shown that throwing money at the issue doesn't work, but socio-economic conditions certainly influence educational systems as students from disadvantaged families have trouble with cultural norms of poor/destitute communities, teachers burning out, administrators seeking bandaids rather than earnestly committing to improvement etc.

So damn right. Firefighters can pretty much do no wrong in modern America, except cost way too much. The rest is spot on. People seriously don't realize that even in America, if you take ALL of the forms of taxes you pay per year even low and middle class people are forced by gunpoint and threat of jail to pay 40-60% of their income to the government. Good slaves. I'm actually planning on doing a total tax experiment to total all of this and try and grow it and get others to join me in cataloging where they live and their tax rates and how the people feel about the services they're getting versus what they pay. It'd really open some eyes.

Define "Modern Survival" and the critical skills necessary for it. I honestly dont know because I went to public school.

change oil in a car, fix a flat tire with a plug or patch, rebuild a lawnmower engine, wire an electrical outlet, make soap, frame in a door, working on your bike, etc.

When you get out of school you know how to do nothing of use to anyone, unless you took courses on how to program. Sure you know how to add and subtract, but you would pick that up just from living, and don't tell me you remember how to "complete the square" or other things that might prove useful.

Are you shitting me? There many public highschools that have machine shop or auto shop that teach car and small engine repair. Some even have programs that bus the kids from school to the community college to do those things. Fixing a flat tire with a plug or patch requires reading the label on the patch kit. Wiring an electrical outlet, making soap, framing a door, and working on bikes are specialized tasks that are not even required for "survival" and can be easily learned by CHECKING OUT A BOOK AT THE PUBLIC LIBRARY! Hey, there might even be one of those libraries at the public school.

Here's an article that will put it in a way i apparently couldn't.

If you'd like to know more about winning internet arguments, you could check out a nook at your public library.

They could also search on youtube but 99% of people are still too stupid to even search and find a video that will document and simply show exactly how to do things. There is no critical thought.

Nowadays there's a YouTube video to teach all that stuff.

I'm not on your side, I think the schools are dogshit. But, fn the situation called that I would need to make soap I would just steal it.

What are you going to put it in if you can't even weave your own baskets?

Not a single one of those things is remotely necessary for "modern survival" or even for entering into the workforce.

Things that schools should teach that aren't being taught are things like paying taxes and what actually happens with your taxes and where your taxes go and what happens if you don't pay taxes. Applying for college and which colleges offer which experiences and how to get the degree you're looking for and how to even know what degree you're looking for and what a degree even is...?

How to manage your money. How to be responsible about your finances.

That kind of shit. Not changing a freaking bike tire.

You're only wrong about not being able to change a bike tire isn't important. That is basic problem solving and I wouldn't hire an accountant or any professional and trust that they can logically solve my advanced problem if they couldn't figure it out on their own. It'd be pathetic.

Everything you said is important, all of it. Most people can't do any of that. Contemporary budgeting and personal finances are just "I can afford the minimum payment on my magic money cards and my $150,000 student loan debt, so I'm winning".

Do you only use mechanics who know how to do accounting?

That is basic problem solving and I wouldn't hire an accountant or any professional and trust that they can logically solve my advanced problem if they couldn't figure it out on their own. It'd be pathetic.

Replacing an engine or other things are a bit more complex.

Everyone has been conditioned to believe it is their birth right to be a part of the socialist/government ruling elite by going to university. Simply because they read a few books and are told what to think for a few years (many university programs still fail to produce critical thinking skills) and are a debt slave, they feel deeply and inherently superior to blue collar people who do things.

Many people by and large can't do shit to survive or thrive by themselves, many people have a hard time even replacing a light bulb in a mildly ornate lighting fixture and need to call some "idiot" and pay him $150 to do it.

That doesn't mean you give up funding them... Exactly the opposite.

Lol more spending per student does not work. Funny how quickly statists shut up about Scandinavia when this topic comes up.

Um, I've spent time in inner city schools, man. They're fucking falling apart. Sometimes they run out of pencils, and there are no doors in the bathroom stalls. It's degrading and humiliating. OF COURSE they need more money, a lot more money. That's a bullshit right-wing talking point you're regurgitating. Read Jonathan Kozol some day.

Jesus dude, so pessimistic.

Nothing he said is untrue. There's construction all over my city right now, and it's only because a gas line exploded an entire city block a few years back. When they put the road back together over the pipes, it sucks worse than it did before.

Really though? I've driven on plenty of decent roads, are they all in flawless shape? No but they're definitely not falling apart. Police are killing us? I've had plenty of funny, great experiences with officers. Firefighters can't stop global warming? Yeah no kidding? Public schools don't teach skills for survival? They're not meant to, they're meant for education and as a stepping stone to a career.

It's also not untrue that there's greatness in this world, beauty to be seen, lands to explore, sights to see and experiences to feel. No need to be a debbie downer.

Roads vary a lot by state. There are great roads in Arizona, Louisiana not so much.

No need to be a debbie downer.

We have to address the problems that are real in order o make progress, which means an unflinching tare at what's broken.

/r/im14andthisisdeep

Have you ever seen what a place with no government looks like?

You missed the point.

Right...gummint baaaaad...my mistake.

All four of which are primarily funded at the local level, and has nothing to do with the federal government, except for where the federal government has forced their way in unnecessarily.

Exactly. People don't understand that their federal income taxes basically go to pay debt to support the world's largest welfare program of federal jobs and kill brown people, little else. The huge amount of other taxes they somehow forget they pay all go to local programs.

roads

Shitty

police

No thanks.

firefighters

Can be had without government

public schools

Absolute garbage

+1, great post.

Can we trust you won't ever be calling 911?

Last time I had to call the cops, someone broke into my home. They took 45 minutes to get there even though I was 3 blocks away from the thug station. Then, they proceeded to harass my wife about drugs because they saw incense.

So no, I will never, ever dial 911 again no matter how bad the situation is. State thugs will only make my problems worse. If you were smart, you would do the same.

so if we didnt have a government, there would be no roads, or education etc.?

people seem to have low expectations of other people.

I didn't say there would be none of this without government (though look up the etymology of "fire sale" if you truly think private firefighters are a good idea), I said that it's absurd to think government hasn't done anything for you.

i understand what you're saying. government does a lot of things, problem is only a small percentage of those things actually help the majority of americans.

government has very limited roles defined by our constitution, if they would just stick to those roles, we would be a lot better off, but i do see what you are saying.

the way i look at it is

small gov. = better than big gov.

no gov. = still better than big gov.

I'm sure there would be roads but it would be very difficult, if not impossible to have a competitive market for local roads. Takes a large amount of area and if you weren't satisfied with the road you take to your house or business it's not viable for other companies to compete and offer you an alternative.

Totally private education would be an absolute disaster. There would most likely be a monopolization of schools in cities making it unattainable for a large amount of people. If I were to have a monopoly on schools in a city I'd charge just enough in tuition to make unattainable for most to afford and then use them for cheap labor at a factory I owned.

Private prisons... all you'd have to do is pay the police/security force to frame people as you needed them for slave labor.

I'm not against gov completely. But they need to stick to their designated roles and stay out of peoples everyday affairs.

If you're not delusional you'd see basically everything they do is getting a failing grade except maybe firefighters, but we could probably spend 80% less on that too. Public schools and universities are producing the low-functioning grown children who attend Yale and Harvard and sign petitions to ban the first amendment. Everyone is retarded, even the supposed "best and brightest" at the ivy league schools.

Roads - state Police - state Firefighters - state Schools - state

...states which then elect moronic spend-happy virtue-signalers overspend, then most borrow money from the federal government which takes more from us to pay for people to maintain their false sense of morality and humanity.

Firefighters receive very very little tax money. It's mostly private money.

Private money builds skyscrapers, it can build roads too.

Public school have been in a decline since federal government took em over.

War on drugs has over inflated law enforcement sector by huge amounts. We can easily cut police funding by 60%.

That's what we're trying to change by getting money out of politics. Our taxes should be thought of the same as you would think of investing in the stock market. Pooling everyone's money together to accomplish something that you could never accomplish alone, like Universal health care standing up to big pharma or even simpler like building a bridge.

Except it could only be that if it was voluntary. Taxes are theft because they are taken from you by force.

Force vs Violence

Nice thank you!

That was fucking awesome, thanks for sharing. Very insightful, and just as he says in the video, people already know this but are conditioned to kind of mix them together, which isn't true!

money out of politics

Lol. Been that way since the dawn of the state. Are you going to remove wetness from water too?

You're underestimating the difference that technology and the internet can make, my friend. We don't have to settle for being lied to anymore and we have the data available along with the technology to leverage it into a really great society. But first we have to banish the parasites.

You're underestimating the difference that technology and the internet can make, my friend.

Well, ok. So let's say that I'm a politician and I want to get my message out. "Vote for me, because I want to pass laws X, Y, and repeal Z." I task some Amazon EC2 servers and host a website. Oops, except that's not free, especially not a site that can stand up to the entire country checking out my stance on issues X, Y, and Z. Well, no problem - maybe the people who support passing X, Y, and repealing Z will help me out, kick in for the server hosting? Better yet, a message is more powerful if it seems like it's not just from one person, so maybe they go to the trouble of their own accord to stand up servers and host webpages that say "Vote for Crashfrog, he wants to pass X, Y, and repeal Z."

Well, there's your money back in politics. There's me, having to listen a little harder to the people who can donate what I need to get my message out - because nobody will know why I'm running or even that I am, otherwise. Because what do you think politicians, and their interested supporters, are spending all that "money in politics" on, anyway? Messaging. The costs of mass communication to the American people.

I mean, it's either that way or we tell people "look, if you support a candidate, you can't tell anyone about it. No 'money in politics', and that means you can't spend money on speech to communicate your support of and advocacy for, anyone running for elected office! You can't buy so much as a soapbox to stand in the public square and shout your support." But political speech is exactly the speech we're guaranteed by the First Amendment. And that's why attempts to reign in 'money in politics' always fail on First Amendment grounds - the money is being used for speech.

A Bernie Sanders supporter using the phrase "banish the parasites". How ironic.

There is only one way to take the money out and the people as a whole don't have a stomach for it. Suspect you are prob a younger person like most of Reddit here. Prepare yourself to be disappointed with politics and all politicians you whole life.

Yeah it's a shame that we love our guns and the 2nd amendment but do not use it as it was intended. Tyranny reigns free in America; corporations, police departments, etc.

Yeah it's a shame that we love our guns and the 2nd amendment but do not use it as it was intended.

Violence should be an absolute last resort. As far as I can tell, all other options have not been exhausted.

I agree but it seems that our options are running thin with all the lobbying in Washington causing only the voices of the rich and corporations to be heard. That's one of the reasons I support Bernie Sanders, he recognizes it and works to put an end to it and is the best option currently on the table but may not see its day.

"A government is just a group of people, Usually notably ungoverned." -Mal Renyolds

Maybe your government. I get maintained roads, a state pension, "free" healthcare, free schooling, "social security", help with my first mortgage, buses, trains, museums, libraries, a relatively decent police force, decent prisons and they still get to bomb people!

If you're a fan of abolishing government entirely, there is a wonderful place you can go and live out all your sexiest libertarian fantasies. It's called Somalia. Enjoy.

This is like saying that people who like socialism should go to North Korea. It makes for nice rhetoric, but it's got no substance.

Except that Somalia is essentially pure anarchy and has been for many years whereas North Korea bears no resemblance to any real socialist thinking. Any Marxist economist would tell you that the totalitarian regimes that call themselves "communist" actually just took the capitalist mode of production and replaced private power with state power (Richard Wolff explicitly calls them State Capitalist countries).

Somalia is essentially pure anarchy

No it's not. There's no longer a unified national government, but as long as competing warlords are still imposing their rule it's not anarchy. It actually highlights the problem with statism, just as "socialist" nations become stinking quagmires of competing bureaucrats when voluntaryism is eliminated. You could argue that anarchy is not possible to achieve, just as some argue that true socialism is likewise merely a dream, but you can't use the current situation in Somalia to disparage the ideal. Living under a hundred tyrants is still far from perfect, but it is better than it used to be when living under just one.

