Cops busting under age drinkers on facebook

[CNCAddict]

Even the stuff about violence/bigotry is pure paranoia. You don't need more than animalistic human nature to explain that.

The government is a powerful shaping force. Theses are a few of the reasons why society is so corrupt.

war on poverty
war on drugs
war on crime
wars overseas

There are many studies that show all of these make the problems worse not better. It's very hard to know what is human nature, and what is a societal perversion caused by the influences of government and other collectivist thinking.

Of course the world is a farm to the ruling class. But if it's constantly improving the lifestyle of everyone, who cares?

Who would care?? about 100,000 dead Iraqis and countless others from Afghanistan.

http://www.iraqbodycount.org/

Does the author really want to go back to times where we don't have excess production and have to work our asses off just to live? Does he really think that the world would be better without mandatory gov't funded schooling?

The video was a narrative about the evolution of government. He wasn't espousing we go back to the stone ages

I can't imagine the type of crap that independent interest groups would indoctrinate into kids if gov't mandated curriculum weren't the accepted norm.

You think governments indoctrinate less than a free society ??

Does he really think the large majority of the population that gets more back in services than they pay in taxes would be better off without gov't?

You can search google on how welfare leads to dependency and more welfare. Again, you're using state created problems to justify the state.

People are too selfish for society to function humanely in the absence of taxes and gov't.

You're assuming we live in a humane society with government. You think it's humane to force people at gunpoint to give up their property? I believe that's the exact opposite of humane.

 

[Grall]

The video was a narrative about the evolution of government. He wasn't espousing we go back to the stone ages

So...what's the alternative then? Just bitching (in a completely paranoid manner)about how terrible things are now isn't very constructive.

You think governments indoctrinate less than a free society ??

So your world view is:
Freedom < ----------------------------------- > Government


Besides, I feel you generalize too much. Government doesn't indoctrinate in schools; teachers do - assuming they indoctrinate. I had a teacher in 4th and 5th grades who was great at his job and a very inspirational man, but used to warn us about "Old Man Commerce"; the evil ghost of capitalist consumerism who would take our critical thinking away from us and replace it with blind want for products if we didn't stay on our guard. It was only later of course that I realized that he used (and likely abused) his position as teacher to try and influence our political world views. Not that it helped much, lol; having grown up in a comfortable middle-class home where I'd been materialistically pampered I became a moderate conservative in my early adult years.

I did of course also come to realize later that his intentions were good, and his views mostly true, even though his methods probably weren't the best. We were too young to be able to think critically ourselves about what he was teaching us.

You can search google on how welfare leads to dependency and more welfare.

And yet it's preferable to the alternative, where no welfare at all leads to the kind of shantytown poverty and rampant crime seen in many countries in asia, africa and the middle and south americas.

Again, you're using state created problems to justify the state.

I don't see how poverty would be a *state-created* state of affairs. Even back in tribal times the leader - likely along with other then-considered-important figures such as the shaman or whatnot - were elevated materially. It was the industrial revolution that gave birth to the modern upper class and not the gov't. Before then, it was the nobility that owned most of the lands and riches; they were not part of any government as we know it today, although they sure had influence.

You're assuming we live in a humane society with government. You think it's humane to force people at gunpoint to give up their property?

Depends entirely on the situation. You raise a poignant example, but do not define any other parameters. Your example thus becomes utterly self-serving.

If you're a repeat drunk driver and refuse to step out of your vehicle, I entirely support the cop(s) who at gunpoint force you to come out, and then impound your ride to stop you from continuing to commit crimes. Are you saying you feel it is never right, regardless of circumstances, to seize people's property?

In fact, where do you see the government forcing people to give up property at gunpoint? I can tell you that where I live, only police are allowed to bear firearms, and they do not seize property unless it is either stolen/misappropriated or used as a means to commit crimes.

 

[Acert93]

For example, nobody's been able to prove ancient egypt used slave labor, and the only source I've ever heard that mentions it is the jewish torah - which is a text consisting mainly of myths, allegories and arguably, threats and propaganda. It's not a historical document.)

Pretty ironic indeed.

Do some reading on Egyptian copper mines in the Sinai and you will quickly uncover reading material demonstrating Egyptians had slaves. Not that this is doubted by even a casual reading of literature from Egyptian/ANE scholars. K. Kitchen would be a good place to start in regards to your specific tangent.

