Welfare almost never "makes people lazy"

[Joel]

So you want to live in a society where only you count.

No. I have no idea how you read that into what I wrote.

Being required to pay taxes is moral because that is the only way to hold a society together.

I disagree. I think your statement only shows a lack of imagination (and knowledge of history) on your part. And when I listed ways of having voluntary society, you just shrug it off with an "I don't know" and "perhaps".

the only just and moral way to live together in this world is democratically.

False. As I said, voting is nothing but a majority conspiring to use force against a minority. A more just and moral way to live together is to interact consensually.

For a simple example: One way to live together is to force everyone to eat the same flavor of ice cream, and democratically choose which flavor it will be. Another way is to have no vote and instead for each person to be free to choose what flavor of ice cream to eat, if any, and for people to be sociable with each other, even with people who have different ice cream tastes. (Could replace choice ice cream with choice of god to worship, or kind of light bulb to use, etc.) Note that democracy is opposed to freedom of choice. Democracy is the majority forcing their choice on the minority.

If you belong to a club of some sort, you do the same

Clubs are voluntary associations. So, no, not the same.

if you don't like it, no longer wish to be a member, you can quit the club, but you can't quit society, its a fact of life.

If someone wants to quit society and live as a hermit why shouldn't they be free to do so?
But the state is not the same thing as society. The State is force. But society is mostly made up of daily consensual human interaction. The state is one particular organization, providing particular services, as you say. It absolutely can be possible for people to associate in society without purchasing services from the same organization. People in different countries can interact socially with one another. People who are customers of different insurance companies can interact socially with one another. etc. We don't have to be in the same clubs to interact socially.

But your not being forced to buy anything in particular, you are just being forced to pay your taxes which goes into a big pot and funds all the services the government supplies. Just think of your particular contribution as going to only those things you support.

But each of the things can be added or cut individually. Any program could be cut and everyone's taxes reduced proportionally.

We don't vote for those who we disagree with.

The vast majority of people I talked to in the past two presidential elections voted for a candidate whom they disagree with, as the lesser of evils.

you call that theft, I call it democracy.

Theft by majority vote is still theft. Murder by majority vote is still murder. Two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner is an example of democracy. As I pointed out last post, voting does nothing to determine whether the thing voted on is just or unjust. So you are only dodging the question here.

You don't believe in democracy. It isn't the government stealing your money, its a duly elected representative government deciding where our dues should best be spent.

What do you mean I don't believe in democracy? I'm just pointing out the obvious that voting does nothing to determine whether the thing voted on is just or unjust. Need yet another example? A majority voting to enslave or kill a minority is committing a massive, grave injustice. A "duly elected representative government" carrying out a genocide that the majority voted for would be committing a massive injustice. For your theory to work, you would have to claim that it would be a perfectly good thing to do because it's being done by "a duly elected representative government". You are advocating a form of might-makes-right.

I'm not saying that democracy has no positive aspect. It's just that democracy has no power to determine whether something is morally okay to do.

So if only two thirds of the people consent to fund the military, then only two thirds have to pay for it. What of the other third? They get it for free.

Or maybe the other third finds what the military is doing abhorrent.
But let's suppose an example in which everyone views it as a benefit, and the other third benefit for free. So? By hypothesis, the 2/3 consented to do that. So the arrangement is consensual on everyone's part. Nobody was wronged. Same, regardless of what percentages you want to choose.

This kind of thing happens every day. Consider Kickstarters where people contribute money to projects that, once completed, benefit many others who didn't contribute to the kickstarter.

How about the infrastructue? Would anything ever get done in such a system?

My previous general comments about how voluntary society can and does work apply here too.
And roads and utilities can and have been provided by consensual means.
Worries about "who will build the roads" is as silly as worries about who would pick the cotton, if slaves were freed. Oh, my, who will pick the cotton or build the roads if no one is forced to do it? How will anything get done?

perhaps the reason the state got involved was because that system didn't work.

Not from what I have seen. State involvement in economic matters typically began at the request of special interests that benefited from it. There used to be competition in infrastructure/utilities. Municipal utility monopolies arose as corrupt deals between the state and a favored business. The state would grant the favored business a state-enforced monopoly, in exchange for a cut of the profits. Like a mafia.