Warlords are a symptom of the lack of any universally recognized government structure. In my view, wherever there is pure anarchy, some other system will take it's place. I lean anarchist in my views believe it or not so I share the ideal. The only difference is that the american version of libertarianism has come to mean "extreme capitalist". Any true anarchist would be against the capitalist class structure and mode of production. The key is to create a sort of toothless bureaucracy to maintain order and protect people but also stay out of people's everyday lives. Abolishing the state is a mere fantasy at this point, and just giving over all of the power to unaccountable capitalists is much worse.

“As regards the first set of dangers, it behooves us to remember that men can never escape being governed. Either they must govern themselves or they must submit to being governed by others. If from lawlessness or fickleness, from folly or self-indulgence, they refuse to govern themselves, then most assuredly in the end they will have to be governed from the outside. They can prevent the need of government from without only by showing that they possess the power of government from within. A sovereign can not make excuses for his failures; a sovereign must accept the responsibility for the exercise of the power that inheres in him; and where, as is true in our Republic, the people are sovereign, then the people must show a sober under standing and a sane and steadfast purpose if they are to preserve that orderly liberty upon which as a foundation every republic must rest." – Theodore Roosevelt, at the opening of the Jamestown Exposition, April 26, 1907.

You mean the place ruined by corrupt government?

The difference between the government and a crack addict is how the money is distributed. The government distributes it to hundreds of different branches while a desperate crack addict will solely spend it on crack .

Maybe it's time to look at the people who keep voting for assholes that continue on with the status quo. O but wait, that means the voters are at fault. Okay uhhh, let's just pretend like its the politicians fault and not the voters that send them there.

The government has never done anything that nice for me

he said on his DARPA-developed Internet, eating his Cheetos delivered on government-paved roads to his local Junk Food Mart

Everything in a prison is provided by the prison, does that mean the prisoners should be greatful that they dont have a choice but to take whats forced upon them? Youre making comunist arguments. The government creates monoplies so we should be greatful for what they force on us... I mean provide graciously!

At the same time, your house needs renovation and the crack addict "needs" his crack.

Your house needs to be renovated because it looks like shit and if it falls down it could kill someone and if it catches fire firemen need to be able to enter it and extinguish the fire before other houses catch fire from it, and so on.

Yeah but its like a thief taking your money to renovate your own house compared to a thief taking your money to fund their crack habit

You're right, but the government has never given me money to renovate my house.

Taxation is not theft.

I'm a dirty immigrant who stole someone else's job, so maybe I have a different perspective here, but I literally chose to come live here and pay all those taxes.

And you have the same choice. You're making that choice every day.

Even better, if you're a citizen, you can one up me and vote for the tax changes you want.
If you want to eliminate all taxes and turn your country into a literal shit hole, you can actively work toward that. So that's pretty exciting.

Anyhow, taxation isn't theft, government isn't tyranny, and civilisation isn't a prison.

Is it voluntary?

Taxes are not voluntary.

Living in a given country however is.

Unless you're too broke to move to a different country, in which case you are coincidentally unlikely to be significantly burdened by taxes in the first place (also see Romney's 47%.)

Not paying taxes is always an option, it just comes with consequences most people don't want to face.

Resist taxation? Fines. Resist fines? Arrest. Resist arrest? Dead.

Taxation is theft. I'm more of a minarchist or maybe even just "conservative" with libertarian leanings, but the left's inability to grasp this is incredibly astounding.

Their suggestion to "just leave" is pretty funny too since - surprise - your government and the government you're immigrating to will charge you thousands of dollars and years of your time - if you're not Muslim or illegal. I'm not even American or a "Reaganite" but America was indeed the last best hope for liberty on Earth; where else can one go?

There are a lot of services that are provided to you only as long as you pay. Stop paying, stop getting the service.

If I stop paying my HOA dues, my home will be taken from me, and I'm sure I can get arrested or dead if I want to take it that far over it. Is my HOA a thief? No, that's non-sense, since they provide a service for the money I give them.

Nonetheless, if I don't like it, I can just sell my house and go move elsewhere. I'll pay fees to sell, and fees to buy elsewhere. Whatever, it's the free market at work!

Somehow, applying the same idea to countries amuses you, because you feel the free-for-all that is the Earth as far as countries are concerned has not produced alternatives you find desirable.

Are you sure that's the case? There are a lot of countries out there. 196 at last count. Some of them must have less taxes, perhaps even no taxes?

Don't give up on your pursuit of liberty so easily. Apply your libertarian ideals all the way.

Civilization isn't dependent on government.

Government is not the people.

Government is not society.

Which is why you can readily bring up examples of civilisations that exist without a government, I'm sure.

It depends on how far down the garden path you care to tread. When Europeans sailed into the Cook Islands, the only 'government' was a chieftain who had mostly ceremonial duties(such as hosting Luaus & fucking all the virgin girls as they came of age) and his 'Big Man' enforcer. Otherwise their civilization was without government.

American Indians pre-Columbus.

It's taxes. Not theft.

If we didn't have taxes, we wouldn't have power lines, roads, or anything that is a part of the public infrastructure. Except in places where the rich want that convenience and pay for it themselves.

It would further divide the classes and make it so that poor communities are even lower than squalor.

Is it voluntary?

Is a landlord taking your rent without your consent. You have a cost to live in a nation

Nope, rent is a voluntary transaction.

Is citizenship not voluntary?

No it is not. Your consent is assumed at birth and forced on you by default.

"Still another of the frauds of these men is, that they are now establishing, and that the war was designed to establish, 'a government of consent.' The only idea they have ever manifested as to what is a government of consent, is this – that it is one to which everybody must consent, or be shot. This idea was the dominant one on which the war was carried on; and it is the dominant one, now that we have got what is called 'peace.'" ~ Lysander Spooner, No Treason No. 6

I love Spooner!

Not really.

By being a citizen of the country and utilizing said infrastructure, you are agreeing to pay taxes.

Many people are not a party in this agreement. An agreement forced upon a person is not a valid one. It is obviously not a two-party agreement, hence the comparison to theft. Additionally, this implicit and informal agreement does not provide a way to opt out.

Before you suggest that people start moving away, why doesn't the government move away and leave us be?

Maybe you should seek grievances from your parents. It's not like anyone ever asked to be born, it just happened.

Could killing yourself be a way to opt out?

Organized mass suicide of 100,000+ people to protest taxation. That would show them!

Because the government is what founded itself here.

So yes, the way to opt out is to leave. And there is fuck-all stopping you.

Wrong

https://www.irs.gov/Individuals/International-Taxpayers/Expatriation-Tax

Well I'll admit that's fucking stupid...

Tip of the iceberg. I'm not even a "full" libertarian or anything, but I don't know how one can be even remotely aware and not be at least sympathetic to libertarianism.

Yes we would.

Statists gonna state.

They call it implied consent. If nobody makes a stink then they must agree so lets do it!

Rapists could call it implied consent if shes passed out and cant object, but that doesn't make it true.

It does for the rapist. An extreme example, but I see your point.

It's theft in both cases because it's all done with or without your consent.

Actually consent makes it not theft, by definition.

You missed my point. The government opperates without consent. It never has consent.

Dude, I am way the fuck out there politically, but the government still has my consent when it fixes roads and bridges, when it puts out fires, etc etc.

It's theft in both cases because it's all done with or without your consent.

Actually consent makes it not theft, by definition.

Still many things ought to be funded by public money.

There is only private money. There is no such thing as public ownership. That's a communistic idea and it's logically inconsistent with reality.

We had 'the commons' for thousands of years.

Go on?

For centuries grazing land in England didn't belong to anyone, it was common property. The system wirked well. Then greed took over and the wealthy fenced it up and a perfectly good system of common property was exploited and ruined forever - thus the 'tragedy of the commons'. The argument about the public versus private ownership is just political posturing anyway. There is no 'correct method'.

You're contradicting yourself. Was it no one's property or was it owned by the commons? And how do you define commons?

Either something is owned by someone or it is owned by no one. There is no magical third party called the commons.

You libertarians are victims of Stockholm syndrome. You talk like your masters, use their terms and believe that you can beat the man at his game, you can't. You're better off taking a philosophical view and dying for you beliefs, than trying to 'win'.

Whurt?

There is more to life than property ownership.

You don't say?

O.o

There is also more to life than breathing but you don't see many people living without it.

If its theft don't be part of the society. You're welcome to live in a jungle. The intolerable igorance of the American attitude that government steals from one person to give to another is disgusting and disingenuous. We choose to live in a civilized manner; where I don't have to crawl over someones dead grandma on my way to work, where I don't have to protect my property from bands of roaming nomads, where I don't have to worry about someone else's kids not getting the education they deserve. Only in America can this type of disgusting attitude fester.

Couldnt you just crawl around the dead grandma?

But as it stands it's a total mixed bag. A ton of our tax money is wasted our evil imperial wars and the "Drug War," but also a decent chunk of it goes to social service programs, education, road construction, etc.- good stuff.

But without those wars, what will we do with all the money we spend on wars? Think about it.

Maybe I misunderstood you, but here's my take ;-) : Develop LFTR:s. Fly in e-volo:s. Eliminate the propaganda machine, as unnecessary. People would have more time for other things than work, maybe get involved in human activities, like thinking, loving and sharing. Improving oneself to live a life of pleasure, engagement and meaning (to borrow the last phrase from Peterson and Seligman http://sententias.org/2015/01/01/evidence-against-moral-relativism-only).

I know it's a joke, but that would literally be our problem. Nobody in the 1 percent seems to understand compound growth. I did the math recently, and those in power focused on what was best for the group instead of defending their private income, even those at the top would make far more money. http://answersanswers.com/calculator.html

you are not seeing it from their perspective. The whole purpose is to BE in that 1%, it has nothing to do with acquiring more money. They are very different from us.

I agree. This has been a hard lesson to learn. I thought that if I could show people "you will make more money from doing good" then they would do good. But that's not how we evolved. We did not evolve to think of absolute numbers, we evolved t think of RELATIVE numbers, how we do compared with the next guy.

Once I learned that, I thought the solution was for some group to simply create its own utopia and then the others would have to follow. but again, that's not how we evolved. If our goal is to only have RELATIVE superiority then it's much easier to sabotage some new upstart than to copy its ideas.

It's a really hard lesson to learn. We really could have a perfect world, it would be much less work for everyone than our current world - but that's just not how we are wired. We evolved fighting tooth and claw, and by golly that's what we are going to do.

well, yes but that's where the frontal lobe is supposed to kick in, we can overcome this. We probably won't unless we fight back their ideology. It could be too late, they might have too much power now.

it is about power.

"fight terror and defend freedom so you can buy more stuff" /s - Jello Biafra: baby Punchers by Leftover-Crack

In this theoretical dream, there will be plenty of money to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure, end homelessness, AND lower taxes.

I sure hope I live to see the day. You know what's slightly more realistic? Ending the War on Drugs completely. It costs about 50 billion dollars a year, between state and federal money, and there's zero evidence that it's reduced any drug use. We could decriminalize and ultimately legalize them all. If they were legalized we'd get additional tax benefit, which we could use for things like education, while keeping general taxes at a reasonable level.

Does that 50 billion dollars per year include the imprisonment and "justice system" legal fees? I'm curious if it wouldn't be closer to 70-80 billion including all of that.

Good question. Check out www.drugwarfacts.org. But I believe the answer is no, it doesn't include prison costs and legal fees. And figures I've heard for the cost of imprisoning people is anywhere from 30-60 thousand dollars, depending on the state. Lot of money we spend to try to get people to stop using certain drugs. Of course, we know that's not what it's really about. It's a tool of social control.

Surely you know about legislative bill "riders". It's where alot of waste comes from. "Sure you can have your budget for infrastructure approved, but only if this new abortion bill goes along with it."

Right.

But %43 of the money spent by the US government goes to medicare, medicaid and social security. In a few years , with obamacare and a rising population , it might make up %95 of government spending.

Hmm? I see SS as a very good program, as most people do. I hope the GOP doesn't succeed in privatizing it.

I have mixed feeling. It was an excelent and revolutionary program (help old people? Why havent we thought of that before!?!?) . But lately (last 20 something years) its started to be much less effective, the amount of money that they give isnt enough to pay your medical bills, food, housing ect. Its become a money pit for the us government since old people are living longer. And they arent getting any more money because the news back in the mid 2000s said that it was a 'bad investment' and that they had exclusive information that it will go bankrupt in the 2020s. This made a lot of young and working class people panic, decided to not pay anymore, fearing that they will never get their money back when they are retired. This made the entire system collapse. No new money comeing in, more money than expected going out.