Just an FYI.

 

[Cheezdoodles]

Police resource spending is always interesting and amusing. I dont understand how they prioritize.

If i was running the police department i would pull most if not all my resources towards fighting crime that really matters to society, not if some half grown up teenagers drink some beers. (I understand that teenage parties can go out of control and they can do stupid shit, but backtracking people on facebook is not gonna solve that issue)

 

[Mintmaster]

The government is a powerful shaping force. Theses are a few of the reasons why society is so corrupt.

war on poverty
war on drugs
war on crime
wars overseas

These are all due to human nature, not the government. There a plenty of governments that did not buy into the war in Iraq, have a much tamer war on drugs, don't spend 4% of GDP on the military, etc.

The American public is too stupid to realize how excessive its military spending is. It's too bigoted to give a shit about civilians killed in Iraq. Everybody recieves an education from the government to realize everything that you and I do about wars. It's the cultural baggage and free market indoctrination that provides the impetus for war.

Who would care?? about 100,000 dead Iraqis and countless others from Afghanistan.

Oh, it's many times more than 100,000. You don't have to convince me. For Afghanistan, though, it's exactly about removing a government that is using its land and people to push its extremist Islamic agenda. If it wasn't for Iraq, though, it would have gone much smoother. Anyway, that's another topic...

The video was a narrative about the evolution of government. He wasn't espousing we go back to the stone ages

Then what's the point about all that productivity talk? Of course we have excess production. Of course company owners profit from the labour of its workers. Even with the woeful public education in the US, everyone knows that.

You think governments indoctrinate less than a free society ??

No, not less, but they indoctrinate far less dangerously and far more productively.

What is it in our curriculum that you find so offensive? There's a lot of stuff in there that is not in their best interest, like education about world issues, free research into sources outside their control, and removal of religion which is the most effective form of population control out there. This guy is paranoid out of his mind.

You can search google on how welfare leads to dependency and more welfare. Again, you're using state created problems to justify the state.

I can read it and it's a bunch of bullshit. The fact is that with increasing productivity you are bound to have increasing unemployment one day. You think that the rapid increase in unemployment recently is due to dependency? Suddenly all these people who were productive decided to become lazy and sit on their ass?

As more needs and desires get taken care of less income, the less motivation there is to increase income for less useful luxuries. The more productive we get per employed person, the less workers we need to satisfy a given need. Add these two factors together and full employment was bound to last only until that threshold was crossed.

Imagine a world where all our needs are provided by robots owned by the wealthy. A small percentage of people can be employed for maintenance and hard to automate tasks, but that's it. How will a free market void of welfare and gov't work? You sure has hell can't rely on voluntary donations to help the poor. You can't produce your needs cheaper than robots. When you're strapped for cash you're going to buy goods from the cheapest source, i.e. robot produced (this includes computer replicated information/entertainment, i.e. the internet). It's an endless cycle of poverty controlled entirely by the rich with no benefit for the poor. You will have local regions of affluence where the producers live so that as far as they can see the world is nice and peachy, while the rest of the world is one giant ghetto.

What you and that guy don't understand is that in a lawful society the government is a negative feedback loop for wealth gap, not positive. The free, logical market will result in a greater degree of human ownership and 'livestock'. (I say lawful because in an unlawful one wealth can be chaotically redistributed through theft, which is not a future worth pursuing.)

The one thing I do agree helps the ruling class is debt, as it not only preserves wealth from insufficient taxation, but also creates demand for their wealth to increase the interest they earn. Not all governments feel the need to cut taxes for the rich, either, but for those that do it's an insane con job that the ruling class has done to convince the public that it is good for the economy.

You're assuming we live in a humane society with government. You think it's humane to force people at gunpoint to give up their property? I believe that's the exact opposite of humane.

Yes, it's very humane when one rich man's property, which provides an insignificant increase to his quality of life, can drastically improve the quality of life of hundred others. Moreover, that property was only acquired in the first place because of the societal structure around him. His self-centered nature is the only reason that he thinks he 'earned' that property entirely through his own actions and thus doesn't owe the gov't or society anything in return.