[jordanriver]

Theft by majority vote is still theft. Murder by majority vote is still murder. Two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner is an example of democracy

.

sorry to interrupt here, but that's wolf propaganda, tricking the sheep into thinking they are outnumbered.

But there are 1.1 billion sheep in the world.

And "The worldwide wolf population is about 200,000" or if wolves prefer, to make their propaganda look better, "...if we add together all the wolf species from all the countries in the world, we get about 400,000 individual wolves..."

so if you add the voting animals together, using the high number for wolves, 400,000 + 1.1 billion sheep, that's 1,100,400,000 voting animals,

and that makes the wolves less than 1 tenth of one percent.


That's worse than Bernie Sanders claim that the top 0.1% of Americans have almost as much wealth as bottom 90%


I think this 2 wolves and 1 sheep voting whats for dinner is just a bunch of one-percenter crap.

.....ok, carry on, don't mind me.

[jordanriver]

its 2,750 sheep to every wolf. Too bad the sheep don't know that.


the situation is worse than the Father of our Country telling his 250-350 slaves that democracy is a bad idea, because it amounts to 2 plantation owners and 1 slave voting on who gets hanged.

[Joel]

sorry to interrupt here, but that's wolf propaganda, tricking the sheep into thinking they are outnumbered.

But there are 1.1 billion sheep in the world.

And "The worldwide wolf population is about 200,000" or if wolves prefer, to make their propaganda look better, "...if we add together all the wolf species from all the countries in the world, we get about 400,000 individual wolves..."

so if you add the voting animals together, using the high number for wolves, 400,000 + 1.1 billion sheep, that's 1,100,400,000 voting animals,

and that makes the wolves less than 1 tenth of one percent.


That's worse than Bernie Sanders claim that the top 0.1% of Americans have almost as much wealth as bottom 90%


I think this 2 wolves and 1 sheep voting whats for dinner is just a bunch of one-percenter crap.

.....ok, carry on, don't mind me.

This actually made me realize something: You (perhaps unintentionally) raise the question of what qualifies as a valid set of voters (for someone advocating a majority-vote-makes-right theory). Is the whole world population the only valid set? If so, then all existing states are illegitimate. But JimL wants to justify actual existing taxation by existing states. So it needs to be the case that subsets of the world population can be valid voter sets. But then his position that "the only just and moral way to live together in this world is democratically," is self-refuting, because voting presupposes that a valid voter subset has already been decided upon. Which is impossible, if voting is the only just and moral way to decide things together.

Or, looking at it from the other direction: What, for example, would prevent two wolves from finding a sheep and declaring that the three of them form a valid voter set? They could even re-confirm the validity of the voter set by a vote held among the three of them. And then they could vote on what to eat for dinner.

[jordanriver]

Or, looking at it from the other direction: What, for example, would prevent two wolves from finding a sheep and declaring that the three of them form a valid voter set? They could even re-confirm the validity of the voter set by a vote held among the three of them. And then they could vote on what to eat for dinner.

I think the 1.1 billion sheep need to divide up into 400,000 groups of 2,750 , with pitchforks, and get busy defending themselves, and tell the wolves 'here's what you can do with your voter sets'

(I don't think sheep or wolves know their nationality, BTW.)

....as for us, eat mor chikin


In the meantime, here in USA, 1% of 300 million is 3 million.


90% of 300,000,000 would be 270 million.

of course the top 1% could hire the other 9% that's left , so it would be 270 million with pitchforks , or plain forks, vs 30 million with automatic weapons.

hmmm, that's only 9 to one. Wont work, you don't have to worry, Joel

[JimL]

Libertarians are like the supporters of the 'right to work" notion. They want all the benefits that unions collectively bargain for, but they don't feel as though they should be forced to pay the dues that go toward securing those benefits.

[One Bad Pig]

Libertarians are like the supporters of the 'right to work" notion. They want all the benefits that unions collectively bargain for, but they don't feel as though they should be forced to pay the dues that go toward securing those benefits.

