That is a rather questionable assertion, as I was pointing out. Aristocracy rarely escaped with "zero", or, more precisely, their view of what constitutes "zero" differs somewhat from that of an average persons' and usually includes a butler or two.
It is clear that you can not conceive that someone, unfettered by the chains of oppressive taxation, relying only on their own labour, wits, and good character, could earn sufficient capital through voluntary exchange to live a life comfortable enough so that they could support their consort and projeny, and support their own retirement.
Oh, sure it is possible. Just not very likely in your case, judging from the contorted stories you weave. Additionally, and this the crucial point, even if it is possible for some poeple to do so, lack of taxation, and the insitutions thus paid for, is severely destructive for the society as a whole. Exceptions society do not make. Even if a significant portion of a society could pull this off, it would still result in a disaster if the whole society was taken into account.
Mussollini was right.
Another one of the intellectual giants you worship?
1. Police organizations can delagate emergency response to one another, to whichever one is closest.
No they don't. Even now, when police is not a for profit entity, where police departaments do not compete for "clients" between themselves, trying to take over each other's "territory", it is frequently a problem when crooks cross county, state or national borders. Furthermore, what exactly would be the "rules of engagement" for that corporate, for profit, police? What is to stop them from making their own rules as they go along, with some biggotted citizens gleefully paying for "specialty" KKK-affiliated "police" departaments. If the rich white bigots have the supreme financial power in an area, the visible minorties would have no choice but to move out of range or submit to corporate police sanctioned re-segregation, would they not? What stops the corporate police from turning into a mob protection racket, where they can shake down business owners in the area for ever increasing fees? These people, by the nature of their work, would have to be heavily armed, what is to stop rival corporate police outfits from an outright shooting war over "customers"? Etc and so on.
Emergency response can accept a small number of free riders: you settle who pays after the service is rendered, if payment can be made (this is reasonable for the same reason that it is reasonable for you to be taken to *any* hospital, if you are unconcious and need urgent care, rather than a hospital aligned with your health insurer.
And which today, in a much less hostile to poverty (although pretty nasty one in the US) environment, results in people refusing ambulance service because it is too expensive. Some die as a result. Make that police "service fee" high anough and you will have machine gun fire echoing across neighbourhoods as citizens take it upon themselves to dish out "justice". As a mattar of fact, in a no-government scenario, police is pretty much a non-starter as simply firing an RPG into your neighbour's house when his dog peed on your sidewalk is a far more efficient and essentially consequences-free action, as long as your stash of weapons is bigger that anyone's who would have a differing opinion. You already have the required attitude, as your musings about shooting your ideological opponents under the disguise of tresspass indicate clearly.
In short, this is an already solved problem.
No, turkey, none of those are "already solved problems".
But, it is not as easy as you think to separate one's self from the claws of Canadian taxation
Yea, yea, whine, moan, bitch, cry me a river. The Revenue Canada people failed to clairvoyantly determine, the instant you crossed the borders, if you are leaving for real or if you are just dodging taxes only to come back later. What a bunch of nasty commies! It took them a while to determine which. How dare they?!
However, nowhere is there a definition of non-resident
Mailing your passport back with a letter renouncing Canadian citizenship to Foreign Affairs, cc: Revenue Canada, would do the trick. Note that this still does not get you out of your past taxes, which seems to be a major part of your whining.
And, the means to determine this used to be kept secret. I believe it is one major "tie" or five minor ones determine residency. Major ties are supporting a family member in Canada, or owning real property available for you to live in. Minor ties are holding a Canadian passport, having a bank account, Canadian-issued credit cards, library cards, brokerage accounts, etc.
You also believe in libertarian fairies. It is curious that no one but whiny tax haters like you seem to be mired in these problems, even though a large number of Canadians cease to be residents through marriage and what not every year.
For most people like me, the only ties we retain are generally a passport (Canada won't let one renounce citizenship without having other citiz
But I think you're wrong to ascribe evil to their motives. I think in some fundamental way, they just see "fairness" in a different way than you and I do. To them, society--excluding government intervention--is inherently a fair place where hard work is rewarded, that most people earn their riches honestly and should be allowed to use them in whatever way benefits them, and anyone can make it if they're willing to put in the effort. If all these things were true, I'd probably think much the same way they do.
You might be right in many cases. I actually met people who did believe as you describe, or at least that was my sense of it. They did however discuss the issue from a completely different, labouriously impersonal angle, and tried to persuade me on the basis of things such as effort/reward mechanisms in the free-market economy from a theoretical standpoint, instead of screaming "thief" and trying to impress me with the thickness of their wallets. I do not sense anything resembling that sort of depth of phillosophical foundations of his world-view from this fellow. He instead seems to be obsessed with his (or his family's) inherent superiority, combined with an ingrained persecution complex, which again is probably generational. These two together produce a supremely warped individual which believes that he deserves a great many things from the society, much more then he in fact receives (never you mind having to face the fact that even what he gets today is an abberration of the marketplace), due to that superiority and the gigiantic impact on the world he and his parents had, and the only reason he did not attain that stratospheric level is because the nasty communist taxation, along with the oppressive communist mobs behind it, have robbed him and his parents of their rightful destiny. If he could only get rid of these "thieves", once and for all, he would have rocketed to undescribeable heights. Similarly with his parents, who instead of having to work -- while reminiscing of "old good times" while bitching continously about "thieving Canadians", would have been surrounded by many maids and butlers, as they once were. The very way he presents his arguments is strongly suggestive of these kinds of mental issues. You probably recognise this strange combination of notions of ingrained superiority, bigotry and at the same time a very deep reaching persecution complexes, as it was present quite prominently at a root of quite a few violent catastrophes in history and around the world, when it managed to infect to a sufficient degree some group or sect. It is quite fascinating actually that it can produce such far ranging sets of mindsets, both religious and secular. Ironically amongst them the very attitudes of some of the Communists from whom his family run away.