If people weren't so selfish then it wouldn't be necessary, but they are. Humane is a subjective word, and taking property is simply far more humane than letting people starve to death.

 

[Mintmaster]

If i was running the police department i would pull most if not all my resources towards fighting crime that really matters to society, not if some half grown up teenagers drink some beers.

Where's your proof that this isn't the case? What makes you think this isn't just filler work for when nothing else is happening in the area that you can service?

The level of presumption by you cop and gov't haters is astounding.

 

[eastmen]

Police resource spending is always interesting and amusing. I dont understand how they prioritize.

If i was running the police department i would pull most if not all my resources towards fighting crime that really matters to society, not if some half grown up teenagers drink some beers. (I understand that teenage parties can go out of control and they can do stupid shit, but backtracking people on facebook is not gonna solve that issue)

The cops do whatever brings in the most money.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

It does make some sense though to make the drinking age higher than the driving age since you'll know how much concentration and awareness it'll take to drive a car before getting drunk.

There's nothing wrong at all with the method the cops used to catch the kid though.

Actually, the other way around makes more sense. In my country you can drink from 16, drive from 18. Everybody will already have its fair deal (of bad) experiance with drinking by the time they are allowed to drive so most are smart enough not to drive drunk.

America is different. You can drive from 16 (?), after passing a driving test that equals about half a lesson in my country (and you have to take like 30 lessons from 1 hour and after that 2 exams) but drink from 21. Now I dont believe that american youth really doesnt drink untill 21 but by the time they can get a drink at the club/bar they are already used to driving their car, but maybe less with drinking so I think its easier to drink too much and still get in your car.

 

[Grall]

Everybody will already have its fair deal (of bad) experiance with drinking by the time they are allowed to drive so most are smart enough not to drive drunk.

Logical fallacy.

Driving, and drinking alcohol have no logical connection; one has nothing to do with the other. Wether you've had bad experiences or not regarding alcohol will have no influence on wether you'll be willing to drive drunk or not. THAT only depends on your personal standards of ethics and conduct.

To prove my point, I'm sure there's lots of people in the netherlands that still drive drunk, even though they neccessarily should know better. It's just they don't give a flying you-know-what. They want to get where they're going, and that's all that matters.

Lots of people are very very selfish, mostly to the society at large's detriment. Fact of life.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Police resource spending is always interesting and amusing. I dont understand how they prioritize.

If i was running the police department i would pull most if not all my resources towards fighting crime that really matters to society, not if some half grown up teenagers drink some beers. (I understand that teenage parties can go out of control and they can do stupid shit, but backtracking people on facebook is not gonna solve that issue)

Except that there is very real, and well documented studies of ancilliary actions creating safer conditions for all though punishing the few that are caught.

Highway safety on a local highway has increased immensely after the police started doing random coordinated speeding crackdowns. Traffics accidents dropped roughly 200% in the first year. Now, speeders are rarely caught (no revenue stream) but the crackdowns continue as a deterrent to speeding, and it works. There are FAR less speeders and reckless drivers than there was 10 years ago. And as a result far less traffic accidents and traffic fatalities.

In Japan, with random roadblocks for breathalizer tests have reduced drinking and driving quite heavily and traffic accidents have gone down quite a bit in response. Oh, and you lose your license and are fined over 4000 USD if you are caught drinking and driving at a roadblock. I REALLY wish cops in the US (or at least my state) was allowed to do this.

It isn't violent crime but it saves hundreds/thousands of lives a year.

In most areas, tickets aren't used as a money making scheme. But if you can't jail someone, you need to make the punishment high enough that people will avoid doing things that are dangerous to other people on the road.

Having had 3 friends killed by a drunk driver, 2 others by a reckless driver, and 1 friend run over by a guy on MJ, I fully support police funding for these efforts in addition to crime prevention and criminal apprehension.

Regards,
SB

 

[CNCAddict]

So...what's the alternative then? Just bitching (in a completely paranoid manner)about how terrible things are now isn't very constructive.

The answer is a stateless society, but what point is it in having an answer if nobody recognizes there is a problem?

So your world view is:
Freedom < ----------------------------------- > Government

Government is the exact opposite of freedom, yes. Government as it stands today is payed for through extortion the exact way the mafia has been funded. The size of government is inversely proportional to the amount of personal freedom. You can look at any country throughout history to see this.

