How much are getting back from taxes this year?

[devilof76]

A person who required a fire department and didn't have insurance would 1) receive a bill, and 2) be expected to pay it.

I reckon healthcare would be less a disaster if it was still run like that. It used to be. Not so much now, and it shows.

 

[ProgMatinee]

A person who required a fire department and didn't have insurance would 1) receive a bill, and 2) be expected to pay it.

I reckon healthcare would be less a disaster if it was still run like that. It used to be. Not so much now, and it shows.

Good luck collecting from someone who couldn't afford/justify the relatively small premium and just had their biggest asset ruined by fire. What then?

I don't have much faith in people these days to pay their premiums. A crap load of people would rather pay their cell phone or cable bill than their car insurance.

I just thought of something though, if mortgage companies required you to buy the service like they require you to properly insure your home, then that would probably solve the issue or at least turn it into a totally seperate issue about people not being able to qualify for mortgages or something.

 

[ProgMatinee]

The other thing, is what if privatizing Fire departments became similar to privatized utilities, where you don't have a choice in who your provider is. My water, my gas and my electricity are all "chosen" for me. I basically have to pay what they demand or else I don't get those services. What if your local private fire department said you have to pay $10,000 a year for the service? Those fire trucks aren't cheap you know. Also, who owns the water and the piping infrastructure? How do you make sure certain areas aren't being dropped of coverage? The less profitable areas to cover are probably the areas that could least afford higher premiums.

Complex stuff.

 

[Maglor]

The other thing, is what if privatizing Fire departments became similar to privatized utilities, where you don't have a choice in who your provider is. My water, my gas and my electricity are all "chosen" for me. I basically have to pay what they demand or else I don't get those services. What if your local private fire department said you have to pay $10,000 a year for the service? Those fire trucks aren't cheap you know. Also, who owns the water and the piping infrastructure? How do you make sure certain areas aren't being dropped of coverage? The less profitable areas to cover are probably the areas that could least afford higher premiums.

Exactly.

Devil0f76 has a healthy fear of government but is much too trusting of the free market. Big business would (and already does) take advantage of us just as much as "big government."

Collectively, men are driven by greed and a desire for power. This is a fact. Doesn't matter which system a nation runs on. Point is, just about any philosophy for how society should run works in theory but they all get exploited. And I'm sure that would include Ayn Rand's philosophy.


Finally, we have what we have in this country, like it or not. The kind of radical change you are suggesting, Devil, is just not going to happen. Therefore I still see your choice to not pay taxes to be irresponsible. Part of the reason I pay taxes is so that all people, including you, can have fire protection and access to public schools. To benefit from these things without contributing to them under the current arrangement for doing that is, again, irresponsible.

Not judging you as a person, just voicing my opinion about this choice.




I now invite your, deep and convoluted response!

 

[ProgMatinee]

what happens when said private fire department doesn't show up in time and your property is destroyed. Sue them? Ever try to sue an insurance company or a health care provider? Those companies aren't afraid to fight lawsuits. Ambulance companies are rarely held responsible for slow service.

 

[devilof76]

What if your local grocery store asked you for $1,000,000 a year for groceries?

Not judging you guys as people, but that's a really stupid ____ing question.

Convoluted enough for you?

Here's another: the social systems that are corrupted in practice are corrupt in theory. That is how they become the monstrosities they are. Communism is pure evil in theory. Socialism is only slightly better. A mixed economy is what we have now, and events like we've watched over the past 5 years are to be expected.

Capitalism leaves no room for that kind of abuse. I don't know what you're talking about when you use words like exploitation, but I will say that you are not owed a damned thing in life from anyone. You pay for what you use, you are paid what you are worth, and the only people exploiting anyone are the ones who get something for free, and by force. There is no exploitation in a voluntary exchange. Not sure what's broken in people's heads that makes the difference between voluntary and involuntary so hard to comprehend. But, if you see nothing anti-moral (immoral is too small a word) in throttling those who live in your country to provide things for you that you are not willing to pay what the producer would ask if his price wasn't dictated to him by you and your advocates, then I think you have an awfully god-damned view of your own species and it's no wonder you need a savior to make your life worth living.