Also I think it is a mistake to completely discount the influence of base, animalistic emotions, such as the subconscious need to hoard things and to dominate others, so strong in some people. I have read some quite persuasive arguments aimed at explaining the current recurrence of "neo conservativism", libertarianism and some similar world-views as a backlash against the rule of humanitarian ideals by those who are driven by such instincts. In short the idea is that these "phillosophies" aim at making the adherents feel that it is all right, and in fact "noble", "just" and "fair" to feel greed and to be selfish. As I said somewhere in that "discussion" upthread, it is in fact one of the oldest pursuits of mankind, to justify, in "moral" terms, ones avarice. Luckily for us all no one has yet come up with a method of doing so which is not full of gigiantic leaps of logic and outright laughable theories.
I don't know how I would have handled your opponent; he seems to be an unapologetic nutjob. I can't blame you for fighting dirty, and I don't know if trying to fight clean would have persuaded anybody. But I think that half the people in this country think that everyone on the opposite end of the political spectrum is evil, and we shou
The only institutions that should exist are those that can attract enough voluntary support to survive. Rather like the guy in the sleazy part of town selling porn mags -- if he can't sell enough, that's his tough luck. Sell bibles instead.
Right, that will work wonders. Lemme see, you and 22013 families in your city pay for the police. But some, "I have better things to do with my money", 1231 or so do not. Someone is getting mugged on the street, a cop sees it and goes: "Police! The victim, please recite your Police subsciption number so that I know if I can help you!". That is assuming that the victim happened to be paying for the Blue Police LLC, Precint 54 as opposed to Red Police Inc. Sector 4 where he lives.
You are suggesting that a mob, perhaps a democratic mob (that is one that represents over 50% of the population) is moral in using force to get what it wants from everyone else.
No, turkey, it is 95% or so of the citizenry (Libertarians are luckily a rather rare aberration around here) decides that in order to participate in the deal called "Canada" one has to submit to certain obligations. This process is called a Social Contract. Which, among other things, involves payment for the national institutions. The contract is voluntary. You do not like it? You can take your ass to Belize or wherever there is no taxes. No one is going to stop you. But if you do submit to the contract, it will be enforced. No signing of any paperwork is needed. The acceptance of the contract and staying in the deal called "Canada" are synonymous. I hear they have a similar deal called the "US of A".
That is precisely what I reject. Without my consent, taking from me is immoral.
As I said, the deal is voluntary. You can leave at any time. As a matter of fact, this precisely what you did. Subsequently any whining, moaning and bitching about it being "without your consent" is just that. Childlish moaning of a spoiled brat who does not get his way.
Taxation is immoral, as it is just mob theft.
See above. It you were prevented from leaving, then you would have a point. But you do not.
Now there may very well be practical reasons to voluntarily support certain "institutions": hungry people might get angry and it may be cheaper to feed them than to spend the money on bullets to kill them when they come to rob me. But, don't let them breed.
This is how it would look like in practice: a network of "communities" walled in by 20 feet tall barb-wire topped walls with guard towers, machine gun emplacements and other "security" measures, surrounded by squalid shanty-towns full of millions of impoverished people, seething with hate and resentment. All kept in check by ruthless private armies in direct employ of these "city-states". And so on. What escapes you (and no surprise there) is that this shit has already been tried on multiple occasions, with disastrous results every and each time. Our Social Contracts (Canadian, US, Frech, German and many other varieties) are the direct result of those experiences.
Finally, a cooperative may enjoy economies of scale sufficient to subsidise a certain percentage of "free riders", and still be the best deal going. If that's true then it will arise naturally. (In practice large insurers buy smaller ones until there are a few big ones, for this reason). The wise insured would want the large insurers to be cooperatives.
Cooperatives of that sort always and inevietably fail spectacularly and on a grand scale because there exists no method which is practical in any larger scale then a village (where everybody knows everybody) to enforce cooperation. It takes only a number of wealthy and greedy free-loaders to ruin the whole thing. The whole idea is actually to create a fertile ground of hapless fools on on which such wanna-be warlords and princes could feed on. There is only two kinds of libertarians: the selfish, greedy, egoistical and dense as doorknob
What my parents had which helped them succeed was a community of others in the same boat that worked cooperatively, and not as a band of thugs seeking to rob those they perceived as "rich": Franz was a doctor, Josef a tailer, Marie a seamstress, Angelica a miliner, Hannah a cook, etc.: they often helped one another gratis, while selling their services at market rates to the Westmount upper class (research a bit on post-WWII demographics). But, they did not seek a handout, and they did not tolerate a freeloader: shunning was quite effective.
In other words (taking this persecution complex, Baron Munchausen crap at face value) they run a commune, although I am sure that you are going to swear up and down that it was a "free market capitalist" society. Or perheaps Joseph, Franz, Angelica and Hannah ended up voting for Trudeau, and only your "blue blood" parents were the black sheep who ended up getting "shunned" for their uncureable greed, which would explain your great bitterness and subsequent departure.
It was they, not your ilk that built Canada after WWII, and you have the gaul to call them thieves?