I like SS, its helped my grandparents alot, but maybe privatization among several fedarally monitored companies might be what saves it.

Yeah the stuff that is unsustainable.

Except that the government is unable to "improve everyone's standard of living" as efficiently as if they kept their own money and spent it as they choose.

"Unable" is the wrong word. Unable under the current system, perhaps, but the government is definitely capable of doing this, but while the rich are allowed to write the laws and siphon off the top of everyone's earnings, then yes, it's going to be vastly inefficient like it currently is. We have to get the money out of politics so that the government can actually work for us. Your frustration is legitimate but it should be directed at how the taxes are utilized, not the existence of taxes in the first place. Taxes are a necessary part of any functioning society.

"Unable" is the wrong word

You're right, the government isn't just unable, it's literally impossible for the government to allocate funds more efficiently than individuals.

but while the rich are allowed to write the laws and siphon off the top of everyone's earnings, then yes, it's going to be vastly inefficient like it currently is.

This is literally what the government IS, everywhere, worldwide, for all time - the rich writing laws and mooching off the general public. That's what it has always been, and will always be, because that's what government IS.

We have to get the money out of politics so that the government can actually work for us.

This is such a completely insane fucking statement. How, exactly, do you "get the money out of politics"? It's simply not possible. Don't give me that "publicly funded elections" horseshit, you're just making the problem WORSE, by INCREASING the financial and political control over elections.

Taxes are a necessary part of any functioning society.

They said the same about slavery and segregation.

So how do you have a system without government? Sooner or later someone has control of a necessary resource and when they control 100% of the supply they can demand what they want. What about when the nestle of the world control the water supply? Monsantos control food production. Government is bad but it's not as bad as no regulations and the no taxes that would go along with it..

So how do you have a system without government?

How do you have a system without religion, asked the Pope in 1600.

How do you have a system without slavery, asked the slave owner in 1700.

How do you have a system without subjugation of women, asked the husband in 1800.

How do you have a system without segregation, asked the mayor in 1900.

That question is ridiculous. It's like asking how we can have a court without wigs, or police without SWAT invasions. Well - none of those things are necessary, so the answer to "how" is "we just do".

Sooner or later someone has control of a necessary resource and when they control 100% of the supply they can demand what they want

So your position is monopolies are bad because nobody can do anything without permission from the monopolist?

Wow. That's the same reason I am against the monopoly of government.

Tell me this: How does someone get a monopoly, without the government's help?

What about when the nestle of the world control the water supply?

The only reason Nestle has contracts on water is because it cut deals with governments!

Monsantos control food production.

Because the government issues monopolies (patents) on seeds!

Government is bad but it's not as bad as no regulations and the no taxes that would go along with it..

You're just preferring the enemy you know to the friend you've never met, because you already know the enemy you know and have grown comfortable with their assaults and thefts.

So before the government stepped in people wouldn't hired thugs to take out their competition? Without government nobody is going to undercut, lie, cheat and steal? Without government they will self regulate and honestly tell everything they are putting into their products? They don't even do these things with the threat of government sanctions so why do you expect people would do it without it?

I like this guy

Thank you, I don't get many people who agree with me so I certainly appreciate it when people do. :)

Most people are so tied into the system that they will do almost anything to protect it.

There are certain things that are not beneficial if done on the individual level. Infrastructure, insurance, and defense are examples.

False, false, and false, are your examples.

Good retort, thanks for playing.

You didn't make an argument, you made a claim. As you had zero proof to support your claims, I didn't require any proof to dismiss them.

Alright I'll make an argument. I spend $20,000 per year in taxes. If I had that all to myself how I go about building a road to my rural Kentucky farmhouse?

It says here the cost for a road is :

"Construct a new 2-lane undivided road – about $2-$3 million per mile in rural areas, about $3-5 million in urban areas."

So even if I, and the maybe 20 neighbors I have, all had to come together to build that road, so we could get to our jobs, medical care, food, we would combine for 200,000 dollars. Our town is about 10 miles away. We could build less than a mile of road.

Government is better at infrastructure. Without a doubt.

Government is better at infrastructure. Without a doubt.

No it's not. This is an example of government being BAD at infrastructure, not good at it. Your example just means that you living where you do is extremely inefficient and costly. Everyone else is subsidizing you to their detriment and your benefit. The many millions of dollars spent so you can have a nice road to your house is simply not worth it, except to you and your 20 neighbors. You should be responsible for the costs of your own choices, rather than supporting a system where others are stolen/extorted from to subsidize yourself.

Oh, then what's the true cost per mile of road? If the government is inefficient at building it then what would be an efficient cost per mile then? And the point of taxes and government is that as a society that we have all become a part of supports each other through infrastructure. So my neighbors and I can't afford the road. So the government pays for it at the cost to someone else, then I have my road. Next year, or maybe last year, a road was built to the houses of those who helped pay for my road. Or the school their children use. That's how a functional society is supposed to work.

Alright I'll make an argument. I spend $20,000 per year in taxes. If I had that all to myself how I go about building a road to my rural Kentucky farmhouse?

Did you build the grocery store you shopped at today? Did you build the gas station you fueled up at? What exactly did you pay out of pocket to build, that you use? And since the answer is "nothing", why the fuck would you expect that you're the one building the road on your own, out of pocket?

So even if I, and the maybe 20 neighbors I have, all had to come together to build that road, so we could get to our jobs, medical care, food, we would combine for 200,000 dollars. Our town is about 10 miles away. We could build less than a mile of road.

So what you're saying is that it only makes sense to live where you do if you can convince the government to make other people pay for your road?

If you had to pay for that road, and you couldn't get some government to force everyone else to pay for it for you, would you have been so foolish as to live out in the middle of nowhere?

Returning ourselves to reality, those figures are for asphalt roads. A gravel road would cost way fucking less, so if you couldn't rob your neighbors to get that fancy asphalt road you can't afford, boo-goddamn-hoo, you'd be driving on gravel. That $200k should just about cover building that gravel road, and it'll last forever as long as you grade it every 3 years and add gravel every 6. So, realistically, that road would have been built as gravel many years ago and you wouldn't even be thinking about it.

Government is better at infrastructure. Without a doubt.

Oh bullshit! Government is just a mechanism that enables you to live 10 miles out in the middle of nowhere and have absolutely no concern for who footed the bill for the road to your house that you couldn't afford on your own.

You only like government because it enables you to benefit from other people's loss. That's about as legitimate as loving slavery because if the slaves work, you don't have to.

Wait so am I to understand you're suggesting a society with no government, with essential services being controlled by private corporations? The same types of organizations that used to employ children to do the most dangerous jobs? Make people work 60 hour weeks with no breaks? Buy out entire sections of a market, create a monopoly, and charge unaffordable prices for essential services?

I'm not saying all companies are evil, or that the government is even close to a perfect solution at the moment. But the system of infrastructure in the US is a commonly agreed upon good thing, and far from equal to slavery or theft. If it's not a system you want to participate in, go ahead and move to Somalia.

Oh bullshit! Government is just a mechanism that enables you to live 10 miles out in the middle of nowhere and have absolutely no concern for who footed the bill for the road to your house that you couldn't afford on your own

You do realize the irony of attacking someone for living somewhere that is almost certainly more easily converted to post-government collapse than an urban center, right? I mean, I'm betting he could actually grow crops somewhere within walking distance. I can say the same since I live near a large park, but there's no way the amount of arable land in my city could support the 1,200,000 residents.

^ From now on, I'm going to copy and paste this whenever someone responds to me with a bullshit platitude. Nice and succinct :)

XD

The problem is that under the inherent inequality in capitalism, many people are unable to significantly improve their material conditions, sometimes directly as a consequence of those who have more than them. The people who end up controlling most of the resources have shown themselves throughout history to not make an honest effort to improve the standard of living with the resources they acquire. This uneven distribution of resources also naturally leads to an uneven distribution of power and influence, which feeds back into the inequality loop. I'm going to avoid talking about human nature and simply point to the fact that capitalism encourages this type of behavior, the consolidation of resources and influence. Without a government to regulate, this accumulation can become very socially harmful.

The problem is that under the inherent inequality in capitalism

There is an inherent inequality TO EXISTING.

simply point to the fact that capitalism encourages this type of behavior

Actually, it's GOVERNMENT that makes this happen, not capitalism.

Without a government to regulate, this accumulation can become very socially harmful.

Government is the REASON for consolidation of wealth. You're begging for more poison, and calling it the cure.

Government is the REASON for consolidation of wealth.

So before there were formal states, when the warband raided my village and took all my stuff and sat on a pile of gold, I was just imaging things? Plenty of pre-national settlments had no conception of individual property or wealth, and were sharing amongst each other... but that does not sound like the anarcho-capitalist worldview you are professing in the first place. As soon as you assign material possessions to people under their ownership and control, someone will have more things than everyone else, by the nature of physical reality.

Economics is a game. Everyone is playing, but different people have different objectives. If you are playing to profit, you are always going to outperform those who are playing to raise a family or have a stable living environment or who want material possessions over investments. And that means the class of people playing for profit will consolidate wealth because everyone else is valuing wealth accumulation less than they are. The natural state of affairs is to create Rockafellers and Rothschilds - dynasties of wealth where the parents imbue the decedents with the outlook to play the game towards maximizing profit, and you end up with runaway capital control by those who stay the course.

So before there were formal states, when the warband raided my village and took all my stuff and sat on a pile of gold, I was just imaging things?

Those are forms of government, actually. Anyone who wields violence with the assumption that no violence may be wielded in response is acting like a government.

Plenty of pre-national settlments had no conception of individual property or wealth, and were sharing amongst each other.

And suffered constant famine and had no material wealth. I'd rather not live naked in the woods, thanks.

Economics is a game.

Economics is not a zero sum game, as you imply. My having $1 does not mean you are $1 poorer.

The natural state of affairs is to create Rockafellers and Rothschilds - dynasties of wealth where the parents imbue the decedents with the outlook to play the game towards maximizing profit, and you end up with runaway capital control by those who stay the course.

It's absolutely uncanny how you people can say this with a straight face while completely ignoring that this so-called "natural state of affairs" is in fact a state of affairs that has only been observed as a consequence of governments.

You are so wrong about everything you've posted here, it's hard to know where to begin.

Capitalism IS the problem.

You wouldn't need a welfare state in the first place if private property rights and the usurpation of wealth created on the backs of others labor was addressed. And private property law via the state is what keeps this in place.

State is just ONE part of the problem. Not the whole problem.

Capitalism IS the problem.

No, capitalism is what puts food in your tummy and gave you a computer to use to ignorantly whine about capitalism.

You wouldn't need a welfare state in the first place if private property rights and the usurpation of wealth created on the backs of others labor was addressed.

This is a product of CENTRAL BANKING, not capitalism.

State is just ONE part of the problem. Not the whole problem.

You're right - the other part of the problem are the socialist morons like you who think you can murder and steal your way to prosperity.

Central banking is PREDICATED on capitalism. You wouldn't have central banking, the credit system and debt accumulation if you didn't have capitalism in the first place. You're only looking at the symptoms of a deeper underlying problem.

Capitalism IS the problem.

No, capitalism is what puts food in your tummy and gave you a computer to use to ignorantly whine about capitalism.

Baaahahajaha.

No.

Human ingenuity made computers you idiot.

Steve Wozniak didn't make a computer because of the monetary incentive. He did it TO SEE IF HE COULD!

Capitalism happens to be the underlying economic system that is used to help bring things to people, but this would be true under a socialist economy just the same.

You capitalists are ridiculous.

You wouldn't need a welfare state in the first place if private property rights and the usurpation of wealth created on the backs of others labor was addressed.

This is a product of CENTRAL BANKING, not capitalism.

Oh boy. You don't actually know how central banking or capitalism operates do you.

State is just ONE part of the problem. Not the whole problem.

You're right - the other part of the problem are the socialist morons like you who think you can murder and steal your way to prosperity.

Baaaahahaha.

And capitalist don't do that, right?

Wow. You really really need to read a book, dude.

Upvote, upvote, upvote. I gotta unsubscribe from this sub

There is an inherent inequality TO EXISTING.

WoaH super deep insights I had not considered. Project less.

Actually, it's GOVERNMENT that makes this happen, not capitalism.

A government that's been bought out by capitalist interests and has a heavy pro-capitalist leaning. A government that for years pooped out pro business/capitalist propaganda painting state capitalism as "THE ONLY WAY THAT WORKS!"