Besides, I feel you generalize too much. Government doesn't indoctrinate in schools; teachers do - assuming they indoctrinate.

Teachers are government bureaucrats, no? Have you ever said the "pledge of allegiance"? That's a good example of indoctrination.

I had a teacher in 4th and 5th grades who was great at his job and a very inspirational man, but used to warn us about "Old Man Commerce"; the evil ghost of capitalist consumerism who would take our critical thinking away from us and replace it with blind want for products if we didn't stay on our guard. It was only later of course that I realized that he used (and likely abused) his position as teacher to try and influence our political world views. Not that it helped much, lol; having grown up in a comfortable middle-class home where I'd been materialistically pampered I became a moderate conservative in my early adult years.

I did of course also come to realize later that his intentions were good, and his views mostly true, even though his methods probably weren't the best. We were too young to be able to think critically ourselves about what he was teaching us.

Are you saying you agree that capitalism and commerce is wrong and evil?

And yet it's preferable to the alternative, where no welfare at all leads to the kind of shantytown poverty and rampant crime seen in many countries in asia, africa and the middle and south americas.

No, I think you have it backwards. Free societies lead to huge wealth which combined with government leads to a welfare state. If a country is not free to begin with, it will never have the wealth to create a welfare state.

I don't see how poverty would be a *state-created* state of affairs.

I meant to say the welfare state creates new poverty. Sorry

Depends entirely on the situation. You raise a poignant example, but do not define any other parameters. Your example thus becomes utterly self-serving.

If you're a repeat drunk driver and refuse to step out of your vehicle, I entirely support the cop(s) who at gunpoint force you to come out, and then impound your ride to stop you from continuing to commit crimes. Are you saying you feel it is never right, regardless of circumstances, to seize people's property?

In a free society this can be handled easily. I could explain it..but it's very lengthy. You can read the following for excellent alternatives.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/molyneux1.html

In fact, where do you see the government forcing people to give up property at gunpoint?

It's very simple. If you don't pay tax's you will receive a notice. If you don't respond you'll receive another notice. Eventually men with guns will come to your house and drag you to jail. Taxation is property theft.

Larken Rose was recently taken to jail this way. http://www.larkenrose.com/

[YT]ngpsJKQR_ZE[/YT]

 

[eastmen]

Where's your proof that this isn't the case? What makes you think this isn't just filler work for when nothing else is happening in the area that you can service?

The level of presumption by you cop and gov't haters is astounding.

If there is enough idle time for this than mabye there are to many on the force to begin with.

 

[eastmen]

Except that there is very real, and well documented studies of ancilliary actions creating safer conditions for all though punishing the few that are caught.

Highway safety on a local highway has increased immensely after the police started doing random coordinated speeding crackdowns. Traffics accidents dropped roughly 200% in the first year. Now, speeders are rarely caught (no revenue stream) but the crackdowns continue as a deterrent to speeding, and it works. There are FAR less speeders and reckless drivers than there was 10 years ago. And as a result far less traffic accidents and traffic fatalities.

and now they make you sit in traffic for up to 2 hours or longer so that a cop can randomly (bullshit) choose to pull you over and try to find anything wrong with you or your car so they can give you some sort of fine.

In Japan, with random roadblocks for breathalizer tests have reduced drinking and driving quite heavily and traffic accidents have gone down quite a bit in response. Oh, and you lose your license and are fined over 4000 USD if you are caught drinking and driving at a roadblock. I REALLY wish cops in the US (or at least my state) was allowed to do this.

Road blocks in the states are no longer effective in doing anything but making the state money

It isn't violent crime but it saves hundreds/thousands of lives a year.

And wastes many peoples time and money

In most areas, tickets aren't used as a money making scheme. But if you can't jail someone, you need to make the punishment high enough that people will avoid doing things that are dangerous to other people on the road.

Road blocks are a money making scheme in fact many times i've been stuck in them by the time we actually got to the road block another hour to an hour and a half wait happens from when we left the bar in the city , got to the path train , got into hoboken new jersey (that alone can take over an hour) then from hoboken to where ever the road block is.