Whoa, Nelly! Post WWII Canada was built by many, many people, those who were here long before WWII with the help of quite a few immigrants, most of whom were and are liberals. Hint: Trudeau did not vote himself in against the wishes of the majority of Canadians.
It is quite telling though of your self-centered, self-aggrandising, superiority complex attitude to claim that somehow a small band of immigrants, due to their inherent superiority, was single-handedly responsible for the post WWII success of Canada. I know what is coming next in this delusion: and then they were "robbed" by the great mob of the rest of Canadians (95% of whom, according to the general tone of your rants, were at that time welfare bums and another 4%, or so, the Westmount upper class).
Also, who called who a thief? I seem to recall you being rather adamant about it, on several occasions. I merely pointed out your, and by your own admission, your fathers, great hostility towards taxation in general. As to their financial status upon entry to Canada, it is your own claim of membership in aristocracy which I merely took to its logical conclusion.
Aside from the falacy that libertarians want a free lunch,
That is precisely what you want. You want to have a functional society with no social contract of any kind whatsoever and with your contributions to its institutions based purely on your whim.
Gee, Dad started out in Canada as a farm hand, and Mom was a maid
I don't believe any of that crap. This is the classic Baron Munchausen "I pulled myself and my horse out of the swamp by my own hair" story, which is one of the requisite fabrications of any divinely-annointed, aristocractic, elitist and supremely greedy dynasty. Why, you will not find any two-bit prince or a princelet who would not say the very same words about his "noble" grandfather (who in reality stole, pillaged and raped his marry way across the land). In your case, I am absoultely convinced that the defintion of "only clothes on their backs" somehow missed a few coffers full of jewelery and objects of fine art. Which later proved instrumental in the "hard work" "bringing them out of poverty". The "farm hand" experience, most likely involved purchasing the farm in question. The "maid" work, managing tea parties for fellow emigree aristocracy or something of the sort. Whatever it was, it is virtually guaranteed to be as unlike your description of "hard work" as humanely possible. Although I will grant your the "perseverance" part, as it is ususal for "nobles" whose asses were trounced down a few rungs of the social ladder to be really tenacious about getting back up on top. Apparently something about an addiction to dominating others.
With nothing but perseverance, they managed to pull themselves up by their bootstraps to the point where they could eventually buy a small house in the countryside when I was born (it was a shack, really), and Mom could quit work to raise me. They moved out of a 1 room apartment into the upper half of a duplex in a part of town that actually had tree-lined streets and front yards. Of course, to save to be able to reach this point, they had no TV, stereo, car, and certainly didn't take annual vacations. The TV and car came later (and the luxery of Cable when I was five years old!) but my father didn't start to take vacations until he was around 55.
You forgot the "walking 17 miles in the snow up to his waist to work, and back, uphill both ways" part. Otherwise a good effort, as these fables go, keep it up.
Spoiled? I hardly think so. I remember well a digital watch that my father saved an entire year for, so that I might have it for Christmas. It was my only present that year. What I did have was an abundance of the teachings of a strong work ethic, something that is sorely lacking today.
Err, you could try to throw in that bit about your sick mother sharing selflessly the last piece of dried up bread and water with you, after the pinko-commie-medicare-MDs (led by Trudeau himself, personally) raided the place on your 3rd birthday and took your cake (for which your father worked the whole previous week 3-shifts everyday) along with all the food in the house. But they left the Bible and the US Constitution behind and thus your father could draw from them the abundance of teachings to pass on, gingerly, onto his offspring, so unjsustly treated by the foul country which dared to take them in.... err.. trap them! Yea, that's the ticket!
I am a Libertarian precisely because I saw them succeed, starting from nothing, with no government help, and in 20 short years enter the ranks of the middle class, from those of the abject poor refugee "servant" class. Not bad for effort expended over a generation.
No you are a Libertarian because you are a sociopathic, greedy, egoistical, spoiled brat. The rest is pure boloney.
Their suffering started precisely when government started to help the poor.
Three cheers for the Black-masked Trudeau Libertarian Suppression Brigade. They were a bit like a cross of Zorro and Robin Hood. Except for the mules instead of horses. And toilet plungers. A truly fearsome, libertarian-oppressing fighting force, if you ask me.
If anyone is spoiled, it is you, what with your "social safety net", "state employment insurance", and "universal health care", paid f
In effect, I feel stateless and am seeking a place to call home.
Perhaps Uzbekistan or Khazakhstan will evolve into something to your liking. Or maybe Liberia. In the meantime, here is that old explanation Mike Huben once wrote:
# We can't emigrate because there is no libertarian nation.
Yes, you can emigrate, just as you could buy a different car even though your favorite company doesn't produce cars which let you travel at the speed of sound and get 2000 mpg. Even if nobody produces EXACTLY what you want, you can choose any car the market produces or you create yourself.
There are roughly 200 nations to which you could emigrate. They are the product of an anarcho-capitalist free market: there is no over-government dictating to those sovereign nations. Indeed, the only difference between the anarchy of nations and libertopia is that anarcho-capitalists are wishing for a smaller granularity. These nations have found that it is most cost-efficient to defend themselves territorially.
If any other market provided 200 choices, libertarians would declare that the sacred workings of the market blessed whatever choices were offered. The point is that choices do exist: it's up to libertarians to show that there is something wrong with the market of nations in a way they would accept being applied to markets within nations.
Libertaria is a combination of values that just doesn't exist: the government equivalent of a really posh residence for very little money. You can find nations which have much lower taxes, etc.: just don't expect them to be first class.
