Quote:
Originally Posted by sck5
"America's infrastructure, pretty much up to WWII, was entirely privately built"
You need a history book my friend. And it is even less true nowadays.
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I'm sort of disappointed that instead of discussing the principles I brought up, you picked on one small aspect. And in a logically invalid way, might I add -- no statement about what happened in the past becomes more or less true as time goes on.
Anyway, you seem to be ganged up on a little bit here, so I'll keep my response short:
- telegraph
- electric light
- steam engine
- railroads
- capital markets
All the results of the ingenuity and daring of
individuals, who sometimes needed the government's
permission, but nothing else.
As to my nationality, I am an American expatriate in Canada (though my boat (private property) is moored and registered in the land of the free). Not only that, I attend a university founded in the 60s - the sort whose philosophy departments teach that there is no reality, and whose political science departments teach Marx - and not only that, I was on the board of directors of the local student society, an quasi-governmental organization that epitomizes heavy regulation, redistribution of wealth, and waste. I saw first hand how much better individuals are at accomplishing their goals, than a government is at accomplishing people's goals for them. Basically I live in my own far-left microcosm, and I cannot fathom why the experience has not pushed my colleagues -- who get no benefit from this system, have no sense of principles or values whatsoever, and hold only non-committal and self-contradictory opinions on the matter -- in a more libertarian direction, as it has pushed me.
Living in Canada is something every freedom-loving person should try for a month, because you don't know what you had until it's gone. I think the only thing that keeps Canadians from waking up is this pervasive and self-perpetuating hatred of America and Americans for no pronounceable reason -- they often justify their opposition to policy based on the flaw that it is "too American". I can't think of a better way for state with an already powerful government to prevent its subjects from demanding more freedom.
I'd like to state for the record that I support taxation, since I support the existence of government as that body which protects my rights, which it needs funding to do. I would propose that the approximately 60% of the federal budget that goes towards Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and General Assistance be redirected towards paying off the national debt, and that once that is accomplished, that taxes be adjusted so that the budget is balanced at 40% its 2003 size.