 

[The Ween]

I have no problems with paying my share of taxes. Do I wish I had more say about where the money goes? Yes, but I'm betting I would pay less in taxes each year than I would have to spend if I had to buy services outright.

 

[ProgMatinee]

What if your local grocery store asked you for $1,000,000 a year for groceries?

Not judging you guys as people, but that's a really stupid ____ing question.

Thats a stupid _____ing comparison.

Local grocery stores are a dime a dozen and most people have a pick of 10 different ones within a few mile radius. So the competition takes care of that worry.

Do you think there would be 10 different fire departments that you can pick from that would be in a decent radius to your house?

Get real. You're too busy looking at the theory to see its not practical in everything we do.

A better comparison is your utilities. How wide is your selection of electricty providers? The only thing saving you from paying outrageous amounts of money is regulation.

When thrust into a situation like that, a practical monopoly, your theory requires the consumer to live like a nomad fleeing places in which they are being charged an amount that is too high.

Maybe in a fresh start your vision would work...but where I already own my home, its not ideal to all of a sudden be offered an ultimatum, either pay what the local fire department monopoly will charge, or sell your home and move.

Your concept of freemarket in regards to fire departments is absolutely absurd and would never happen, because it takes MILLIONS OF DOLLARS to capitalize a single fire station. You're an idiot if you think multiple companies would crop up withing a servicable radius to your house, when historically the demand for fire services only require 1 station per x miles. Where's the logic in that? Do you really thing 2,3,4 stations would crop up where 1 station was historically enough? Do you think businesses are stupid and throw their money away?

I'm not sure what your point was with the diatribe there at the end, btw.

 

[Mad Old Lu]

It's funny you bring up the competing fire departments because that is exactly how they started out. I believe citizens had to pay fire insurance and you would have a badge that you would place on your residence so in case of a fire, the fire fighters would know which house to save. There were also cases of competing fire companies fighting with each other (because whoever put out the fire would get paid) when arriving at the same fire and ignoring the inferno til the house burned to the ground. They had a scene like that in Gangs of NY.

...not that anything like that would happen nowadays!

 

[devilof76]

Your theory makes seeing the practicality impossible. I'm fairly certain that it's the present arrangement that is impracticible. That's why it's in perpetual crisis escalation mode. A mixed ecomony is unsustainable. There is no balance between freedom and control. They're antitheses and they are just as antithetical in the real world as they are in the conceptual world.

Competition between fire departments would be less likely than competition between insurance providers. The thing that prevents them from being as cheap and plentiful as groceries is the regulation they are subject to, regulation imposed to control an industry that people expect will price gouge the second they're off the leash. The same goes for electricity. You have no choice because choice has been regulated for you.

Whose theory is that the practice of? What makes you think any market would behave the same under the opposite ideal?

 

[ProgMatinee]

Electricity regulation is a result of the COMPANIES, not the government. After the big monopolies were broken, the corporations figured out for all involved that it was advangeous NOT TO COMPETE within each community. Therefore, the government has to step in to make sure each mini monopoly doesn't rake the consumer.

You have to ask yourself the initial question as to why were there utility monopolies in the first place? Because mulitple companies building infrastructure was seen as unreasonable investment. To encourage a single provider to enter a rurual area they were given rights. Imagine if every house was wired and connected to 10 different electric companies or water/waste companies or gas companies...the capital investment from all those companies would be absurd! A company is not going to infrastruct a brand new building or community with a 10% shot at being contracted!

Likewise, 10 fire departments are not going to capitalize buildings, trucks, water inventory, etc with a 10% shot at being contracted.

 

[devilof76]

...not that anything like that would happen nowadays!

It wouldn't if it had been allowed to evolve into a functional system.