And the reason these combinations don't exist is probably simple: the free market of government services essentially guarantees that there is no such thing as the free lunch libertarians want. It's not competitive.
There is something wrong with a child (or more likely that child's parents) that can not save $10,000 in birthday money, Xmas money, government child credit payments (if the parents accept them), allowance, newspaper route (they still existed back then), etc. in the first 14 years of their life.
If parents can't help their kids get a bit of a head start in life, they should not have kids.
Thank you! I will have this quote pasted-in every time anyone starts developing any illusions as to practicality and common sense of the libertarian thought. I will take out, of course, that too-late-coming weasel phrase "or more likely that child's parents" as it is clearly an after-thought, added because you realised that without it something in the vicinity of 99% of Canadians (and probably a similar percentage of US kids) would not qualify. And yet it was, beyond any doubt, the very course of events in your spoiled childhood.
This is far and away the most precious flame war I've seen in years.
Thank you. Thank you both! I'm certainly bookmarking this exchange.
Why, thank you. I just hope that amidst all that low-brow (I admit, I try to play at the level of my opponents -- its quite fun and actually works!) entertainment, you found something of educational value. Sometimes, in my rare and brief moments of hopeful for the future thought, I fantasize that there are some people who do not understand what this new generation of greed worshipers is all about, and who do not think through the implications of what these mindless hoarders of "trinkets and baubles" want, and that I somehow, mostly accidentally, play some small part in opening some incidental reader's eyes to the unspeakable horrors which these minions of Mammon have in store for all of us.
I too will try to keep this bookmarked, for that "free organ trade" tidbit alone should give some serious pause to anyone with half a brain.
I swear IgnoramusMaximus, if there was anyone stupider then you - Id be hard placed to name him. Your language shows that your more on par with a chimp then a actual human. Between your ideology and your language, its fairly certain your just about the stupidest fuck Ive seen on this site.
Ah yes, the outraged indignation of an injured selfish ego. Music to my ears. Its all there: complete lack of any substantive argument, epithets and cowardice. Wait, the threats of violence are missing! Tsk, Tsk! You gotta work on that one, Mr, Coward, Anonymous. I know that your indignation at my insolence brought you out, unwisely, from your mision of moderating every second post on Slashdot "Overrated" so maybe you just should go back to that past-time. Might as well, as you are bringing as much to the discussion doing that as posting, trust me on this one. Watch out for metamoderators though. Karma is a bitch, you know.
I don't recall saing it was per person. I recall saying it was what my employer paid.
The top of the thread:
You did, of course, not being a disingenious shill, include the $200-600 (depending on employment type/other factors) a month health insurance per-person in the household in the US equation
Your reply:
In my case, the cost of our health coverage is more like $1200 a month, but my employer covers all of it...
This implies that you are talking about the $1200 a month in the context of the original post, since you did not specify otherwise.
Many Canadians tell me they are afraid of having to pay several hundred dollars a month for health insurance if they work in the U.S. I tell them life is "still cheaper", given the taxes they'd save.
Not after you factor in, the apparently necessary, from your responses, M16s, barbed wire and pitbulls.
And no, I don't even pretend to take you seriously anymore.
Oh, you mean AAA repair surgery, which was rather routine, though still risky in the U.S. at the time, though which no Canadian surgeon could perform?
Translation: they refused to pay for an expermental procedure, whose actual applicability to the case is entirely of your own making post-facto and therefore extremely questionable when compared to that of the doctors at the time. They also failed to run him through the prototype, semi-functional CT scan machine somewhere at some lab down at MIT, why, those commie-penny-pinching bastards! But of course, it had to be their fault! Why your father could not have just had an uncureable at that time disease, never! It doesn't happen to superior, God-chosen people like you and your family members! Only commie-pinko-MDs in Canada could have conspired to assasinate him, by devious means of failing to develop clairvoyance and time travel!
worked like sons and daughters of bitches to rebuild a fraction of what Nazis and Soviet communists had stolen from them, and when they achieved that goal, through nothing more than the sweat of their brows,
What exactly needed "rebuilding" around here?
Who the fuck helped them? No one.
Err, I seem to recall faintly, somewhere in your frothing narrative, something about a country called Canada taking them in with nothing but clothes on their backs, or I could be wrong.
A hard life, perhaps, but a noble and rewarding one, if the socialists would just get out of the way.
I am quite convinced by now that Canada should not have let them in and left all that pleasure of their presence to the real Communists. Who I am sure would have been really impressed.
If they, barely speaking English, could pick themselves up by the bootstraps and make a decent life for themselves, then let the welfare lardasses do the same. I for one will not be fooled, cheated and robbed the way they were.
I know, you will focus on fooling, robbing and cheating others yourself personally instead. You are quite advanced along that way already. But I am quite glad that I get to watch this from afar. US citizens watch out though.
My mother had maids at her disposal and ended up as one herself.
Whiney, aristocratic, spoiled brats for generations it seems. She probably tried to order around these "unsufferable Canadian peasants" on arrival and was greatly surprised they did not obey in an instant.
Still, with no welfare, she did well... Until the damn bastard socialists forced her back to work to help pay my father's increasing taxes.
Yes, I can just see that. Trudeau had conspired personally to do it at the 1st Congress of Canadian Communist Party in Ottawa when they hammered out their 5-year Collectivisation of Means of Production plan. As I said, the famous 1970s Trudeau global economics, complete with that nasty Arab, Trudeau al Quebeq, being responsible for the OPEC oil-crisis.