Government is the REASON for consolidation of wealth. You're begging for more poison, and calling it the cure.

Yeah because they didn't do anything about it. The actual reason is globalization and technology.

Also what exactly am I begging for? Can you just write like an informed and educated person rather than all this useless snark and projecting?

WoaH super deep insights I had not considered. Project less.

I like how I dismissed your stupid-assed statement about inequality with a tautology, and your response is mockery. Well, mockery is what people do when their argument is demolished and they have no other response.

A government that's been bought out by capitalist interests and has a heavy pro-capitalist leaning.

It wasn't bought out, the government was founded by the wealthy elite. Who the shit do you think the "Founding Fathers" were? The government exists BECAUSE OF, and FOR, the wealthy.

Furthermore, the government is not "capitalist", it's corporatist, also known as fascist, and exhibits most of Marx's planks of communism. Only a fool claims the government is "capitalist".

The actual reason is globalization and technology.

Actually globalization and technology are the only things that have kept you from getting even poorer.

Can you just write like an informed and educated person rather than all this useless snark and projecting?

You first.

I like how I dismissed your stupid-assed statement about inequality with a tautology, and your response is mockery. Well, mockery is what people do when their argument is demolished and they have no other response.

I said capitalism creates inequality (specifically in terms of material conditions), and you consider saying that inequality is just a fact of life "demolishing" my argument. That's why I mocked you. Because what you said is dumb. You can say something like "just as much inequality exists outside capitalism/before capitalism" and that would be a semi-valid argument if unpacked. (edit: I say semi valid because waving away the inequality caused by capitalist political economy because "inequality just exists/existed before" is really just not a good argument against making changes to alleviate inequality)

Also this isn't your Intro to Logic class. Raising a finger and going "Tautology!" means nothing in the context of what I was saying. That's the same argument as climate deniers "Climate changes naturally! Ignore anthropogenic effects on the environment, they are normal!"

It wasn't bought out, the government was founded by the wealthy elite. Who the shit do you think the "Founding Fathers" were? The government exists BECAUSE OF, and FOR, the wealthy.

I am talking about the age of globalization here. Where labor unions are basically non-existent or totally emasculated, "Anti-trust" has left our vocabularies and "Socialism" is a dirty word. Plenty of bourgie ass presidents and politicians still fought for populist causes and the common man. Now it's all neoliberal bandaids and "ttheee economy will suffeerr in the short term!!UNACCEPTABLE"

Furthermore, the government is not "capitalist", it's corporatist, also known as fascist, and exhibits most of Marx's planks of communism. Only a fool claims the government is "capitalist".

I never said the government was capitalist. Reread.

Actually globalization and technology are the only things that have kept you from getting even poorer.

I am talking about INEQUALITY. Not how many people are in poverty and to what degree. Globalization and technological advancement did in fact increase inequality dramatically.

you consider saying that inequality is just a fact of life "demolishing" my argument. That's why I mocked you

No, the fact that inequality is a fact of life is itself a tautology. Some people are born retarded. Others have a club-foot. Others are just goddamn ugly. NOBODY IS BORN EQUAL! That's absolutely true, and anyone who says otherwise is WRONG, so it's a tautology.

You can say something like "just as much inequality exists outside capitalism/before capitalism" and that would be a semi-valid argument if unpacked.

Oh look it's the language police! Whoops I don't have permits for using the words I used! Oh no!

Raising a finger and going "Tautology!" means nothing in the context of what I was saying.

It is when what you said is a contradiction (always false).

That's the same argument as climate deniers "Climate changes naturally! Ignore anthropogenic effects on the environment, they are normal!"

No, saying "there is an inherent inequality to existing" is actually the same as saying "temperature variances occur world-wide". Which is always true, thus, a tautology.

I am talking about the age of globalization here. Where labor unions are basically non-existent or totally emasculated, "Anti-trust" has left our vocabularies and "Socialism" is a dirty word. Plenty of bourgie ass presidents and politicians still fought for populist causes and the common man. Now it's all neoliberal bandaids and "ttheee economy will suffeerr in the short term!!UNACCEPTABLE"

Irrelevant nonsense intended to provoke an irrelevant emotional response in order to side-step the issue of who created governments.

Please return to the issue at hand: That governments were created by and for the wealthy.

I never said the government was capitalist. Reread.

Stop your semantic bullshit you insufferable idiot.

I am talking about INEQUALITY.

My eyes are blue, yours are brown. I am taller, you are shorter. I weigh more, you weigh less. We are unequal. There is no way to avoid that.

I am talking about INEQUALITY. Not how many people are in poverty and to what degree. Globalization and technological advancement did in fact increase inequality dramatically.

Oh, so you're talking about something that's absolutely irrelevant to the argument! Got it!

Yes, globalization did increase income inequality, for the simple fact that wherever a factory opens up, the people who are employed there end up with dramatically higher incomes and standards of living, and that's a good thing! Because what's the alternative? That everyone keeps living a shitty life, instead of a portion of the population living a better life, and everyone else living a slightly better life (as they benefit from the spending of those with higher incomes)?

Ok stop with the intro to logic shit! Once again, my argument that capitalism creates inequality that needs to be addressed vs yours that individuals can allocate their resources more appropriately in the absence of a state is NOT refuted by the mere existence of inequality unrelated to capitalism. The fact that no one is born equal has nothing to do with it, we are talking about the political economy here.

Language police, oh please. I was referring to how poorly formulated your argument was, in terms of its content.

Irrelevant nonsense intended to provoke an irrelevant emotional response in order to side-step the issue of who created governments. Please return to the issue at hand: That governments were created by and for the wealthy.

The absence of labor unions who collectively bargained to protect the living standard of the working class is irrelevant to a discussion about inequal allocation of resources? Good one, lol.

Stop your semantic bullshit you insufferable idiot.

So you say I said something I didn't, I deny it, and now it's semantic bullshit? I think you need to re-google what semantics is. Or finish high school.

My eyes are blue, yours are brown. I am taller, you are shorter. I weigh more, you weigh less. We are unequal. There is no way to avoid that.

Are you a troll or just an idiot? There are many ways to avoid a crumbling middle class, suffering working class and resources being consolidated by a tiny global elite. It has very little to do with physical traits.

Oh, so you're talking about something that's absolutely irrelevant to the argument! Got it!

It's not irrelevant. Given globalization happened and this dramatic increase in inequality came from it, it is definitely the duty of states to at least try something to improve the material conditions of the working class. Private citizens allocating their own resources will do jack shit for the working class unless they can make the maximum return on investment. Which is fucked. These are people we are talking about, not commodities.

Yes, globalization did increase income inequality, for the simple fact that wherever a factory opens up, the people who are employed there end up with dramatically higher incomes and standards of living, and that's a good thing! Because what's the alternative? That everyone keeps living a shitty life, instead of a portion of the population living a better life, and everyone else living a slightly better life (as they benefit from the spending of those with higher incomes)?

The alternative is that there is no tiny global elite that controls a majority of the worlds resources at the expense of the worlds poor, and goods are produced for the benefit of the people at large in a socially responsible manner.

And for the record, you really need to read up on inequality caused by globalization. Because I am not talking about those who ended up benefiting from it, like people able to work outsourced IT jobs in India and rural subsistence farmers turned factory workers. That is not what increased inequality. It was the very most elite of society. The numbers reflect this YOU FUCKING MOUTHBREATHER.

Not true at all. You gonna buy your own traffic light every time you want to make sure you dont get clipped going through an intersection?

Just like you buy your own grocery store every time you want supper? Just like you build your own toilet paper factory every time you want to shit? What a stupid thing to say.

So what, are we going to pay a fee to cross intersections to the person who owns it? Get everyone to pitch in to set up the intersection? But then what about the people who didn't pitch in? What about out of towners?

Its not like just anyone can drive on your private road, its private. You probably put a toll booth at the entrance.

The reason private roads don't work is because there is no way to get the land to place them, not that you cannot logistically profit off a road. If you can get 999 people out of a thousand to sell you land to build a highway, you need eminent domain for the last one, and it would be insane for the state to be eminent domaining peoples property to give it to other private parties. I mean, they already do it, but it is still an obviously immoral notion.

With modern technology you can probably very easily have a standardized scanner to install in your car that you can have read when you enter a new private road and will bill you for all miles traveled on it, and you could use something like Google Maps to plot the optimal course balancing cost / time to your liking. It would probably be exactly like now, except with a monetary incentive to expand and maintain roads that is much stronger than it is now (the current incentive is reelection, which often is not an incentive at all for infrastructure investment).

The reason private roads don't work

Ahem. Nearly 20% of roads are private.

So what, are we going to pay a fee to cross intersections to the person who owns it? Get everyone to pitch in to set up the intersection? But then what about the people who didn't pitch in? What about out of towners?

Explain to me how much Walmart charges you to drive in their parking lot, and then think about how brilliant and insightful your questions are.

So, who's just going to build these roads out of the kindness of their hearts?

Strawman argument: I never claimed anyone would "build roads out of the kindness of their hearts".

Can you show me an example of any kind of anything that people build "out of the kindness of their hearts"?

Does Walmart exist "out of the kindness of their hearts"? And yet, there's Walmarts everywhere. Weird! How the fuck does that happen!?

Name ONE FUCKING THING that meets the criteria you stated, dumbass.

You equated roads to Walmart parking lots. As in, saying they'd be free to drive on. I asked, who is building these free to drive on roads, and why would they build them, only to make them free?

There you go! We can talk about this all day long as long as you don't put words in my mouth. Thank you for asking a useful question.

The answer is, Walmart builds parking lots because without parking lots, a Walmart is useless.

Well, tell me this: Is your house useful if there's no road to it?

you make no sense whatsoever.

You gonna buy your own traffic light every time you want to make sure you dont get clipped going through an intersection?

LOL Do you actually believe that we can't figure out a way to organize roads without the government?

thats just my point. "We" DID figure it out. We chose some people to look after it while the rest of us do other shit. We pay them to do it. They're called DOT, police, et cetera. In this country, what the founding fathers gave us is government of the people by the people and for the people. Its ours. We vote to do whatever we want with it, to solve problems like organizing roads. Lots of folks go on as if the government is something different than the people. It isnt. They want you to look at it that way so that we take away power from the government, but thats really taking power away from ourselves, and give it to private companies to solve problems for us. Only issue is that companies have no such thing as common good, so whatever they solve they do so in a more costly manner, and in a way that robs us of freedoms. Thats what the British did, made everything overseas a company (east India company, et cetera). Didnt work out well.

If you believe all of that there's not much I can do to change your mind. You're really defending the police in the US? The same Police that have murdered like thousands of people in the past few years?

Sorry mate, I'm beyond reproached by your statements.

police are corrupt a lot of places and yes, I agree we have a fucked up situation with police at present in the US. But the general point about a democracy being subject to the will of the people is still true, in the US or in the UK. Who do you think pays the police paychecks? The elected officials. Nobody participates enough in their own democracy to make a difference. They think everything is owed them on a silver platter. Up to you and me bro

But the general point about a democracy being subject to the will of the people is still true, in the US or in the UK.

If that was true, we wouldn't have so much police corruption.

Who do you think pays the police paychecks? The elected officials.

No, the government does, and we don't have a choice as to whether or not we can stop paying them because of cronyist-union contracts. That's why private-security companies are better; if they fuck up, they lose customers to their competition.

Nobody participates enough in their own democracy to make a difference

How can we? Aintnobodygottimefordatshit.

They think everything is owed them on a silver platter. Up to you and me bro

I'll stick with /r/agorism and /r/anarcho_capitalism. At least there I can make a difference.

This is why universal basic income is important - correct for automation and the declining utility and demand for human labor and the compromised bargaining position of the worker against the owner with a threshold of wealth nobody can fall below, with the recognition that individuals will handle the money much better than any state could, and that by eliminating bureaucracy involved you can minimize the overhead and economic burden of redistribution.

Its actually panacea for free markets, because you can abolish the vast majority of regulations surrounding work (minimum wage, hourly constraints, forced insurance payment, unemployment coverage) if everyone has the bottom tiers of their hierarchy of needs fulfilled before negotiating their time away. And the easiest way to pay for it is to progressively tax the largest instances of wealth accumulation, because those denote centers of existent profitability you can siphon from without compromising market pressures and growth.