Banking, finance, stocks trading all exhibited the same kind of lawlessness as the fire departments, but with no oversight other than independent judgement, by the post-Civil War boom, the scum had fallen to the bottom and the best rose to the top. Get rich quick schemes don't make anyone rich, so any criminal who could do no better than hustle or scam became someone people learned to identify and shun. Investment ended up in the banks that were worthy of trust.

That freedom was history by 1913, and the course of the remainder of 20th century American economic history speaks for itself. Not quite as loudly as 21st century American economic history, but loudly enough. It's no big secret that we were never as great a country at the end of the century, as we were at the beginning.

 

[devilof76]

Prog, I'm not going to nitpick economics with an accountant. The question of how it would get done if it was free of government financing is secondary, and completely irrelevant to the question of whether not people have a right to fire protection (or any other safety net entitlements) at the involuntary expense of others.

Just because there is no presently available answer to how the problem would be solved doesn't excuse usurpation of the problem by society at large (represnted by the government). Society doesn't have the right. Society is an aggregate of individuals, and no individual has the right to compel the service of another man. The will of some does not invalidate the right of one. Not if you believe in the right to be free. If you don't, just say so. Don't make me debate vertical integration and anti-trust on my phone.

 

[ProgMatinee]

I believe in the theory of capitalism. I also believe that government is WAY too big. (Even though I work for it...lol).

But I'm just saying I don't think its really practical in this day and age....UNFORTUNATELY.

I can sit here and nod my head, but unfortunately, I don't think we'll be breaking free.

I know you disagree with this, but I see stuff like tax payer funded fire departments or regulating smoking as pretty small evils compared to the wanton abuse of social programs that I don't partake in or government payments to lazy people who refuse to work when they can.

At least tax funded fire departments benefit me. At least regulating smoking relieves a personal annoyance of mine. I know that hypocricy annoys you, but I'm not going to be the only to give up what I benefit from while the rest of America keeps taxing me for the stuff they enjoy. SO I HAVE TO PLAY THE GAME.

 

[devilof76]

Well, in the end, I get to play the game for more than I would have if I paid them on time. It's not like anyone other than me lost out. The government made a profit on my dime and if I could evade it outright, I would have zero shame.

But this time, they win. One more little, insignificant victory, which in truth doesn't bother me nearly as much as their big victories do. It's just that it's all getting very old. And I've had it.

 

[devilof76]

And I apologize if I singled anyone out with my savior comment. I was talking about anyone who had lost faith in people's ability to do what's right. Not just people with saviors.

Who would expect people to be good when they are expected to be evil?

 

[Maglor]

What if your local grocery store asked you for $1,000,000 a year for groceries?

Not judging you guys as people, but that's a really stupid ____ing question.

Convoluted enough for you?

Here's another: the social systems that are corrupted in practice are corrupt in theory. That is how they become the monstrosities they are. Communism is pure evil in theory. Socialism is only slightly better. A mixed economy is what we have now, and events like we've watched over the past 5 years are to be expected.

Capitalism leaves no room for that kind of abuse. I don't know what you're talking about when you use words like exploitation, but I will say that you are not owed a damned thing in life from anyone. You pay for what you use, you are paid what you are worth, and the only people exploiting anyone are the ones who get something for free, and by force. There is no exploitation in a voluntary exchange. Not sure what's broken in people's heads that makes the difference between voluntary and involuntary so hard to comprehend. But, if you see nothing anti-moral (immoral is too small a word) in throttling those who live in your country to provide things for you that you are not willing to pay what the producer would ask if his price wasn't dictated to him by you and your advocates, then I think you have an awfully god-damned view of your own species and it's no wonder you need a savior to make your life worth living.

I'm not sure what your point was with the diatribe there at the end, btw.

Indeed. Getting a bit personal aren't we Devil? In fact that speaks to the tone of your entire post. I understand if you feel backed in a corner as you are clearly in the minority not only here but in the world, but being civil always helps in promoting a cause.

Communism is pure evil in theory.

Opinion. Based on the your personal philosophy.

Socialism is only slightly better.

Opinion. Based on the your personal philosophy.

Capitalism leaves no room for that kind of abuse.