You know, in Texas, it is legal to kill adult trespassers after dark, minors too, if they are threating or armed. I can only hope the likes of people like you find themselves down there on a dark night, and stop to ask for directions at the "wrong" house. People like you are truely vile and deserve all the bad karma they can attract.
Finally the true you shines through all that smoke and mirrors about charity and kindness to neighbours. A wacko, rabid, greedy in the extreme, egoistical, sociopathic maniac with an M16 and probably a family pitbull, shooting people for "tresspassing" on his, I mean HIS!HIS and NOONE ELSES! HIS alone and you fuckers all dont come near or I will blow your brains out! You hear!! Property.
And no, I do not plan to visit the apparently very hospitable state of Texas. Too many insane, armed and dangerous animals like you roaming unchained. But if you keep this up, I have a feeling that your children will be, sooner or later, having this conversation on some future In
but one's own? Why not? Because it hurts? Because it can be fatal?
No, because, Mr. Oblivious, it would result in the poor nearly all missing kidneys, ligaments, lungs, bone marrow, parts of intestines and whatever else. It would result in women selling their scalps to old but rich witches, young men to old ones etc and so on. It would result in impoverished women selling their bodies and dying in the process so that their children can have food for the next year or so and thus have some chance of survivial. It would result in a mass influx of body parts from Africa and Asia to the US because a $100 is a fortune in some village in Cambodia. And so on an so forth. It is an arrogant, dog-eat-dog idea, meant for the wealthy to be using other people as spare parts because of their financial situation. I can't believe I have to be explaining this. It is paramount to trading in human life. On the other hand this probably explains why the whole question of Medicare and many other things, have such terrifyingly selfish and egoistic tone with you and why matters of most basic decency escape you completely.
but a brief return from January 2003 to May, 2004 proved that they hadn't gone down much, and services had gone into the sewer: Metro Toronto had a shortage of 1400 doctors,
Caused by increase in training time, erroneous reduction of training spots in the 1990s when there was a surplus, immigration restrictions and only 3% due to brain-drain. Also the number itself is highly questionable and debatable. Loosening the immigration quotas alone would increase supply by 22% according to this, speedier training by another 24%. That is in addition to increases in funding already in the system.
Prior to that I had savings which were earning in excess of the tax-free $1,000 interest limit
Right. You had savings by age of 14 which earned more then $1,000 in interest. A really fat piggie bank, that you needed a front loader to move. The discussion really ends here as it is futile debating spoiled, priviledged brats who have no clue how life works for most people. All that whining and victimhood complexes of yours and your father's should have been a clear warning sign of greed monkeys at large.
and the local school didn't even sand or salt their parking lots.
I am sure that had a lot to do with the budgets and not anything to do with the anti-salt crusade which has been sweeping major cities for some time now. Perhaps they used sand as everybody else seems to be nowadays (as to shut the rusty car owners up and another thing, supposedly to prevent concrete from crumbling).
Should I just cut them off, then?
No, you should pay plentiful taxes to a sane, civilised government so that your taking advantage of them today can be at least partially recompensed to them when they need medical care or help when they get old. You probably think that you are doing them great favours by paying them somewhat more then the least possible minimum and not realising that it is only a stop-gap and ultimately very selfish meeasure as it leaves them completely dependant on your whim and their own good health.
No, I don't. Please explain again how it is "creepy" that a person should own their body?
Basic ethics 101 is somewhat beyond the scope or capability of a Slashdot thread. Suffice to say that carving one's body parts out of desperation for money is not generally counted amongst enlightened activities in civilised societies.
Sounds like a "democratic" mob enslaving the productive to me, you know, "the few"?
Next thing, at the
apex of hypocrisy, you are going to count yourself amongst the "productive".
Of which I was in well in excess of 100% of the contributor toward anything I received. Funny how everyone else is the poor "taxpayer" except the one paying the most taxes!
Your fibs are getting so thick that I am losing track, when did that tax paying start? At 18 at the earliest. When did you leave? At 23? 25? Lets hear how that "in excess of 100%" was possible.
I took 10 kids off the street and put them in school last month in Rwanda.
Whcih you flew on your flying carpet to the Tax Free Land where Rivers Run of Milk and Honey. Or something of the sort. Just for your information, your chest beating combined with incessant fibbing and complete lack of moral fiber rendered your credibility somewhat, slightly south of zero.
spending so much to eradicate Malaria?
Many possible reasons. Pangs of guilt. Tax breaks. Ego and legacy building, i.e. see Rockefeller, Carnegie and Vanderbilt. And possibly the wee fact that his unjstified hoarding of all that wealth, in all likelyhood was, in some part, responsible for the governments not having any to spend on that. One might ask just how much, say, Rwanda's impoverished government paid to Microsoft. Just a thought.
You have a twisted view of the world, where everyone who succeeds is presumed to have exploited someone else.
That is untrue. But success and gigiantic wealth are not one and the same. Gigiantic wealth and hoarding money "success" do not make. There is another, much more important ingredient in success. One that makes this woman more successful then Bill Gates will ever be, by far, and that coming from an atheist should tell you something. Tommy Douglas was a very successful man. Conrad Black was not. You see a pattern? Can you tell that ingredient?
Ya know, perhaps I should fire my lawn care people, dismiss my housekeeper, and give the money used to pay them to the government. They'd surely be better off without the money they earn with the "social services" they'd get instead, right?