This is why universal basic income is important

Jesus Christ, UBI is the most retarded idea in existence. If you want the entire world to be striated into the 99.9999% have-nots, utterly dependent on the whims of government, and the 0.00001% in control of everyone, please, keep masturbating for UBI.

UBI will create income inequality like you've never seen before. It's government-engendered-income-inequality on fucking STEROIDS.

Bahaha

What money?!

Most people make minimum fucking wage!

Oh, but let's not talk about the capitalist system and the owners of the means of production that reap the benefits of others labors.

Let's not talk about that which makes a welfare state and taxation an absolute must in the first place.

What money?! Most people make minimum fucking wage!

And? Think a bit about where money comes from.

Oh, but let's not talk about the capitalist system and the owners of the means of production that reap the benefits of others labors.

Think about where money comes from.

Let's not talk about that which makes a welfare state and taxation an absolute must in the first place.

Think about where taxes go. Hint: 3% goes to welfare and public services. Who gets 97%? Hint: The rich.

The "solution" is actually what causes the problem!

This pie chart form the Congressional Budget Office doesn't back up your assertions about where taxes go. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._Federal_Spending_-_FY_2011.png

You should think a little harder about where money comes from. Consider the fact that the economy, in the current economic system, is entirely dependent on massive concentrations of unaccountable private power. These corporations don't care whether you live or you die, and they certainly don't care about your quality of life. Yet, these companies make all the major decisions in our society. We all have to beg them for the opportunity to bind ourselves to them as their expendable servants just to survive. We are working towards goals which we cannot play any role in constructing and share in none of the benefits that the owners and shareholders receive. Ask yourself, I beg you, is this an economic system that really deserves to exist?

You should think a little harder about where money comes from.

From the Federal Reserve, and that's exactly the problem.

We are communicating with each other on the product of quite a lot of government investment of our tax dollars... It sure improved my standard of living, how about yours?

Why is it necessary to improve everyone's standard of living? Is it not the responsibility of each individual in society to provide service and in turn raise their own standard? Then government and charities assist those who truly need assistance, members of society who actually need a hand up and not a hand out.

"Standard of living" is just a euphemism for how much they're going to force you to work to meet their standards before they allow you to live.

I dont know how to fix a pothole or drive a snowplow, i'd rather pay someone else to do that than do it myself.

The ends don't justify the means.

I think there's something in-between: Some people in the government act as venture capitalists to try to invest in the next big thing so that they would be the first ones to hold shares in it.

No government acts without the consent of the governed.

Someone forgot to inform Pol Pot.

Also that the intention behind the money of many, can be changed by the actions of one. The basis of government corruption.

Exactly. I wouldn't exactly say that the Iraq war was 'funded by the people', given that it didn't really improve anyone's lives except for the politicians and weapon companies.

On its face this sounds great, just like socialism. The reality however is that we should incentivize corporations that create and employ. Those same people with their hand out may have an opportunity to earn it. A large part of our jobless situation and shitty economy is that we tax these companies straight out of our country. With the companies go the jobs. Musk isn't stupid he is a billionaire for a reason he doesn't line his own pockets exclusively with this money. I'd like someone to show how many jobs have been/will be created through this expansion of tesla (factories, dealerships etc...)?

A large part of our jobless situation and shitty economy is that we tax these companies straight out of our country.

This is a symptom that we've allowed to happen because of money in politics. Corporations lobby Congress to allow them to stash their profits overseas in tax havens. What you said will have people feeling sorry for the corporations, but just look at the wealth inequality in this nation. The truth is economies are based on a strong middle class which results in high demand to perpetuate the economy. But right now, the wealth is so concentrated at the top that the economy can't function efficiently and it's beginning to buckle. Those at the top are spending a lot of money to propagate these ideas that big government, the poor, regulation, and taxes are the reason our country sucks. In fact, the Koch Brothers alone donate to the business schools of over 40 universities around the country on the stipulation that they only teach their approved version of economics, but just look at the data. Supply side or "trickle down" economics are being disproved over and over. 62% of Americans right now have less than $1000 in the bank. This proves that when they get any money, whether earned or in a "hand out," they turn right around and pour it back into the economy. They aren't the ones hoarding the money so maybe we should look elsewhere. This is just like ignorant arguments against raising the minimum wage. If you owned a store with a dozen employees, you shouldn't worry that all of a sudden you have to pay them more, you should rejoice that thousands and thousands of people in your community now have TWICE the amount of disposable income and this is what will make businesses thrive. Sure, it may be difficult at first, but that's why the change is gradual.

Corporations lobby Congress to allow them to stash their profits overseas in tax havens.

No, Congress doesn't allow it - there's no basis by which the US government could justly assert tax jurisdiction over money made by selling something produced in China in a storefront in London and deposited in an Irish bank. It's not a "tax loophole" - it's a widespread but mistaken idea that somehow, the US government would have moral justification to tax business activities undertaken by non-US citizens in non-US countries for non-US corporations.

Apple has billions overseas because that's where they made the money. Why should they pay US taxes on it? Because we want some of it?

Your argument is currently being disproven. Rich people are rich because they reinvest in their business ( this includes hiring people and giving raises). The largest problem is the employment issue. I happen to believe that people do a better job taking care of themselves than relying on the government to do so. why punish a successful business? Money belongs in the hands of the people and if a few people have a great deal of money then good for them, they earned it. The United States was born on the idea of less government "that government is best which governs least". Maybe a good question would be; how many jobs does the 1% create? How many of those jobs could be here if they weren't taxed so heavily? The socialist ideals that you have display an ignorance of the history of socialism. It has literally never been successful. Remember what JFK said: ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.

We've been pumping inflated money into the economy for decades, money that isnt worth the 1's and 0's its made of on a computer. It's been given to business and banks, and even if you gave it directly to the poorest people in the country most of them would BUY THINGS with it.

People buy things and that money ends up back at the top where it is treated best. The rich are getting richer, the gap is getting wider, but the poor aren't getting poorer. The poor in the USA are part of the 1% of the world population.

Who cares where money created out of thin air and handed to people ends up in the long run?

typical socialist logic thats why we cant have nice things

Huh? You think Elon Musk is working on improving everyones SoL?

Everyone as in the human race, ya, I believe he's doing more work to benefit us all than the US government.

Clean energy for the planet, space travel (to find a new home if needed).

If course he needs money to maintain these front. So he has to be smart, turn a profit AND move these two goals along.

So let him get it from rich customers, not poor taxpayers.

Poor tax payers aren't buying teslas, rich benefactors are investing in spaceX.

in fact, Musk have the power to choose who can and who cannot invest in spaceX. He might not have all the money he needs/wants, but he manage to keep the hand on his project.

No kidding.... ?!

It's actually very untrue that the government makes no money. They make money on land leases and royalties on land. They make money on tarrifs. They make money on patents and licensed technology.

Granted that most of the money the Feds make is taken through taxes but not all of it.

So, they make money on land that doesn't belong to them and on ideas where they've granted themselves a monopoly that they back up by force.

How is government not mafia again?

They are. The government is the mafia in that it's the only agent permitted to utilize violence. The government is the most powerful mafia of all.

yes of course, but that's the whole point. That's the reason we created it. The problem is we were all supposed to be part of it, and they were supposed to be the good guys. And they are, but holy shit they do a lot more for the extremely wealthy than for the rest. It's about priorities to be honest.

don't forget property forfeiture which is all the rage now days

[deleted]

pre bitcoin plug?

I don't know Elon I do see a lot of people start their sentences online with

" as a taxpayer ..."

As a taxpayer, I also don't know elon

Elon Musk isn't the democracy loving/techno libertarian you think he is. His companies Tesla/SpaceX wouldn't survive if he weren't sucking off the government's tit

This is just bad logic. Accepting gov't money doesn't make you any less of a libertarian or whatever. Who wouldn't take free money? If someone holds the door, you're not any less of a man for walking through it. The gov't is just retarded for offering the help. As a business owner who has a commitment to himself, his family, and his employees, taking gov't money is a non-decision if they're offering

If you're a libertarian who considers taxation theft, wouldn't this make you a receiver of stolen goods? How does that make you any better than the thief who stole them?

It's kinda like when Ayn Rand cashed her social security checks and is called a hypocrite for it. Just cause you don't believe in the system, doesn't mean you can't recuperate some of the money that has been stolen from you over the years

But the social security was literally her money. The government took it from her and now they are paying it back. Still doesn't make Social Security any better, but it's ludicrous to say cashing the check is hypocritical.

That's how ignorant most of us are. Let me rephrase - that's how fucking stupid most of us are.

Yeah, that logic doesn't follow here because Tesla is not only taking money, they're literally enabling the state to steal MORE money to compensate them:

In 2014, Nevada lavished the company with one of the biggest corporate-welfare packages in history: In exchange for building a battery-manufacturing facility near Reno, Tesla will pay no payroll or property taxes for ten years and no sales taxes for 20 years, and will receive $195 million in cash via “transferable tax credits,” which can be sold to other companies to satisfy their Nevada tax bills. All of this amounts to a $1.3 billion giveaway.

I agree with and upvote you in the face of the Elon Musk man-crush downvotes, especially as relates to Ayn Rand accepting social security checks versus massive government subsidies.

I would guess anyone who considers taxation to be theft would also view government subsidies as recovering what was unlawfully taken from them. Ya know, because they still pay taxes, too.

Not my beliefs as I have no problem with the concept of taxation, but supposing I did I would view a partial return on money stolen from me as movement in the direction of justice rather than as some accessory to a crime.

Well you'd be wrong in regards to Tesla. The business is getting WAY more than he's putting in:

In 2014, Nevada lavished the company with one of the biggest corporate-welfare packages in history: In exchange for building a battery-manufacturing facility near Reno, Tesla will pay no payroll or property taxes for ten years and no sales taxes for 20 years, and will receive $195 million in cash via “transferable tax credits,” which can be sold to other companies to satisfy their Nevada tax bills. All of this amounts to a $1.3 billion giveaway.

If you're a libertarian and you view taxation as theft, Musk is literally enabling the government to steal more money

Nevada can do what they want. Its smart business to move where it benefits you the most.

This is why federalism is so amazing.

A libertarian would just see the tax break as less theft from Tesla. It's not welfare to agree not to tax in the first place.

You don't quite understand what that is saying. They're literally going to not only pay no taxes (which would be zero theft), they're going to be given subsidies from the government directly on top of that. If they 'zeroed out' you could make that argument but from a libertarian perspective this is them being given other peoples money outright since they're not paying in at all AND being given additional funds on top of it.

Not really all that interested in trying to argue a libertarian perspective on the issue as I do not identify as a libertarian. To be completely honest I've never been interested in politics in general so I couldn't tell you in what ways they would be similar and in what ways they would differ from the other parties beyond the face value comparisons I see while browsing.

That said, not paying state taxes doesn't really apply to the question that was asked. You aren't paying anything with a 0% tax rate, but you also aren't receiving money at a 0% tax rate so why would libertarians view this negatively. The $195M is a straight handout, but where does $10M per year fall in a comparison to the federal taxes the company currently pays, and where will it fall in 6 or 7 years into operation at this plant when they're producing 10X as many cars companywide? How will it compare in year 20 of operation?

I honestly don't know anything about Tesla's financials but something tells me that the amount of federal taxes the company will pay (provided they don't just outright sink) over the next 20 years will be more than enough to have the company ultimately pay more in taxes than the $195M.

If you're a libertarian who considers taxation theft

this just sounds odd. does such a person exist?
where is the government supposed to get any money to do anything? cook crystal in a winnebago?

If you forcibly take money from somebody under the threat of violence, it doesn't matter how you cloak it or what you do with the money, you're stealing from them.

Many people exist who think that if you take money off people who have no choice, it's theft.

Or does it mean you're just getting a return on your investment?

If you're a libertarian who considers taxation theft,

Taxation is coerced resource allocation, for sure. It's only theft when it isn't voluntary though. In the US govt, it's theft.

wouldn't this make you a receiver of stolen goods? How does that make you any better than the thief who stole?

Well, thieves and those who accept stolen goods are not equally immoral or whatever. Thieves are head and shoulders worse. You can't have stolen goods without thieves. Thieves immediately remove the products of another man's labor. The impact to the victim is already done. What happens to the item after the fact doesn't have any effect on the victim. Thus, i think thieves are far worse than receipients because thieves are directly causing harm to others whereas one would argue that accepting stolen property indirectly hurts others via incentivising more thefts.