Like i said we had a whole month of these things and they caught two drunk people driving. They gave out over 3 million in other tickets during each of the stops. considering an average salary of 75k per cop your looking at paying 40 cops salaries in one night of ticketing at a road block for non related dui stuff

Having had 3 friends killed by a drunk driver, 2 others by a reckless driver, and 1 friend run over by a guy on MJ, I fully support police funding for these efforts in addition to crime prevention and criminal apprehension.

Regards,
SB

I'm sorry about your friends but how would a road block catch a reckless driver. At the very least the guy would see it and slow down.

Also whats MJ ?

I had a friend die because the other driver was text messaging and another friend had her leg crushed because another lady was doing her makeup

 

[CNCAddict]

These are all due to human nature, not the government......Everybody recieves an education from the government to realize everything that you and I do about wars.

So is it human nature, or pathetic government education that leads to these problems? I don't think the "war on poverty" would be possible without taxation. My point is that none of this is possible without taxation. Taxation is the primary evil. The rest is just a bunch of shiny things designed to distract us.

It's the cultural baggage and free market indoctrination that provides the impetus for war.

Give me some examples of free market indoctrination that leads to war. That seems completely false. I never had to pledge allegiance to microsoft.

Then what's the point about all that productivity talk? Of course we have excess production. Of course company owners profit from the labour of its workers. Even with the woeful public education in the US, everyone knows that.

Did you watch to the end of the video?

No, not less, but they indoctrinate far less dangerously and far more productively.

Do you have examples??? here are some more examples of US propaganda/indoctrination.

"The USA is the best country"

"Die for your country"

"Good people pay their taxes"

"God bless America"

"Presidents Day"

"Don't let the flag touch the ground"

"support the troops"

"he died for his country"

"fallen solder" as if they have tripped and fallen

"you're with us or against us"

"Muslims extremists hate freedom, that's why they planned 9/11" when in fact they hate foreign invasions, see Osama Bin Laden's

Fatwa http://www.pbs.org/newshour/terrorism/international/fatwa_1996.html

What you and that guy don't understand is that in a lawful society the government is a negative feedback loop for wealth gap, not positive. The free, logical market will result in a greater degree of human ownership and 'livestock'. (I say lawful because in an unlawful one wealth can be chaotically redistributed through theft, which is not a future worth pursuing.)

No, that's completely false. You can't say government is needed to prevent redistribution of wealth through theft when it is in fact the government that is already stealing. That's like saying we all need to stay dry by jumping in the river. I really think you don't understand what taxation is.

Also, capitalism DOES not lead to mass unemployment. That is a key tenant to marxism and the luddites before him.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite

The depression we're in at the moment was caused by a housing boom and associated mis-allocation of resources brought on by artificially controlled interest rates. Any boom must be followed by a bust. We are in the bust. A bad one.

[YT]2I0QN-FYkpw[/YT]

Yes, it's very humane when one rich man's property, which provides an insignificant increase to his quality of life, can drastically improve the quality of life of hundred others. Moreover, that property was only acquired in the first place because of the societal structure around him. His self-centered nature is the only reason that he thinks he 'earned' that property entirely through his own actions and thus doesn't owe the gov't or society anything in return.

That last paragraph makes me very sad, do you know what freedom is?

“To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee to everyone the free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it.” — Thomas Jefferson

“If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the general welfare, the government is no longer a limited one possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one subject to particular exceptions.” James Madison

“I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it.” — Benjamin Franklin

“The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself.” — Benjamin Franklin

 

[Sonic]

That last paragraph makes me very sad, do you even know what freedom is?

Do you? What is your idea of freedom? I wonder if it differs from my own and other people's perspectives on here. And how much.

 

[Grall]

The answer is a stateless society

Won't work, due to human nature. Remove the gov't, and you'd just open up the doors wide for a mafia-like organization to step in and take on a similar role. With the exception that the mob will certainly be working for the common good to an even lesser extent than you believe our gov'ts are now...

Government is the exact opposite of freedom, yes.

No, it isn't, but I see there's no point in arguing this point with you, so I'll just leave it that our views differ too much to find any common ground.

The size of government is inversely proportional to the amount of personal freedom. You can look at any country throughout history to see this.