In a sane society, you would be cutting your own lawn (or having neighbourhood kids do it for pocket money) and these people would be doing some meaningful work somewhere else, where they can get quaint things like retirement benefits, which I am sure you will not provide to any of them (nor they can afford to save for them), the great phillantorpist that you are.
Obviously not for healthcare alone. With more than $1200 a month taxation overall.
No, it was health alone. Quote you: Yes, even if I had to pay it out of pocket, it would be cheaper
Cheaper. As in you get more for the same amount of money. So that in order to get the same as you, the Canadians would have to pay more money. Or is basic logic too hard for you?
The point is, that even paying $1200 a month for health insurance, my tax burden in the U.S. is so much lower that I'd still be ahead.
As I said, this could possibly only apply to the 150K+ personal income bracket in Canada, i.e the top 1% or so.
Now, six figures might sound like a big income, but realize that it provides for all the needs of four people. A 25-30k income is not that much.
No the $1200 we discussed was always per person. The whole thread is about insurance per person. Or is your lying web getting too tangled?
That is not a question of "better". It is a question of your relative importance in the scheme of things. Which is not a very great one.
I suppose you think that electrical engineers also produce "fluff", after all they don't produce food.
In the relative scheme of things, they are (along with the grid workers) way ahead of you.
I've been financially independent since about 14.
Oh goodey, he started paying taxes at 14! If you keep this up, we are going to learn about that giant software corporation, employing thousands of people you started at the ripe age of 3.
But up until then, it was my father who was taxed severely, who provided support for me.
No, he paid his taxes for the roads he used, the medicare he used and the police that protected him etc. You got an advance, against your future taxes, on account of being a child.
In the mid 1970s my mother had to return to work just to pay our growing tax burden!
The bullshit is getting real thick. I can see how someone coming from a family of fibbers and "me poor victim, everyones is robbing me!" whiners could inhereit the attitude. For your information, dumbass, there was never a time in Canadian history when what you say would be true. While on the other hand, there was a global economic down-turn just around the time of Trudeau. Taxation had nothing to do with that whatsoever. But those who loathe to pay their share, will always find some whiny excuse not to. And so will their children.
And, they arrived in Canada as refugees, with nothing, at a time when there was no assistance for such refugees other than being allowed admittance.
Oh things are getting clear now. Not only did Canada graciously take the bastards in they were not satisifed with the Canadian standards! How dare these pesky Canadians do that?! I mean didn't they know they were dealing with royalty?! As someone on this thread already mentioned, you were never a Canadian, nor were your parents. Your vile attitude is just too jarringly foreign to us.
Certainly no welfare. (My father had to work off that admittance by working as a farm hand in Manitoba for nothing more than room and board)
That only happens in the case of "economic refugees" or some other sneaks who get in here to make a buck. Specially in Canada which has one of the most lavish refugee programs around. Which is quite consistent with their and your attitudes. No wonder Canadians are becoming more weary of immigrants as time goes on. I used to argue for multi-cultural Canada with a fair share of grateful refugees, willing to become rightful members of our society, to propagate our values and create and share our wealth but upon discovering the kind of "refugee" your parents where, I am having serious doubts. Perhaps some test is in order or something.
When he got sick, he had private health insurance in the 1950s (working for RCA Victor at the time).
Oh yea, was it not you here before whining how your father was horribly served by them nasty socialized medicare commies and how wonderful and joyous his services were before in the pay-for-play medicine? Not that he got older and his body was falling apart later on or anything and not like these nasty were not capable of magic, they just spitefully refused to use their pixie dust on him or something along these lines. Didn't I debunk your whining once already? I can't remember, so many drooling trolls, so little time.
Matter of fact, things went well for them, working hard, until Trudeau put that damn social safety net into high-gear and started to tax them in spades.
Ah yes, the famous Trudeau global economic crisis of the 1970s. They still swear revenge down in Nepal over that one.
No, we owe Canada nothing that hasn't been "paid back" many times over, culminating with the death of my father at the hands of a health care system that didn't w
I know full well the consequences of trade in organs. It has the same positive and negative consequences as trade in anything else: black markets, extortion, even theft. I think a person should be free to trade in parts of their body if they wish. After all, who owns them if not the individual making use of them?
You don't get it at all. And it is getting really creepy.
You know, it seams that you think everyone earning a decent wage is trying to stash every penny they get, are miserly tippers, and never help anyone else. No doubt there are people like that. Perhaps you think people are like that because you are like that
If I were like that, I would be looking for an overpaid job in some other country where the taxes are lower so that I can stash away every penny... oh wait, this does sound familiar.
But, you see, the people who shun Mr. Greedy...Rents would only be the ones who felt that he was mean or unfair, and the more (or less) that number is, the more (or less) inconvenient his life would be made. Sounds like a nicely balancing system.
No it doesn't. If he were to abuse horribly a few people, he would still have a pretty fair chance to never face retribution. A system used by crooks for ages.
I pay my part-time housekeeper more than she asks (about double minimum wage) in line with the market. I routinely tip 20-25% to waitstaff, and, as the "holiday season" rolls around, I'm particularly obvious in demonstrating charity to my kids over and above my usual contribution levels -- $20 into a Sally Ann kettle on a whim is typical for me....
The ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come have been visiting?
This is not to "easy my concience"
I've heard of many things but an idea of "easy conscience" is new to me. Must be some Objectivist/libertatian thing. A conscience completely devoid of altruism, probably. Since you mentioned Alissa Zinovievna Rosenbaum... err... Ayn Rand... and her opus magnum, "Atlas Shrugged" I can only assume you subscribe to her style of conscience: non existant kind.