...um yeah... that's really an opinion.


I am not a "Communist" nor a "Socialist". My point is that these are just all opinions.

That said, here is part of how I think:

My parents don't have health insurance because my mom is "un-insurable". They have their own business and payed for their own insurance for years, but got to a place financially where they could not afford it, so they had to drop it. Shortly after that my mom was diagnosed with cancer. To make a long story short, they had to go into debt and pay out of pocket for her treatment and she now can't get insurance. (She has been in remission for over 10 years, thank goodness.) Recently, she had a gallbladder attack and walked around in severe pain for 3 days hoping that it was a stomach ache that would go away. In the back of her mind she new it was something serious, but hatted to think about the Dr. visits etc. without having health insurance. When she finally broke down and went in (after my prodding) she found out that she had a gallstone lodged in the duct and that because she waited so long to come in the gallbladder was totally necrotic and infected. This turned a routine operation into 4 days in the hospital on an antibiotic drip. Think about those medical bills!!!

You equate "voluntary and involuntary" with good and evil. Consider this: I also have my own business and have to pay for my own insurance. Because of the medical system being run like a business and being payed through insurance companies, medical costs are over the top. I feel forced to have insurance. But I would much rather put that money towards taxes that made it possible for people like my mother to get health care.

The idea of fire protection and police force being paid through an insurance system turns my stomach.

...The question of how it would get done if it was free of government financing is secondary, and completely irrelevant to the question of whether not people have a right to fire protection (or any other safety net entitlements) at the involuntary expense of others.

Just because there is no presently available answer to how the problem would be solved doesn't excuse usurpation of the problem by society at large (represnted by the government). Society doesn't have the right. Society is an aggregate of individuals, and no individual has the right to compel the service of another man. The will of some does not invalidate the right of one. Not if you believe in the right to be free. If you don't, just say so. Don't make me debate vertical integration and anti-trust on my phone.

I see that you view taxes as involuntary and therefore evil, but what if an individual (including myself) is completely happy letting the government manage certain basic human rights so that all humans are taken care of whether they can afford it or not? Rights like education and protection. [I also see health care as a human right, but I know that is a topic of hot debate.] I don't see any of these impinging on my freedom. Not in any meaningful way.

I believe in the theory of capitalism. I also believe that government is WAY too big. (Even though I work for it...lol).

But I'm just saying I don't think its really practical in this day and age....UNFORTUNATELY.

I can sit here and nod my head, but unfortunately, I don't think we'll be breaking free.

I know you disagree with this, but I see stuff like tax payer funded fire departments or regulating smoking as pretty small evils compared to the wanton abuse of social programs that I don't partake in or government payments to lazy people who refuse to work when they can.

...SO I HAVE TO PLAY THE GAME.

Right. Even if one does believe that "imposing" taxes on the individual is evil, it is the way the system functions, like it or not.


You basically have 2 choices.

1) Try to start a revolution to change the system, using civil war, terrorism, etc. or:

2) Become one of the weirdos that burn their social security card and live out in woods (or Montana) completely off the grid.

And I apologize if I singled anyone out with my savior comment. I was talking about anyone who had lost faith in people's ability to do what's right. Not just people with saviors.

Who would expect people to be good when they are expected to be evil?

I appreciate that.

And no, I don't have faith in people whenever you get a bunch of them together. I believe that individuals can mean well, and do what is right, but as a whole I believe mankind is lost. Can you point to any solid evidence to the contrary? I'm not asking for theories of how it could be. I mean tangible evidence of what has been.

So yes, I do see a need for a savior.

I know I am really putting myself out their by making that statement, and I wouldn't have gone there if you hadn't brought it up, but you have been wearing your heart on your sleeve so I will too.

 

[ProgMatinee]

I have faith in most individual people, but as a group, or a mob, or a government, or a corporation I don't.

Capitalism would be a lot more ideal if most business was run by private owners rather than large groups of anonymous investors.

Its funny, I HATE what mutual funds and the concept of diversified portfolios have done to the way corporations make decisions, but I own them myself because I don't have the time or ability to do all the analysis myself.