Anyway, for sake of argument, we'll say theyre the same. This is the classic dilemma of "is it okay to steal heart medicine for a dying woman who needs it?" Except in this case its "is it okay to take stolen property to feed my family and the families of my employees?" I personally think it's completely fine, but others would disagree and could give a logical argument as to why. I dont think its okay to steal to do the good deed though as this may affect the lives of others

In 2014, Nevada lavished the company with one of the biggest corporate-welfare packages in history: In exchange for building a battery-manufacturing facility near Reno, Tesla will pay no payroll or property taxes for ten years and no sales taxes for 20 years, and will receive $195 million in cash via “transferable tax credits,” which can be sold to other companies to satisfy their Nevada tax bills. All of this amounts to a $1.3 billion giveaway.

This is totally beyond taking back what you put in, especially for a business. Musk is profiting off of literally taking money from the government.

I seem to remember someone arguing that private persons aren't actually obligated by any US laws to pay income taxes, and that there are many who just stopped paying them. People just do it because they think they can't get away from holding out.

I seem to remember someone arguing that private persons aren't actually obligated by any US laws to pay income taxes, and that there are many who just stopped paying them. People just do it because they think they can't get away from holding out.

Yes you have read it somewhere, and it's not true. Or, before anyone sends me all the various links, it is functionally not true i.e. the Courts will rule against you.

Lots of people don't pay taxes. I have a few friends who don't. The law just hasn't caught up to them. The government doesn't have the resources to catch up to everyone.

I'm behind on my taxes by about 4 years. But I'm owed returns so I don't get many calls.

Right! So there is precedence, but not law, in this case. Sometimes it's the same for all practical purposes, as you more or less said.

And let me add for anyone else reading this:

When you read the cases about people who won in court with this stuff, you need to understand what they actually "won".

When the IRS says you owe them money that is civil. If they think they have enough to show that you were intentionally trying to defraud them instead of mistakenly taking a deduction that they disallow, or forgetting about some small amount of money you get paid for day labor, they can make it criminal ON TOP OF what you civilly owe them.

There are a few cases where people went in citing all this stuff on the internet how they didn't owe income tax because they are not corporations and stuff like that and they were acquitted on the criminal charge because the jury concluded that, basically, he actually believed this stuff. That is, he had no intent to defraud, he really thought he didn't owe. In every case I have looked at although the guy was acquitted criminally, he still owed the money civilly.

The gov't is just retarded for offering the help.

No, it surely is not!!

Offering the help makes people dependent on government. This = power.

Offering the help makes people lobby the government for said help. This = power.

It's a very rational decision for a government to offer all manner of "help" - everything from welfare to tariffs to tax loopholes.

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You mean like how he payed off Tesla's government loans 10 years early? Or how spaceX wins contracts by being the lowest bidder? Please tell me how he's sucking the government's tit?

Please tell me how he's sucking the government's tit?

Because he wouldn't have gotten those loans on the private market in the first place. Every sale of a Tesla car also comes with government discounts. If it wasn't for taxpayers subsidizing Tesla's bullshit cars, less people would be buying them.

Do you have a problem with GM or Chrysler? Cause they lost almost $10 BILLION dollars of government money.

What about Ford? They took a 8.8 BILLION dollar loan from the Government

Nissan took 1.6 BILLION in loan money

Tesla took .465 billion and payed it back 10 years early.

http://useconomy.about.com/od/criticalssues/a/auto_bailout.htm

http://www.forbes.com/sites/joannmuller/2012/08/29/automakers-report-card-who-still-owes-taxpayers-money-the-answer-might-surprise-you/#2715e4857a0b113a11a66a8c

Yeah, I have problem with all of them. Car companies can go fuck themselves. I don't even own a car.

And your comment is off by a factor of 10: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hy-musk-subsidies-20150531-story.html

So shut the fuck up unless you know what you're talking about.

I wasn't off by a factor of 10. Tesla Motors took 465 million in the form of a government loan and payed it back. That's a fact.

You're including all goverhment money that benefits Telsa, Solar City and SpaceX under that umbrella: tax incentives for cleaner energy, green technology, contracts for space flight.

Okay, so take it a step further and include them too.

Actually, the government is their largest single customer, but it's only around a third of their revenue. It definitely helped him get Tesla and SpaceX started, but at this point you could hardly claim they're reliant on it.

It definitely helped him get Tesla and SpaceX started, but at this point you could hardly claim they're reliant on it.

give me that kind of money and I guarantee you a few years later I will no longer depend on you for money either

They weren't "given money", they bid on a contract.

Looked into it and it seems like you're right. I underestimated him just because of recent criticism I've heard about him and the money he's got from lucrative gov contracts. My bad.

It's a disingenuous quote. The government is exchanging the organization of the distribution of goods and services for money. Fedex doesn't have it's own money, it's got only whatever it collects from people, and they they provide a service in exchange for that money. So does the government, it works exactly in the same way. The only difference is that one is compulsory and the other isn't.

Our taxes don't pay for goods and services.

Taxes pay the government's monthly credit card bill (national debt to the federal reserve). We pay for goods and services with additional debt, and hope our kids can keep paying the now larger bill.

If it sounds like a scam, it's because it is.

If the debt ever becomes too bad we can just default. Sure it would have massive consequences, but so what, tons of stuff has major consequences that we also do not give a shit about. Constant wars on every front for decades, for example, which we just pretend doesn't count even though that means trillions of dollars which isn't pumping through our economy... and instead is flowing into the hands of the people who will most want to work towards keeping that hemorrhage open. So what, it's all fucked, it's fine. It works. Stuff gets done and every so often it blows up and we all pick up the pieces and do it again. It's messy but it works. It's messy and stupid and inefficient, but it works. We're goddamned apes, man, and yet we've got space ships. The system is working. It's a ridiculous, shitty monkey system, but it gets shit accomplished.

Lolwut

So if I come to your house with a gun, pack up all your shit, send it to somebody else of my choosing, and then take money out of your paycheck for this service, this is exactly the same to you as what Fedex does?

read the last sentence:

The only difference is that one is compulsory and the other isn't.

So yeah, other than what I said, i.e. the fact that it's compulsory, other than that it's the same thing.

Exactly, they're different, so then how is the quote disingenuous?

They take money by force and threat of force. It's the same difference between mutually desired sex and rape.

Elon Musk's money's value is backed by the US Government. There is a reason why is worth more than the paper it's printed on. This quote is disingenuous because it's like he's saying that's free. The reason why his money isn't worth literally nothing is because the government does what it does.

This is false. In fact, the USD is worth as little as it is precisely because of government meddling a la the Federal Reserve Act and subsequent inflation, as well as a removal of the gold standard.

The USD is "unbacked by any physical asset. A holder of a federal reserve note has no right to demand an asset such as gold or silver from the government in exchange for a note."

His quote has nothing to do with this, however, it was merely stating the government has no funds, it takes them from the citizenry who are the producers and creators of wealth.

Even "backed by a physical asset" is still worthless without a government. With no government to force people to honor the meaning of the currency it's literally worth the paper it's printed on. Like go try and use any gold-backed currency after the government that issued it has failed. Did the Confederacy issue gold-backed currency? If so, go get some and try and spend it. Try and exchange it for gold. Attempt that and see how successful you are not in exchanging that currency for anything at all (except maybe as a collector's item).

This, by the way, is how Elon made most of his original money (i.e. paypal). Because money exists at all, and because it's stable and it works and there are well-defined rules for how it can be loaned and used to create interest, all stuff that requires a government to exist, he was able to make a profit. Without the government making sure that money had value, without our taxes paying for officials to do this and paying for police and FBI to ensure hackers don't just change all the values in his databases and get away with it, without all of that government stuff, his entire company is literally made of nothing but magic spells.

With no government to force people to honor the meaning of the currency it's literally worth the paper it's printed on.

I don't know what you're thinking of but the US government does precisely nothing to force people to "honor the meaning of the currency." If you tell your friend who owes you a debt that you'll accept payment only in Euros, in open contravention of a US dollar bill's pronouncement that it is "legal tender for all debts, public and private, guess what - absolutely nothing will happen to you. The Marines will definitely not swing in through your windows on ropes and force you at gunpoint to allow your friend to pay off his debt in dollars.

US dollars are not "backed by the full faith and credit of the United States", which I know you're thinking is true. You're mistaken. Federal bonds are what are backed by the full faith and credit - because holding a bond means holding a debt that the Federal government owes you, and promises to pay you. In dollars.

But the US government does nothing to make people treat the US dollar as currency. That's not how currencies work. They have value because they're perceived to have value; that's why cigarettes can be currency inside a prison where nobody smokes.

Even "backed by a physical asset" is still worthless without a government. With no government to force people to honor the meaning of the currency it's literally worth the paper it's printed on.

You're asserting that only government can create money and enforce the value there of, this is simply not true.

If you don't like using the bills provided to you by the USA Government because you don't like the way they make you pay taxes, then STOP USING THIER MONEY. Go use dogecoin from now on, for everything, exclusively. Get paid in dogecoin. What is the problem? Oh, you say you say nobody will let you pay rent in dogecoin because it's worthless to them? Hey, that's your battle to fight, the US Government persuaded them that THIER money is good, you have to do the same. If you like the fact that the Government has done that work for you, they charge a fee for that guarantee of value, and that fee is taxes. If you don't like it, don't use dollars anymore, easy peasy.

Could you describe the time that the US government persuaded you that a dollar had value? Because that's not something that happens. There's no agency in the US government whose remit is "persuading people that the US dollar is good."

Again, you're incorrect. USD bills don't come from the US Government, they come from the Federal Reserve banking system. Additionally, there are alternet currencies out there which are accepted in many places, however you still have to pay taxes even if you use these currencies exclusively. So no, it's not that easy.

His companies payed off the loan with interest a lot earlier than they needed to if I remember correctly.

In an environment such as the one we currently exist, when half off everything you produce is taken from you through implicit our explicit force, you are going to do everything in your power to get as much back as you can...

You totally missed the point

Id be more likely to take their money if I hated them.

At that point, one big consideration is: would I be spending this (stolen) money more usefully than it would be spent otherwise?

meh your logic doesn't really compute. Like someone else said, the government is giving away free money to companies, when it should really be an investment in which the gov gets shares of said company.

Just like Tesla, many other companies get away with essentially free money. Look at Walmart for instance, their company would fail if it wasn't relying on the US welfare system to take care of its workers.

democracy loving/techno libertarian

According to Musk's far-right PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, "democracy and freedom are incompatible"

Dude, the government is just another customer who can buy things. Plenty of legitimate businesses sell to the government.

Exactly, he's a venture-socialist

Tesla isn't even really "his" company. By some accounts he was brought in as CEO to destroy it.

Ha, a conspiracy on /r/conspiracy - better downvote it

Yeah this sub makes no sense to me sometimes, yet I keep coming back.

Wut?

All the original founders have left the company and have nothing but bad things to say about Musk. It's pretty clear the company is being purposefully run into the ground by TPTB. Did you even read the link?

That's pure skeptics, the dude has worked his ass off to be the CEO, and help humanity. Did you even read about his life?

the dude has worked his ass off to be the CEO, and help humanity.

LOL are you for real?? Did you get lost on the way to /r/technology ?

Wow

Musk rationalising all the government money he gets

Most people wouldn't have a problem with funding pure research. The problem for the government and power elites is that people would also want to benefit from that research they've funded.

So what they've come up with is to use gross amounts of military expenditure as a cover for hightech R&D to keep out public involvement - mention cutting the military budget and people just go crazy decades of indoctrination has gone into making sure people do not question the military or its spending - and of course to enrich the corporations doing it.

Same goes for the national parks preserved for continued use, not so one rancher can go in and ruin it.

You could just fund some pure research into building a computer.

Or you could devise a missile for a computer to guide. Build not just one missile but hundreds, thousands even. A whole lot more engineering and design. All kinds of extra white collar manufacturing jobs in key electorates. Military jobs for the personal manning and operating them and deploying them. Again and again more cost. Far more money for Boeing and Raytheon and Bell and IBM and whoever. Heighten tensions too but so what thats not their concern.

The government provides the market for the military junk, provides the companies the ability to train their workforce and develop assembly lines and organise their logistics. And then when everythings running smoothly and they've got plenty of pork barrel money they can look for civil applications.

And thats not a hypothetical, thats how we got the personal commuter. Its technology is spun off from the guidance systems on ICBMs and the Apollo program.