Do they? Or you just assuming again?

[Joel]

Libertarians are like the supporters of the 'right to work" notion. They want all the benefits that unions collectively bargain for, but they don't feel as though they should be forced to pay the dues that go toward securing those benefits.

No, that's not it.

1) Being benefitted doesn't make someone a debtor. You are benefitted all the time every day by other people's actions, and it doesn't mean you owe them money or it's okay for them to take anything from you. Only in the case of state actions (and possibly unions?) do you imagine that it creates a debt.
2) You are assuming everyone thinks it (some one of these state programs) is a benefit.
3) You are assuming everyone thinks the benefit is worth the cost.
4) Libertarians very often are pointing out free-market alternatives in which people are more directly paying for goods/services they want. E.g. in the case of a toll road, users pay proportional to their use, rather than proportional to, say, their income. On the other hand, it is typically the proponents of state projects who are the ones declaring that things should be 'free' and that people have a 'right' to be provided with things. The whole rationale behind state provision of goods/services is to force some group of people to pay for it (in part or whole) for another group of people. Otherwise why use force?

It's bizarre that you think libertarians want to benefit without paying. For example, no libertarian is suggesting they should be able to opt out of paying for state schools and then still send their kids to state schools. Rather, libertarians want there to be no state schools at all.

[JimL]

Do they? Or you just assuming again?

Yeah, i'm fairly certain that you don't want to go back to the working conditions as they were before the establishment of unions. Its easy to say you don't appreciate unions and the benefits and protections they got for you, now that you've got them.

[JimL]

No, that's not it.

1) Being benefitted doesn't make someone a debtor. You are benefitted all the time every day by other people's actions, and it doesn't mean you owe them money or it's okay for them to take anything from you. Only in the case of state actions (and possibly unions?) do you imagine that it creates a debt.
2) You are assuming everyone thinks it (some one of these state programs) is a benefit.
3) You are assuming everyone thinks the benefit is worth the cost.
4) Libertarians very often are pointing out free-market alternatives in which people are more directly paying for goods/services they want. E.g. in the case of a toll road, users pay proportional to their use, rather than proportional to, say, their income. On the other hand, it is typically the proponents of state projects who are the ones declaring that things should be 'free' and that people have a 'right' to be provided with things. The whole rationale behind state provision of goods/services is to force some group of people to pay for it (in part or whole) for another group of people. Otherwise why use force?

It's bizarre that you think libertarians want to benefit without paying. For example, no libertarian is suggesting they should be able to opt out of paying for state schools and then still send their kids to state schools. Rather, libertarians want there to be no state schools at all.

But you are only taking yourself and the things that are important to you as an individual into consideration rather than what is important for the good of society as a whole. You only want to pay for things that you think are important to you while the rest of society crumbles around you. What happens to the rest of your world will effect you as well.

[Joel]

Yeah, i'm fairly certain that you don't want to go back to the working conditions as they were before the establishment of unions. Its easy to say you don't appreciate unions and the benefits and protections they got for you, now that you've got them.

I wrote a response about how you are off-base on your accusations here about unions, but I decided to delete it because this just isn't relevant. This is a red herring.

It is unfortunate we couldn't just stay on topic, and instead you have to grill me about every topic under the sun, including unions, fire departments, etc.

But you are only taking yourself and the things that are important to you as an individual into consideration rather than what is important for the good of society as a whole. You only want to pay for things that you think are important to you while the rest of society crumbles around you. What happens to the rest of your world will effect you as well.

What? How did you get this from what I've said? I've repeatedly said that the reason I cannot support taxation (for state welfare, since that's the topic) is that I can't see how to morally justify taking from millions of my neighbors. The argument has nothing to do with what I want. If anyone is selfish it would have to be those who take the opposing position: wanting to force their neighbors to pay for things.

I haven't been talking about getting what I want and forget everyone else. I've only been advocating the use of consensual means, rather than force. The fact that you can't imagine doing good things without force, the fact that you can't imagine peaceful, consensual society, and can only imagine coercive "society", is frankly disturbing. My position arises out of my concern for others--my concern for justice and for society.

