On Tue, Jun 04, 2013 at 06:27:59PM +1000, Aryan Ameri wrote:
On Tue, Jun 4, 2013 at 2:34 PM, Russell Coker <russell@coker.com.au> wrote:
Dear Libertarians, please try and be as generous as Bill.
Were you talking to me? I actually liked your previous label for me, anarcho-capitalist, much more! ;-)
that was me who said that - i object to the US Libertarians stealing the term from its original socialist meaning...and anarcho-capitalist more accurately describes their philosophy of unrestrained, unregulated capitalism.
Speaking of Bill Gates and charity.... charity creates dependency and stifles innovation and development. If you ask me, one of the major reasons why we still have poverty and hunger in this world is due to the left's need to "save the world".
you haven't read up on your dogma - most anarcho-capitalists praise charity as virtuous and philanthropic because it is a voluntary act by the wealthy. it's government welfare programs that they deride as creating dependancy. and, yes, there is some truth in that - welfare can create dependancy, as can charity. the alternative, letting people starve or suffer untreated illness or homelessness is worse. and those are just the negative effects on the individuals concerned...the effects on society of having a large, desperate underclass are far worse. it's why, for example, muggings and violent thefts are common in the US but relatively rare in civilised countries with a welfare system and public health system. desperation makes even decent people turn to crime if they need to feed themselves or their families....hard times force hard choices on people - rob someone or watch your kid starve or go without treatment or medication. welfare removes that desperation, so only the much smaller number of crazies and sociopaths commit such crimes. from my POV as one of the comfortable middle class, the cost of welfare is a bargain....the dole for a person is about a tenth of the cost of prison, and having relatively safe streets plus not having to turn my home into a fortress is priceless. it's also a good argument for legalising and regulating the supply of heroin and other drugs of dependancy - if junkies could get their fix cheaply and safely, very few of them would turn to burglary or prostitution. many doctors and nurses, for example, have opiate habits but they're able to function normally because petty theft from the hospital supply and bogus prescriptions give them access to their drug without needing to turn to violent crime. (and, given a choice between an alcoholic surgeon and an opiate addicted surgeon to operate on me, i'd have no hesitation whatsoever in choosing the opiate addict. aside from chronic constipation, there are no serious physical problems from long term opiate use - no shakes, no tremors, no DTs. it's the impoverished junkie lifestyle that fucks people up, not the drugs) destroying the highly profitable black-market in drugs would also be of huge benefit to society from legalising and regulating currently-illegal drugs. nobody gets shot or murdered over booze or tobacco deals gone bad, because there are legal means to redress grievances between buyer and seller. and users don't OD and die because they know that the hit they're taking today is exactly the same dosage and quality as the one they took yesterday - no surprise fluctuations in dosage strength.
There is a saying somewhere about a teaching a person to go fishing or something which I think is appropriate!
yeah, it leads to the destruction of the food chain in the world's oceans. the oceans are not an unlimited resource and our plundering of them has already exceeded their ability to heal and regenerate. which is why we have government regulation of fishing catches, and marine parks to give the fish safe breeding grounds. but anarcho-capitalists don't give a fuck about sustainability - future profits and income are irrelevant because it might be someone else who gets them. they want to plunder and loot whatever they can now and to hell with the consequences. craig -- craig sanders <cas@taz.net.au> BOFH excuse #256: You need to install an RTFM interface.