That's not explicitly true, a government can have forprofit ventures both in it's own country and internationally, most governments are just really bad at it.

No because the only way governments were able to establish these ventures in the first place is by forcibly taking cash and capital off the people. Elon is right.

Um "only takes money from the people" keyword only, they can also have forprofit ventures on top of that both domestically and internationally. And we kind of need government for the country to function to have some degree of safety and infrastructure, don't get me wrong I think there needs to be a lot more accountability but there's really no viable alternative to government and taxes.

Yes but if you think of how governments were able to establish these business, either abroad or domestically, it comes down to government taking money off people and setting up businesses.

I also don't agree with you that we need government to have some degree of safety or infrastructure at all. If you look at how much violence is committed by states and state actors compared to how much private violence is committed, state violence wins by a gargantuan margin. As for infrastructure: all roads, electrical grids and everything else (in my country of England) is built by private contractors paid by public money. The only thing the government seems to do is (at best) mediate the transaction between the general public who actually pays for it and the private businesses that actually do the work. Government is inherently parasitical.

Let me rundown something that could happen if there was no government. Everything is considered private property either own by a corporation or an individual.

The company that owns the road in front of your house (which is surrounded by other people's houses) charges you everytime you leave your house, they can charge you whatever they want and you can't even leave to get food without paying them. Then some other company comes in and says you aren't allowed on the road period, meaning you are not allowed to leave your house and you starve to death. But wait there's no police so you don't have to listen to them you can use the road for free. They then hire people to kill anyone who goes on the road.

How the hell could anything work without government, corporations could gouge you at every turn pollute to no end poison water supplies and anyone could kill anyone they want to. Look at places with no government, they have child soldiers and war lords.

Let me rundown something that could happen if there is a government. Everything is considered owned by the government and subject to its laws. The political party in charge at the time that owns the road in front of your house (which is surrounded by other people's houses) charges you everytime you leave your house, they can charge you whatever they want and you can't even leave to get food without paying them. Then some other political party comes into power and says you aren't allowed on the road period, meaning you are not allowed to leave your house and you starve to death. But wait there's police so they can force you to listen to them and kill or jail you if you disagree. They then hire people to kill anyone who goes on the road. How the hell could anything work with government, governments could gouge you at every turn pollute to no end poison water supplies and anyone could kill anyone they want to. Look at places with government, they have industrial genocide and chemical warfare.

I would say to all this however, that if there was a button to painlessly vanish all the world's governments into thin air I wouldn't press it. This is because everyone has been led to believe that they need government and that they need somebody either telling them what to do, or telling their neighbor what to do. The irony of statism is that we're so worried by the character of the average person that choose to give the most untrustworthy and dangerous people absolute power over our lives.

That's why we have a democracy so people who do those things are never put into power and if someone is we can remove them from power.

Don't get me wrong government right now is inefficient, bloated and ineffective in many regards but without it how could you build a highway, what recourse would you have if someone robbed or raped you? How could you build powerlines and prevent corporations from poisoning water supplies on mass?

I think the ultimate problem comes from the belief that other people have a legitimate right to forcibly control you. If you buy into that it makes sense to believe that if the government you prefer gets into power, then all the other people living in that government's jurisdiction should live by the rules you set for them, and vice versa.

As an example, if I voted for a government because it put a 200% tax on books and it got into power, would it really be fair to you and the bookstore to abide by that ruling even though you both disagreed with it? I don't think so and it's one of the critical failures of democracy.

As for highways, as I said, governments don't build highways, they employ private businesses to build them funded with taxpayer money. If you have people living at point A and a McDonalds at point B, do you think the lack of a state is going to prevent a road being built? Come on, airlines are almost all privately owned, Musk is building space rockets, is it really so unbelievable to think that roads can be built without government intervention?

I think the ultimate problem comes from the belief that other people have a legitimate right to forcibly control you. If you buy into that it makes sense to believe that if the government you prefer gets into power, then all the other people living in that government's jurisdiction should live by the rules you set for them, and vice versa.

Without government the only right there is is the right to self-defense, so I could shoot you and rape your daughter and laugh and piss on you as you bleed to death with no repercussions because you don't think anyone should be controlled to any extent.

As an example, if I voted for a government because it put a 200% tax on books and it got into power, would it really be fair to you and the bookstore to abide by that ruling even though you both disagreed with it? I don't think so and it's one of the critical failures of democracy.

No it's not fair, but guess what life isn't fair, this isn't about what's fair, this is about what's better paying 200% tax on books or being shot, watch your family get raped and then get pissed on as you bleed to death. I agree with all of the failings of government and democracy you've described what you fail to account for is failings with anarchy.

As for highways, as I said, governments don't build highways, they employ private businesses to build them funded with taxpayer money. If you have people living at point A and a McDonalds at point B, do you think the lack of a state is going to prevent a road being built? Come on, airlines are almost all privately owned, Musk is building space rockets, is it really so unbelievable to think that roads can be built without government intervention?

Yes here's why for so many reasons I mean first of all without government there wouldn't be corporations for very long but glossing over that glaring fact planes and rockets fly through the air, they don't need any infrastructure roads are infrastructure. In order to build a road you need to own all the land and you'd want a return on that investment and you wouldn't want people using it for free. So it would cost people more to use the roads than it does now and in addition to that, anyone who is poor can't afford it and when you can't even afford to leave your house you turn to crime pretty quick. So you get a spike in crime right after dismantling your police force, how long do you think civilized society would last?

Without government the only right there is is the right to self-defense

Absolutely right, so if an awful lot of people wanted others to not rape their daughters and piss all over them, there might be a gap in the market for a business to provide and guarantee such protection.

I mean first of all without government there wouldn't be corporations for very long

I thought you were concerned with the power of corporations polluting waters and whatnot?

So it would cost people more to use the roads than it does now and in addition to that, anyone who is poor can't afford it and when you can't even afford to leave your house you turn to crime pretty quick.

We both agree with one thing, if the free market is let loose the capitalists are out for one thing, and one thing only: money. If this is true, then why would capitalists seek to price out the majority of their customers and leave them unable to engage in monetary transactions? It seems odd to think of a business that would set prices so high that most of its potential customers couldn't participate in its business. In fact, from my experience, every businesses is obsessed with cutting costs and constantly attempts to drive down its own prices in order to attract more customers.

Did you know that after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1989 a lot of people were terrified of starving, because how could they eat if the government was not going to feed them? Socialising food distribution seems ludicrous to Western countries doesn't it? Look at the enormous spectrum of choice available at the multitude of Western markets, it was so inconceivable to Russian premier Boris Yeltsin that he couldn't stop talking about the differences to Soviet food markets.

Absolutely right, so if an awful lot of people wanted others to not rape their daughters and piss all over them, there might be a gap in the market for a business to provide and guarantee such protection.

Okay first of all there's absolutely nothing to stop the people you hire from doing it, and everyone is going to want that kind of protection (which would be around the clock bodyguards) and nobody is going to want to give that kind of protection (how many people want to die for someone else?) making it extremely costly to the point only the 1% could afford it anyways.

I thought you were concerned with the power of corporations polluting waters and whatnot?

I didn't think that far ahead when I said that, and regardless you seem to think corporations will survive so it's a valid arguement regardless. Why do you think corporations will survive?

We both agree with one thing, if the free market is let loose the capitalists are out for one thing, and one thing only: money. If this is true, then why would capitalists seek to price out the majority of their customers and leave them unable to engage in monetary transactions? It seems odd to think of a business that would set prices so high that most of its potential customers couldn't participate in its business. In fact, from my experience, every businesses is obsessed with cutting costs and constantly attempts to drive down its own prices in order to attract more customers.

You have no idea how much a road costs to build and maintain do you? It's a lot, so much so that without government a company would never even spend the money doing it, and that if you wanted returns from just the people using that road within a decade you'd have to charge them a lot.

Did you know that after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1989 a lot of people were terrified of starving, because how could they eat if the government was not going to feed them? Socialising food distribution seems ludicrous to Western countries doesn't it? Look at the enormous spectrum of choice available at the multitude of Western markets, it was so inconceivable to Russian premier Boris Yeltsin that he couldn't stop talking about the differences to Soviet food markets.

Yeah capitalism worked out better than communism in much the same way government worked out better than anarchy.

[deleted]

The history of the internet comes from computers talking to each other and computers were a private venture, the internet was also a private venture and is quite distinct from the DARPANET or whatever it's called.

It's the same with telephonic technology: it was brought about by private enterprise but co-opted by states. And the only thing I know about railway technology is that it was invented by a regular man, he wasn't a government employee or anything yet he built a steam locomotive.

I think if you applied the same standards to normal human beings as you do to government, then you might contemplate whether the US might be like Mozambique if it was run by libertarians.

Ugh, when did /r/conspiracy become libertarian nonsense?

And if Tesla and Space X are funded by me, he will be happy to give me a share of the profits directly then.

Well for starters, I'd wager most people who have spent any reasonable amount of time here have noticed that the major two parties are profoundly corrupt.

But nonsense? What about this statement is nonsense...

It was more directed to the "taxes are theft" crowd in the comments. Also, generally Government is fairly open about calling it "your tax dollars at work"

Ugh, when did /r/conspiracy become libertarian nonsense?

The most ironic comment I've seen in a while.

How is it ironic, I like my nonsense categorized not mixed

Jesus, the Musk shills are working overtime in this thread

Elon Musk would not be a billionaire if not for the tax money invested in the development of technology in the U.S.A., from semiconductors to the communications system to satellites to the internet.

These anti-government tech libertarians are all welfare cases.

Oligarchs also take money from society, a.k.a "the people". Corporations too.

I feel like he's leaving a crucial part out - not only does the government not have any money, but borrows money from the (unregulated) Federal Reserve on interest which creates it out of THIN AIR.

Isn't the logical translation of this that Tesla takes money from the people?

And SpaceX, in a way, yes. NASA funds a lot of SpaceX missions.

Yes, but that's obvious.

Private companies take a fuck ton of money from the people, it's called government grants. You think they want to spend their own money on R&D and facilities if they don't have to? Fuck no. And although grants have great potential to help countries out it negates a lot of that potential when companies avoid taxes by holding their money offshore, get grants, make money off the grants and transfer a lot of that offshore.

They also forget government is just people. Remember that kid you caught eating his boogers in class? Government.

Remember that kid who beat the fuck out of you as well as your little sister after class? Black Ops, developed a hobby of torturing people and takes orders from nose picker.

It's funny because tesla and spacex are funded by the people then.

And hopefully we'll see a return in our investment when his technology becomes cheap and available world wide.

Like the internet.

Probably not in this lifetime for most of us.

2030 is within our lifetime. They already predict a Tesla below 30k to be released soon. Technology prices drop exponentially when they reach a certain point

That would define any business.

I read the quote twice, and my first thought was a conservative would say this. After the second time I could actually imagine a liberal saying the exact same quote. Pretty sure this is just another ironic quote that makes people think but really doesn't say anything!

And now we have non-conspiracy posts sprinkled in with the dumbest fucking conspiracies I've ever heard of seals the deal. Filtering the subreddit.

Don't do that. Sure, half of what's posted on this sub is grasping at straws and full of misinformation, but some of it is true. If you only expose yourself to mainstream news sources (r/worldnews and r/news included), you're going to have an incomplete picture about what's going on.

Government just wants to do good for the people! They love them.

The difference between the government has never done anything that nice for me.

Spoiler Alert! Elon Musk is a confirmed agent. Check out his bio on Wikipedia and his involvement with various companies. It doesn't make sense.

But the government decides where and how to spend the money they receive, and of course how it is not to be spent.

The difference between the government act as venture capitalists to try to invest in the development of technology in the stock market.

And what is "money"? Paper, legally owned by private corporation.

Sometimes? You mean now?

I agree that funded by the government just means funded by the people.

Where I disagree is everywhere else.

For example, his assertion that the government does not have money. A quick look at their budget reports shows this isn't true. It also does not only take it from people as there is a such thing as state-owned enterprises.

The government acts in the name of the people. So when the government does something, like fund something, or start a war, the people of the state are the ones doing it because the state acts in their name. That's the basis of a representative democracy... Elected officials represent their constituents.