I don't see how you could possibly manage to prove this. Victorian England's gov't for example was much smaller than what we have today, yet most of the populace was almost entirely un-free. Go back further in time to feudal times, the gov't was the king and his court, and the church. There was a handful of nobles living a good life, and then a sea of near-slave peasant/servant class who had no liberty whatsoever.

Smaller governments do NOT ensure more freedom. The two are completely unrelated, apples and oranges etc.

Teachers are government bureaucrats, no?

No.

Besides, that's an incredibly paranoid viewpoint. Teachers are human beings, with as varied views as any other occupation. Also, would think many countries offer both private and public schools with a variety of methodologies etc. The US does, as does my country.

Have you ever said the "pledge of allegiance"? That's a good example of indoctrination.

We don't swear allegiance to anything in school where I live, and I wouldn't take such an oath even if we did - assuming I was young enough to attend school that is, which I'm not... I do agree with you though on this issue though, but the US is a very patriarchal, authoritarian society which explains these kinds of phenomena. I don't know of any Euro country which has a similar system.

Are you saying you agree that capitalism and commerce is wrong and evil?

Not commerce per se (without trade, no developed society can survive), but many aspects of capitalism is pretty crappy. While free enterprise and competition has given rise to many technologies that have improved lives for many, it also promotes inequalities, squandering of resources and pollution, and has done little to nothing to promote the lives of the vast majority of the earth's population. In fact, 95% or so of the entire planet's wealth is controlled by 1% of its population. Pretty harrowing fail for capitalism, I'd say.

Not that I have a better system to replace it with, lol. Still, at least I am able to admit that what we got now is far from perfect.

Free societies lead to huge wealth which combined with government leads to a welfare state.

Not sure you got your chain of events all set up properly there. The industrial revolution in the 1800s did give rise to a lot of new wealth, but there was little to no freedom then for the majority. Democracy or the right to vote was not common at the start of the 20th century in Europe (particulary not for women), it was the left that forced such developments through. Not the increasingly richer capitalists on the right.

If a country is not free to begin with, it will never have the wealth to create a welfare state.

China was much more a welfare state in the past than it is now as an uber-capitalist powerhouse...

Larken Rose was recently taken to jail this way.

Wut, you have to follow the rules or else you get punished?! Imagine that!

You work within the system to change the system, that's how it's done. If enough people think paying taxes is a shitty idea they will be abolished. You don't suddenly go, "no, *I* won't pay taxes, because I don't wanna!", and then continue to leech off of the services provided by society without contributing to its upkeep.

The old "taxes is theft" mantra is age-old, and when it all comes down to it, it's little more than people wanting to be selfish. No developed society has appeared without taxes or a government, I seriously doubt human nature allows a stable and free society to exist without them. One, without a gov't with police, courts etc, how do you guarantee the liberties of individuals, and B, without taxes, how do you pay for said gov't?

Altruism is not a strong-point of human beings. It must be enforced, or else people will lie, cheat, steal or murder their way to wealth rather than work for it.

 

[CNCAddict]

Do you? What is your idea of freedom? I wonder if it differs from my own and other people's perspectives on here. And how much.

Freedom is the ability to do what you want, keep what you earn, and say as you please unless it directly takes away another persons ability to do the same.

P.S. This requires private property and free association. The "public" commons is really property owned by no one. Public property always leads to serious societal issues.

 

[CNCAddict]

Won't work, due to human nature. Remove the gov't, and you'd just open up the doors wide for a mafia-like organization to step in and take on a similar role. With the exception that the mob will certainly be working for the common good to an even lesser extent than you believe our gov'ts are now...

SO we remove the current mafia for a worse mafia? That could certainly happen unless people realize they don't need the great Obama to make decisions for them. My point is that the system we have now is failing miserably..and the next decade or so is going to be a turning point. I want to have more freedom after the next "turn"...not less.

I don't see how you could possibly manage to prove this. Victorian England's gov't for example was much smaller than what we have today, yet most of the populace was almost entirely un-free.

Smaller governments do NOT ensure more freedom. The two are completely unrelated, apples and oranges etc.

http://workforall.net/EN_Tax_policy_for_growth_and_jobs.html

Besides, that's an incredibly paranoid viewpoint. Teachers are human beings, with as varied views as any other occupation. Also, would think many countries offer both private and public schools with a variety of methodologies etc. The US does, as does my country.