I'm not at all opposing things that are "important for the good of society as a whole". Just because I don't want to use coercive means for something doesn't imply that I don't want it to be done at all. It's as if you think that I don't want people to be clothed because I don't want the state to take over clothing production.

Furthermore, I think you are being too presumptive in thinking you know what's best for everyone and the best way for everything to be done. For example, take the U.S.'s massive foreign military intervention, done by a "duly elected representative government", which has destroyed the lives and property of many innocent civilians. And anti-immigration policy. Some Americans think that this is necessary for our survival and security and to keep society from crumbling around us. Other people think that it's based on overblown fears of tiny risks, that it's incredibly unjust and wasteful, and that it actually makes us less safe in the long run because it fosters more hatred toward the U.S. But it seems that your view would be that anyone who dissents with the actions of the "duly elected representative government" must be selfishly thinking only of themselves and want to leave the rest of society to crumble around them.

Or take a hypothetical example. Suppose a neighborhood of 100 households with children. 40 of them attend one school, and 60 attend another school. Each paying for the school they prefer, and everyone's happy, everything is consensual. But then suppose the 60 households think about how their school would be even cheaper to themselves if they got all 100 households to pay for it, instead of paying for their preferred school themselves. So the 60 take money from the 40 by force. The 60 are clearly being selfish and unjust. But they'll justify it to themselves by saying that it's okay because they are more numerous than the 40 (they are the majority). And they'll claim that if they don't do it, society will crumble around us. And when the 40 object to the theft, they'll ironically accuse the 40 of being the selfish ones and not caring about "society". Good tactic, trying to make your victims feel guilty for objecting to the injustice. Or even more bizarre, consider me to be one of the 60 who says to the rest of the 60, "Hey, guys, what you are doing to the 40 is unjust." And then for some mysterious reason you accuse me of thinking only of myself!

[RumTumTugger]

Yeah, i'm fairly certain that you don't want to go back to the working conditions as they were before the establishment of unions. Its easy to say you don't appreciate unions and the benefits and protections they got for you, now that you've got them.

they have long lived out their usefulness when they started trying to influence politicians(and using the union dues to do it sort of another theivery there) instead of sticking with worker employer relations.

[Catholicity]

they have long lived out their usefulness when they started trying to influence politicians(and using the union dues to do it sort of another theivery there) instead of sticking with worker employer relations.

I don't know RTT, KG works for the post office and believe me, the Union there really is necessary especially for the substitute carriers. They work up to 14 hour days, without even a brief break to eat, and there's a lot of really weird rules. The dues for the union are a mere 10 dollars a month, and there really is no work employer relations outside the union. The only other one I can think of that's useful still are for coal miners who don't get certain medical guarantees that they really need otherwise. Most unions on the other hand aren't that great.

[jordanriver]

they have long lived out their usefulness when they started trying to influence politicians(and using the union dues to do it sort of another theivery there) instead of sticking with worker employer relations.

and lobbyists for big business have outlived their usefulness when their money passed NAFTA and now they're using their money to promote TPP to put AMERICANS out of work

[Mountain Man]

they have long lived out their usefulness when they started trying to influence politicians(and using the union dues to do it sort of another theivery there) instead of sticking with worker employer relations.

Unions had their place back when there were few if any regulations protecting workers and ensuring they were fairly compensated for their labor. Laws and government regulations now fulfill that purpose making unions effectively obsolete. My general impression of unions these days is that their function is to give the employees the most pay for the least amount of work, but that could just be something to do with the industry I work in where they'll put three guys on a job that one of them could easily do. And if you want something done fast, never ask a union guy to do it.

Anyway, this reminds me of a joke I heard recently:

A man was watching three workmen go about their business. One of the workmen was directing another to dig a hole, then the third would come behind and fill it in. They repeated this process several times before the curiosity got the best of the onlooker and he had to ask what was going on. "Well you see," said the first workman, "I'm the foreman. Bob there digs a hole. Pete plants a tree in it. And Jim fills it in." "But you're not planting trees." "Yeah," said the foreman, "It's Pete's day off."