Off Topic — HabitableZone

Off Topic » in reply to Not even maybe?

re: Not even maybe?
Tom Brosz — (archived)

You're a lot like Robert in that responses tend toward the long and complex, when the basics are really pretty simple. Usually, this is because someone is trying to slide a concept past you in the crowd.

If you eliminate philosophy as part of your argument, the person who does have a philosophy, however good or bad, will eventually win the argument. Trial and error works, but not as well as objective principles do.

This isn't complicated. Most of the big questions actually have very simple answers. Where the problem comes in is that the simple answers aren't the ones people want to hear.

Of course people cooperate to do things. The trick is to look for the gun. Is the "cooperation" being forced? A black man on a plantation prior to the Civil War spent his days doing field work. So does a Chavez union farm worker. Same hours, same work. The difference was the gun. I give to charity every year. A lot of money above and beyond that is taken from me by force to allow politicians to give to charity. I can see the difference, even if nobody else here seems to.

The results of collectivist societies vs. individualist ones has been solidly proven in the real world over and over again in many nations, cultures, and conditions. I'm continuously amazed that I have to continue to defend this.

The U.S. thrives in spite of the anchor of socialism hanging on it, not because of it. If we are doing better than other nations, I suspect it's because usually their anchors are even larger. I have a choice of two political parties. One wants to make the anchor bigger. A lot bigger. The other doesn't, or at least not as much bigger as the first party. I don't like the choices, but that's what I have to work with, and I vote for the less enthusiastic socialism. If the libertarians ever ditch their looneys and become a real party, I'll think about voting for them.

I pay about $30,000 in income tax every year, and the response to that here usually is that I'm damn lucky that's all they're taking, that it's my social responsibility, and I should be glad that the "Peepul" are not raiding my home with weapons instead. For this I get exactly the same libraries, highways, utilities, military protection, and every other general government service that the guy sitting in front of a TV collecting a welfare check gets. So it goes.

Heinlein is right. There are people who think you need to have your life run for you, and those who don't, although there are degrees of both. Incidentally, Robert A. Heinlein probably had twice the brains of every person on this board combined. Ever read any of his serious non-fiction?

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