 

[Maglor]

I have faith in most individual people, but as a group, or a mob, or a government, or a corporation I don't.

Yup, yup, yup!

 

[devilof76]

It's only my opinion if a system that provides the goods required to support human life (in abundance) is not objectively superior to a system that destroys wealth wholesale for the sake of an unnatural equality, subsequently damning all to sub-human poverty. But, you know, some people liked life in Soviet Russia, so who am I to judge, right?

I see that you view taxes as involuntary and therefore evil, but what if an individual (including myself) is completely happy letting the government manage certain basic human rights so that all humans are taken care of whether they can afford it or not? Rights like education and protection. [I also see health care as a human right, but I know that is a topic of hot debate.] I don't see any of these impinging on my freedom. Not in any meaningful way.

I said that compulsion (involutary action) was anti-moral. Here. I'll let the dragon speak for herself.

“Man’s mind is his basic tool of survival. Life is given to him, survival is not. His body is given to him, its sustenance is not. His mind is given to him, its content is not. To remain alive, he must act, and before he can act he must know the nature and purpose of his action. He cannot obtain his food without a knowledge of food and of the way to obtain it. He cannot dig a ditch-or build a cyclotron-without a knowledge of his aim and of the means to achieve it. To remain alive, he must think.

“But to think is an act of choice. The key to what you so recklessly call ‘human nature,’ the open secret you live with, yet dread to name, is the fact that man is a being of volitional consciousness. Reason does not work automatically; thinking is not a mechanical process; the connections of logic are not made by instinct. The function of your stomach, lungs or heart is automatic; the function of your mind is not. In any hour and issue of your life, you are free to think or to evade that effort. But you are not free to escape from your nature, from the fact that reason is your means of survival-so that for you, who are a human being, the question ‘to be or not to be’ is the question ‘to’ think or not to think.’

“A being of volitional consciousness has no automatic course of behavior. He needs a code of values to guide his actions. ‘Value’ is that which one acts to gain and keep, ‘virtue’ is the action by which one gains and keeps it. ‘Value’ presupposes an answer to the question: of value to whom and for what? ‘Value’ presupposes a standard, a purpose and the necessity of action in the face of an alternative. Where there are no alternatives, no values are possible.

“There is only one fundamental alternative in the universe: existence or non-existence-and it pertains to a single class of entities: to living organisms. The existence of inanimate matter is unconditional, the existence of life is not; it depends on a specific course of action. Matter is indestructible, it changes its forms, but it cannot cease to exist. It is only a living organism that faces a constant alternative: the issue of life or death. Life is a process of self-sustaining and-self-generated action. If an organism fails in that action, it dies; its chemical elements remain, but its life goes out of existence. It is only the concept of ‘Life’ that makes the concept of ‘Value’ possible. It is only to a living entity that things can be good or evil.

“A plant must feed itself in order to live; the sunlight, the water, the chemicals it needs are the values its nature has set it to pursue; its life is the standard of value directing its actions. But a plant has no choice of action; there are alternatives in the conditions it encounters, but there is no alternative in its function: it acts automatically to further its life, it cannot act for its own destruction.

“An animal is equipped for sustaining its life; its senses provide it with an automatic code of action, an automatic knowledge of what is good for it or evil. It has no power to extend its knowledge or to evade it. In conditions where its knowledge proves inadequate, it dies. But so long as it lives, it acts on its knowledge, with automatic safety and no power of choice, it is unable to ignore its own good, unable to decide to choose the evil and act as its own destroyer.

“Man has no automatic code of survival. His particular distinction from all other living species is the necessity to act in the face of alternatives by means of volitional choice. He has no automatic knowledge of what is good for him or evil, what values his life depends on, what course of action it requires. Are you prattling about an instinct of self-preservation? An instinct of self-preservation is precisely what man does not possess. An ‘instinct’ is an unerring and automatic form of knowledge. A desire is not an instinct. A desire to live does not give you the knowledge required for living. And even man’s desire to live is not automatic: your secret evil today is that that is the desire you do not hold. Your fear of death is not a love of life and will not give you the knowledge needed to keep it. Man must obtain his knowledge and choose his actions by a process of thinking, which nature will not force him to perform. Man has the power to act as his own destroyer-and that is the way he has acted through most of his history.