But, I don't like to be considered "Mr. Greedy...Rents", so while I like to live well, and save for a rainy day, I do make a concious effort to "spread the wealth" to a reasonable degree.
You remind me of a Victorian Lord tossing a few silver coins out of the window of his gilded carriage to some diseased wretches in rags on the street and calling it "charity".
The thing is, together, our voluntary, collective efforts add up to far more than I ever saw governments in Canada accomplish.
I am sure of it. Last time I heard the Government still refused to send those very polite men, going "Si Senor" and bowing constantly, holding their hats in hand, when they cut loans and polish cars to every gated "community". What a band of no good, lazy "thieves" of your hard-erned money! Not even a proper caddy boy to carry your golf clubs around! Completely outrageous! But you and your friends could accomplish that and much more in no time flat!
Like all thieves who encounter an unwilling victim, you see me as a sociopathic amoral monster.
There we go again, the dude gets his education thanks to taxpayers and then whines about them being thieves! Of his money!
There is no hope for you.
If by that you mean that there is no hope of me ever becoming like you, I take that as a compliment.
Pity Canada.
No need. We are doing quite fine without you. No doubt to your never ending confusion and resentment.
More importantly, without programmers, much of modern medicine would not exist, and we'd be back in the dark ages.
That is flatly untrue. Most of the IT in the medicine, like everywhere else, is in administration. Even MRI and similar systems can be made to function as purely analog systems (much more clumsily but functional).
No, I am not all that important, as an individual. But, in a free market I interact with others to produce what is wanted and needed. I am paid what the market deems me to be worth.
Great, we are making progress. Now for step 2 of the therapy: are all of the societal interactions governed by free market?
And what, precisely, would that be? At my best estimate I paid far more in taxes that I ever received in goods and services. Don't you think that if I was getting more than what I paid, I would want to stay in Canada so long as the good times lasted?
You did receive more then you paid, by far, in your first 20 years of life. Then the deal became more fair and you were expected to shoulder a part of the burden. But that was not compatible with your selfish, greedy, egoistic psyche. That is when you left in a hurry for a place where you could cash in on what Canada gave you and where you do not have to be "bothered" by demands of any contributions to be made back by you.
If there were a legal market in organs, there would be far more organ transplants, and many more lives would be saved as a result. Indeed, posthumous sales of stiff viable organs could very well help establish a legacy where there might otherwise not be one. The rich get to live, and the poor get to send their kids or grandkids to college so they can perhaps become rich.
This really puts an end to any kind of discussion of morality with you. You are offically a sociopathic, amoral monster. With utterly no clue as to consequences of trade in organs. I pity you.
But, if Mr. GreedyIOwnAllThePropertyInTownAndChargeHighRents wants to buy a cup of coffee in town, well he might just find that all the coffee vendors charge $10,000. He can drive to the next town. Sounds fair to me.
Replace the coffee guys with Revenue Canada and the town with a country. You were saying?
The fact of the matter is that if Mr. Greedy...Rents is all that greedy and mean, he will be shunned. Ask your local Amish or Mennonite about shunning, some time.
Yes that is a practical way to deal with the problem in a country of 300 million. That is probably why it works so well over there.
When was the last time a Canadian politician waited for health care?
Depends what kind. An elective surgery they do. And when they try to use their money to circumvent the process they get caught and pay the price. It happened several times. Luckily it is rather tough to sneak past all of these doctors and nurses who, for the most part, believe in the system.
Perhaps, but people like me disappeared 25 years ago, there'd be no personal computers, CD players, DVD players, cell phones, satellite TV, etc. O.K. I suppose that much of that is, as you say "fluff", but gosh darn, people do seam to like their "fluff" don't they? Heck, cell phones have saved lives, so some of that fluff is actually "usefull".
You make yourself sound far more important then you are (it figures). First of all, I did not mention all programmers, only the ones doing whatever vertical thing you are in, which is still a significant number. Furthermore, if all programmers went away, and even if digital computers went away, DVDs, cell phones and what not, the society would march on. Communications would be based on analog technologies, music would still play from cassettes and so on. That is the whole point of the excercise. Now, for an amusing contrast, remove all farmers. How about just bakers? Construction workers? See the difference?
People don't need indoor plumbing either, but, thanks to John Crapper, they sure are glad they have it.
Crapper was not the inventor, ancient Romans were. He did not even invent the modern toilet. However, the utility of indoor plumbing vs computers, puts plumbers ahead of you and me on importance to society scale. Funny that.
FWIW, some of my "fluff" goes into testing every phone line in England,
Which operated long before you, software, computers and even transistors waltzed onto the scene.
I wonder what "fluff" wouldn't exist in the future if people like me didn't exist.
There would be other fluff to compensate. But no matter which way you cut it, the society can survive without all but a very few core professions. And yours is not one of them. And yet you expect to get paid as if the whole thing operated out of your ass.
Atlas shrugged, indeed.
You, Atlas?! Oh pooor you, carrying all the weight of the world on your poooor shoulders. No wonder you expect to get paid like a king! Carrying a planet on your back is hell of a job, why with all of them freeloader bakers, miners and plumbers riding on it! How dare they!
Lemme get this straight: I pay $X in taxes to support Y services of which I receive $Z (Z No, you don't want me to "pay back" anything. You want me to be an indentured tax slave and pay more. Fuk 'dat noi
No I want you to cough up what you did not pay and yet got service for. Don't come back. Just send one big fat cheque for your earlier years, when you did not pay and mooch. Then we are done.