Yeah....but once it takes the money from the people, it then has the money until it spends it...and the government can also borrow money....and have more money printed

Except that they also print money that they don't even have and can never pay back.

more accurately, the Federal Reserve (a private entity) prints money and loans it to the government with interest

This is why intelligence communities like the CIA traffick drugs. It's liquid, unauditable cash flow.

never forget

A flock of birds, a colony of ants, has no government but everything gets done anyways... think about it

The government takes in tax revenue from the people and business entities, but that is not the entire story. If it was there wouldnt be a national debt.

The US federal government also sells US treasury bonds (IOU money with interest) to the (non)Federal (doesn't require)Reserve for Federal Reserve bank notes that say United States on them and have pictures of presidents that worked against private central bank interests.

These treasury bonds are then sold by the Federal Reserve on the open market. This is how the US federal government finances its national debt. Taxes are used to fund the government, but they are also used to pay back US treasury bonds with interest to those that bought them.

So, the central bank basically makes dollars, in the form of bank credit mostly, and then exchanges them for debt agreements. The bank then sells the debt agreements for money. The central bank also loans money to the banks that own it at low interest rates.

Whenever a commodity used as currency has an increase in supply, if other variables remain constant, the value of existing units of the commodity will lose economic exchange value. The value is diluted and the power of it is essentially shifted to the owners of the new supply of the commodity.

Do we understand that this value transfer is occurring? Do we understand who bears the burden? Do we understand who gains the benefits?

The government doesn't really create jobs, it creates statements of work that need to be paid by your taxes.

The institutions the government creates and the people the government hires generally aren't in a sustainable position - they can't self fund, and always run at a loss - that's not job creation, that's debt creation.

Now, not all institutions should be inherently sustainable, but when they say they're creating 20,000 new jobs, they're not, they're really providing short term welfare (for the life of the project) to 20,000 people.

How do you think the RR, agricultural system, the highways or space program were built?

Except those are civil work projects that add value, and are fore the people and I already made an exception for those.

Now, not all institutions should be inherently sustainable

If everyone gave the government 1 cent the government would have 3.2 million dollars. I know that's not how taxes work but it's good for perspective.

The other way to look at it is the government makes the money and gives it to us to reward our productivity.

Really Elon? Jeez thanks for that serious insight.

Shhhhh. Don't wake the programmed zombies.

Government makes the money, no one would have any money at all without government. If it wasn't for taxes money would be worthless, because taxes are what creates the demand for government money. If the government doesn't take back enough money in taxes, then the money supply grows and we have inflation.

http://wfhummel.cnchost.com/metallismchartalism.html

Does anyone else perceived the reference to the American Revolution?

Ah so borrowing from China makes the government owned by China?

Fuck you Musk you built two business on the back of government subsides.

Exactly! Please Musk, don't make any more of that rocket crap, its a waste of our money.

That's rich coming from a man whose recent success is built largely on tax breaks.

lol, says a fraudster who sucks out government money dry. Also can I please get my money back instead of giving them to Elon to blow on his man-child toys?

Not necessarily. I love how people always complain about bureaucracy and how much red tape the government has but then try to sum up its faults in simple statements. The government does make money in certain areas, not always off the citizens either. It is far more complicated than this.

lol it's the government's money. The government IS money.

I agree with what Elon said, but I do not agree with the new Tesla SUV take a note from the Aztek, that's an ugly car!

Toyota will invent a fully electric scion xb

The greatest trick the government EVER pulled, was income tax withholding.

To quote Chris Rock -- "You don't PAY taxes... they TAKE taxes."

Psychologically, it never feels like we owned that money, so there's no sense of loss. That's why people aren't more up in arms over how it's all spent.

Which, coincidentally, is why welfare is fucking evil. You're basically using the threat of violence to take money from someone and give it directly to someone else. It was cool when Robin Hood did it, because he only stole from assholes. But now they're stealing from everybody.

If Joe Q. Average had to write a check directly to Suzy Q. Welfare Queen, there would be riots in the streets.

The amount spent on welfare in insignificant to what we spend on war or corporate welfare on any given day. The social safety net is a good thing and we all need it believe it or not.

I could be wrong, but you might want to check those numbers. I think 55% of our annual budget is entitlement programs, including Social Security.

Not sure why you are singling out welfare.

No matter what the government uses taxpayer's money for, it's theft, whether it's the military or bailouts or welfare.

I agree 100% – – taxation is always theft, by definition.

I singled out welfare because with other forms of spending like infrastructure, or possibly even defense, you could argue that it serves the public good, that we're getting something back from it. But welfare is literally just a direct transfer of wealth from one group of people to another, with a substantial part of it lost due to waste and overhead.

I live down the road a bit from the big place where the government actually prints new money but, you know, I've never put a rocket into space so what the fuck do I know?

not surprised to hear a very wealthy person thinks that taxation is bad.

Government, by the way, has no money. It only takes money from the people

Well, not exactly. Government borrows money from private financiers who created the money out of thin fucking air based on algorithms that depend heavily on the whims of perceived value and psychology (fiat currency), and gov't borrows using an interest rate scheme that ensures the debt will never be repayed. As I understand it, gov't borrows money, gives it to the people, then takes it back. Circle jerk.

Elon Musk was also funded by other people. Where does money come from? Think about it. Unless you dig up gold, you are getting your money by exchanging goods and services with it from other people, same as how the government does.

There's a difference between voluntary and involuntary exchange.

He is saying that you are the government. The government isn't some secret entity, it is made up of you and people like you. If you work for the government, you work for the people. You are a public servant. People seem to forget this.

Especially the public "servants".

No, a public servant has to survive the market forces of supply and demand. The government exists only by means of violence and ignorance.

The government exist because people crave order and structure. This is why religion exist. This is why modern civilization came about. People are social animals and with all social creatures their must be some order. This is the nature of the universe. Down to the subatomic levels. You are made up of the same things as a rock or as a star or a dog or cat. The only difference is its structure and order. If all forms of governance were eradicated today, some form of organization would come about shortly after. This is what you were designed to do. In fact, this is why we as a species have thrived far more than any other species has on this planet. Our affinity to recognize patterns and use them as an organizational method. The fact that we are communicating with each other, in a language we invented over a system that we developed with protocols to ensure proper transmission is proof of that. You, like dogs, lions, hyenas and hell even ants seek structure and order.

I agree with you, except the idea that order and structure are things that only the government can provide. This is the lie they want you to believe.

This is what a government is. If you eliminated our modern form of governance, what do you think happens. Something takes its place. It will usually start a localized level and structure itself up. Your household has some system of governance to maintain its structure, your neighborhood has some system of governance to maintain its structure and so on and so forth. The whole idea behind a democratic form of governance is that, you the people, are the government. There is no 'they' in government, you are them! This 'they' you speak of is apart of the government, just as you are part of the government. They as individuals (or even organizations) have more political clout than you or I but 'they' individually are as much of the government as you or I. If anything this is what they want you to believe. That 'they' alone are the government, the organizational force, and you are not. If you follow this belief then you have surrendered your power.

Yep, there is, but there's a difference between a government and a person as well. Elon Musk can't print and issue new actual money, for example. Elon Musk can't ensure the value of his money through force of arms either.

Elon Musk can't ensure the value of his money through force of arms either.

Jesus Christ. Another one? Where does this lunacy come from?

Can you name a single instance where the US government enforced the value of a dollar via "force of arms"? A single instance where the US military bombed someone because they thought a dollar wasn't worth anything?

Unless you dig up gold, you are getting your money by exchanging goods and services with it from other people, same as how the government does.

Even if you dig up gold. Because you sell gold for money; you don't have the authority to mint it into coin.

Sure, Elon. Tell you what, how about we all go up to the government and tell them they're going to be taking a pay cut this next year and their spending budgets are horrible, so we're going to be managing their books for them.

What's that, you say? It doesn't work like that? The government decides how much it gets paid, the president can give himself a raise, and we can change their military spending budget over our cold, dead bodies? Well, that's not right. But what can we do about it?

I think everyone knows what the answer is, but no one is willing to say it, myself included.

You see it explained in many ways, but the core of the issue is its an entity that believes it can get away with anything, because citizens won't do anything about it. This entity needs to be corrected by force for the greater good.

I think everyone knows what the answer is

For a 'revolution' to succeed the people have to abandon support for the status quo. But when 45% don't pay taxes and 70+% get .gov benefits you have to ask, "who's going to withdraw their support?" Down at the rabble-rousing level, those people are not going to be receptive to a revolutionary 'tear it down' message until their personal situation collapses.

Eh, only about 5% of the population of the colonies participated in actual combat in the American revolutionary war.

I thought you weren't gonna say it!

I think everyone knows what the answer is, but no one is willing to say it, myself included.

Plenty of people are willing to say it, no one is willing to do it unless others agree to join in with them, otherwise, they're labeled as domestic terrorists. The only real solution is to replace the current government with one of our choosing, violently if need be--and yes, by which I mean armed rebellion and execution of our current politicians for crimes against The People of the United States, as an example to those that come after of what is waiting for them if they attempt to sell us out again.

You see it explained in many ways, but the core of the issue is its an entity that believes it can get away with anything, because citizens won't do anything about it. This entity needs to be corrected by force for the greater good.

Of course. They have a military. It's why they keep pushing to take our guns. Because with them, we have the capability of becoming an armed militia. Once those are gone, there's really nothing to stop them from doing whatever they want with no possible violent repercussions.

There's a difference between voluntary and involuntary exchange.

I seem to remember someone arguing that private persons aren't actually obligated by any US laws to pay income taxes, and that there are many who just stopped paying them. People just do it because they think they can't get away from holding out.

Um "only takes money from the people" keyword only, they can also have forprofit ventures on top of that both domestically and internationally. And we kind of need government for the country to function to have some degree of safety and infrastructure, don't get me wrong I think there needs to be a lot more accountability but there's really no viable alternative to government and taxes.

In 2014, Nevada lavished the company with one of the biggest corporate-welfare packages in history: In exchange for building a battery-manufacturing facility near Reno, Tesla will pay no payroll or property taxes for ten years and no sales taxes for 20 years, and will receive $195 million in cash via “transferable tax credits,” which can be sold to other companies to satisfy their Nevada tax bills. All of this amounts to a $1.3 billion giveaway.

This is totally beyond taking back what you put in, especially for a business. Musk is profiting off of literally taking money from the government.

So let him get it from rich customers, not poor taxpayers.

Poor tax payers aren't buying teslas, rich benefactors are investing in spaceX.

You are right, without the military making it happen people would have never figured out how to have computers communicate with each other.

Taxes are not voluntary.

Living in a given country however is.

Unless you're too broke to move to a different country, in which case you are coincidentally unlikely to be significantly burdened by taxes in the first place (also see Romney's 47%.)

By being a citizen of the country and utilizing said infrastructure, you are agreeing to pay taxes.

Don't do that. Sure, half of what's posted on this sub is grasping at straws and full of misinformation, but some of it is true. If you only expose yourself to mainstream news sources (r/worldnews and r/news included), you're going to have an incomplete picture about what's going on.

Unless you dig up gold, you are getting your money by exchanging goods and services with it from other people, same as how the government does.

Even if you dig up gold. Because you sell gold for money; you don't have the authority to mint it into coin.

Is a landlord taking your rent without your consent. You have a cost to live in a nation

You mean funded by the tax payer.

Probably not in this lifetime for most of us.

Public schools teach so much to students that I'm not sure your complaint can or should even be addressed. As far as teaching subservience, following school rules is easy and it's quite a stretch to say that they're harmful.

Lol

Well I'll admit that's fucking stupid...

Right...gummint baaaaad...my mistake.

You missed my point. The government opperates without consent. It never has consent.

There is only private money. There is no such thing as public ownership. That's a communistic idea and it's logically inconsistent with reality.

But the general point about a democracy being subject to the will of the people is still true, in the US or in the UK.

If that was true, we wouldn't have so much police corruption.

Who do you think pays the police paychecks? The elected officials.

No, the government does, and we don't have a choice as to whether or not we can stop paying them because of cronyist-union contracts. That's why private-security companies are better; if they fuck up, they lose customers to their competition.

Nobody participates enough in their own democracy to make a difference

How can we? Aintnobodygottimefordatshit.

They think everything is owed them on a silver platter. Up to you and me bro

I'll stick with /r/agorism and /r/anarcho_capitalism. At least there I can make a difference.

Does that 50 billion dollars per year include the imprisonment and "justice system" legal fees? I'm curious if it wouldn't be closer to 70-80 billion including all of that.