“A living entity that regarded its means of survival as evil, would not survive. A plant that struggled to mangle its roots, a bird that fought to break its wings would not remain for long in the existence they affronted. But the history of man has been a struggle to deny and to destroy his mind.

“Man has been called a rational being, but rationality is a matter of choice-and the alternative his nature offers him is: rational being or suicidal animal. Man has to be man-by choice; he has to hold his life as a value-by choice: he has to learn to sustain it-by choice; he has to discover the values it requires and practice his virtues-by choice.

“A code of values accepted by choice is a code of morality.

Human beings can not live by force. Not without severe consequences. When you throttle voluntary action, virtue is no longer the standard by which action is rewarded. Reward becomes arbitrary, and that is exactly the process by which introducing controls into a free economy causes the kind of dislocation that can be seen throughout every facet of global economics. Healthcare used to be affordable. What changed? Did the hospitals and insurance providers become less regulated over the past 50 years? Or have they become subject to greater and still greater government interference with the natural (voluntary) regulation that capitalism provides? Why do prices spiral out of control in the first place?

And I never said that police should be a function of a private entity. The proper function of government is to protect the individual from violations of their rights. Individuals already possess a right to self-defense, and that is what they delegate to the government for the purpose of subordinating retaliation against predators to an objective deliberative body. Individuals do not possess a right to force someone to provide them with an education, or healthcare, or any other service that depends upon the uninhibited functioning of a rational mind. If human rights are a claim of need upon the abilities of another, then I have no compunction saying that human rights belong in a dictatorship, and absolutely no where else. There is no natural justification for them, and any system that attempted to impose them would be patently evil. Human beings cannot survive under such terms, and to force them to try would be to condemn them to wholesale death. That's not my opinion. Economic science is very much on my side, as is rational political philosophy. The requirements of human life are a fact. The essential attributes of human nature are facts. I can have all the opinions in the world contradicting the role of free will in human survival, and it will not change the fact that Soviet Russia could not get the most fertile region in the world to produce food to feed their starving millions. A billion Chinese can be just as wrong as one. Morality is not subjective.

One more time...

“Yes, this is an age of moral crisis. Yes, you are bearing punishment for your evil. But it is not man who is now on trial and it is not human nature that will take the blame. It is your moral code that’s through, this time. Your moral code has reached its climax, the blind alley at the end of its course. And if you wish to go on living, what you now need is not to return to morality-you who have never known any-but to discover it.

“You have heard no concepts of morality but the mystical or the social. You have been taught that morality is a code of behavior imposed on you by whim, the whim of a supernatural power or the whim of society, to serve God’s purpose or your neighbor’s welfare, to please an authority beyond the grave or else next door-but not to serve your life or pleasure. Your pleasure, you have been taught, is to be found in immorality, your interests would best be served by evil, and any moral code must be designed not for you, but against you, not to further your life, but to drain it.

“For centuries, the battle of morality was fought between those who claimed that your life belongs to God and those who claimed that it belongs to your neighbors-between those who preached that the good is self-sacrifice for the sake of ghosts in heaven and those who preached that the good is self-sacrifice for the sake of incompetents on earth. And no one came to say that your life belongs to you and that the good is to live it.

“Both sides agreed that morality demands the surrender of your self-interest and of your mind, that the moral and the practical are opposites, that morality is not the province of reason, but the province of faith and force. Both sides agreed that no rational morality is possible, that there is no right or wrong in reason-that in reason there’s no reason to be moral.

“Whatever else they fought about, it was against man’s mind that all your moralists have stood united. It was man’s mind that all their schemes and systems were intended to despoil and destroy. Now choose to perish or to learn that the anti-mind is the anti-life.