Teachers are human beings who work for the state government which is paid for through money extorted from the citizens. It doesn't matter what their veiwpoint is if their payed through extortion. If teachers are paid for voluntarily there would be no problem on my end. Teachers used to be paid this way, but now there is not enough money left over after taxation for most people to afford private schools or even home schooling.

promotes inequalities, squandering of resources and pollution, and has done little to nothing to promote the lives of the vast majority of the earth's population. In fact, 95% or so of the entire planet's wealth is controlled by 1% of its population. Pretty harrowing fail for capitalism, I'd say.

Not that I have a better system to replace it with, lol. Still, at least I am able to admit that what we got now is far from perfect.

Capitalism has improved the lives of those people it has been able to touch. Countries without a free market are left behind. If a man starves, it's not the food you can blame.

But yeah, what we have now sucks and more of it won't help. The USA was an experiment on the SMALLEST government possible. In the first years everything was run on what I believe was a 1% excise tax and the state has now grown into a beast that devours everything in it's path.

Not sure you got your chain of events all set up properly there. The industrial revolution in the 1800s did give rise to a lot of new wealth, but there was little to no freedom then for the majority. Democracy or the right to vote was not common at the start of the 20th century in Europe (particulary not for women), it was the left that forced such developments through. Not the increasingly richer capitalists on the right.

Yeah, that might have been confusing. For sure we have more freedom in some ways now than before. But that is being offset by gross taxation, and huge burdens. Filling out government paperwork, licensing, and many forms of redtape have taken the place of inequalities for woman and blacks. We've taken 3 steps forward and 2 back.

China was much more a welfare state in the past than it is now as an uber-capitalist powerhouse...

No, china was very oppressed earlier last century. Then in 1978 they began lifting government regulations and restraints such as eliminating the collective farms "ala soviet russia". Chinas economy is growing at a rapid pace because of freedom in the marketplace. However they still have few personal freedoms

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_People's_Republic_of_China#1980.E2.80.931990

You work within the system to change the system, that's how it's done. If enough people think paying taxes is a shitty idea they will be abolished. You don't suddenly go, "no, *I* won't pay taxes, because I don't wanna!", and then continue to leech off of the services provided by society without contributing to its upkeep.

Ron Paul has been trying to do that for ages. It's not working and the ship is already beginning to sink. It's impossible to kill the beast. It needs to engorge itself until it collapses under its own weight.

It's only when people realize the system is corrupt and bad laws shouldn't be obeyed that things will change for the better.

The old "taxes is theft" mantra is age-old, and when it all comes down to it, it's little more than people wanting to be selfish.

So you don't think taxation is theft? I posted this before...but here is a method to do things voluntarily.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/molyneux1.html

Altruism is not a strong-point of human beings. It must be enforced, or else people will lie, cheat, steal or murder their way to wealth rather than work for it.

People were much more generous before the welfare state. If human nature is so terrible..then for sure we'll have terrible corrupt greedy politicians. If some people are corrupt and some are good...then corrupt ones will go into politics to rule over others. In either case government isn't going to fix the problems.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1435374/There-was-welfare-before-the-welfare-state.html

 

[Blazkowicz]

that yellow graph is pretty bullshit. not a whole lot of countries, and the curb is steered by a fiscal paradise and a country who chose fiscal dumping so that US companies would install there european headquarters there. and coming from so low. portugal came from low, too.

 

[nutball]

that yellow graph is pretty bullshit. not a whole lot of countries, and the curb is steered by a fiscal paradise and a country who chose fiscal dumping so that US companies would install there european headquarters there. and coming from so low. portugal came from low, too.

Indeed. IRE, POR and SP (and GR too as far as I know) have been the recipients of a fair bit of cash from the tax-payers to the right-hand side of that graph precisely intended to boost their wealth growth. It's not too hard to grow your economy if you're being subsidised by other countries to bribe foreign companies to set up shop in your own. More difficult if you have to spend your own tax-payers money in bribes, perhaps?!

It'll be interesting to see that graph plotted in five years time for the whole EU-27 now that a bunch of even poorer countries have joined the EU, and the [strike]bribes[/strike] subsidies and jobs are fleeing IRE and the others to the new member states.

LUX is an outlier. Tax havens prove basically nothing.