If anything, the GPL exemplifies the free market.
Really? And what is the "currency" of that market? Just curious.
Yes, even if I had to pay it out of pocket, it would be cheaper than the taxes I paid in Canada.
You would have then belonged to less then 1% of your population with incomes in six digits. Not even worth discussing in regards to what are the conditions for most Candadians and Americans.
and, really, it is not a large fraction of my remuneration and I am not in the "CEO class", just a middle class working stiff
With more then $1200 a month taxation for health alone in Canada?! A working stiff? Is that software you are working is somehow connected to one of the Colombian cartels?
How can it be immoral if someone is willing and able to pay?
The same way as it is immoral for a billionaire to buy some living person's organs even if that person agreed to it out of desperation so that she can assure some future for her children. The fact that someone is willing to pay for something, and even the fact that someone is willing to sell it, does not make the transaction moral! Just the fact that I have to explain this to you, tells volumes about your psyche.
Taxation is "theft!" (paraphrasing)... you "thief".... Well, for you, $10,000.... There are ways to deel with what you perceive as greed other than by theft
Wait a minute. Sooo... making someone contribute to a common societal fund is not ok and theft... but extorting money from him when he is buying cofee... is a great idea and a viable, practical method to ensure end to profiteering! Woohoo! Really?! Wait, what does that cofeee vendor do with that $9,999 of "extra" profit?! Are you off your medication again?
you think dailykos represents 'actual events' I've gotta bridge I'd like to sell you. ..
You seriously do not expect me to believe that all those people manfuactured all of their experiences, complete with insurance company phone numbers and statements? Are you suggesting that DailyKos has some sort of supernatural powers and is capable of conjuring insurance companies out of thin air to bolster someone's diary on it?
Slashdot Mirror
That is a rather questionable assertion, as I was pointing out. Aristocracy rarely escaped with "zero", or, more precisely, their view of what constitutes "zero" differs somewhat from that of an average persons' and usually includes a butler or two.
It is clear that you can not conceive that someone, unfettered by the chains of oppressive taxation, relying only on their own labour, wits, and good character, could earn sufficient capital through voluntary exchange to live a life comfortable enough so that they could support their consort and projeny, and support their own retirement.
Oh, sure it is possible. Just not very likely in your case, judging from the contorted stories you weave. Additionally, and this the crucial point, even if it is possible for some poeple to do so, lack of taxation, and the insitutions thus paid for, is severely destructive for the society as a whole. Exceptions society do not make. Even if a significant portion of a society could pull this off, it would still result in a disaster if the whole society was taken into account.
Mussollini was right.
Another one of the intellectual giants you worship?
Ah yes, Chechoslovakian is now Canada's second language, why with all those millions and millions of former Prague residents around, no? What a loon.
No they don't. Even now, when police is not a for profit entity, where police departaments do not compete for "clients" between themselves, trying to take over each other's "territory", it is frequently a problem when crooks cross county, state or national borders. Furthermore, what exactly would be the "rules of engagement" for that corporate, for profit, police? What is to stop them from making their own rules as they go along, with some biggotted citizens gleefully paying for "specialty" KKK-affiliated "police" departaments. If the rich white bigots have the supreme financial power in an area, the visible minorties would have no choice but to move out of range or submit to corporate police sanctioned re-segregation, would they not? What stops the corporate police from turning into a mob protection racket, where they can shake down business owners in the area for ever increasing fees? These people, by the nature of their work, would have to be heavily armed, what is to stop rival corporate police outfits from an outright shooting war over "customers"? Etc and so on.
Emergency response can accept a small number of free riders: you settle who pays after the service is rendered, if payment can be made (this is reasonable for the same reason that it is reasonable for you to be taken to *any* hospital, if you are unconcious and need urgent care, rather than a hospital aligned with your health insurer.
And which today, in a much less hostile to poverty (although pretty nasty one in the US) environment, results in people refusing ambulance service because it is too expensive. Some die as a result. Make that police "service fee" high anough and you will have machine gun fire echoing across neighbourhoods as citizens take it upon themselves to dish out "justice". As a mattar of fact, in a no-government scenario, police is pretty much a non-starter as simply firing an RPG into your neighbour's house when his dog peed on your sidewalk is a far more efficient and essentially consequences-free action, as long as your stash of weapons is bigger that anyone's who would have a differing opinion. You already have the required attitude, as your musings about shooting your ideological opponents under the disguise of tresspass indicate clearly.
In short, this is an already solved problem.
No, turkey, none of those are "already solved problems".
But, it is not as easy as you think to separate one's self from the claws of Canadian taxation
Yea, yea, whine, moan, bitch, cry me a river. The Revenue Canada people failed to clairvoyantly determine, the instant you crossed the borders, if you are leaving for real or if you are just dodging taxes only to come back later. What a bunch of nasty commies! It took them a while to determine which. How dare they?!
However, nowhere is there a definition of non-resident
Mailing your passport back with a letter renouncing Canadian citizenship to Foreign Affairs, cc: Revenue Canada, would do the trick. Note that this still does not get you out of your past taxes, which seems to be a major part of your whining.
And, the means to determine this used to be kept secret. I believe it is one major "tie" or five minor ones determine residency. Major ties are supporting a family member in Canada, or owning real property available for you to live in. Minor ties are holding a Canadian passport, having a bank account, Canadian-issued credit cards, library cards, brokerage accounts, etc.
You also believe in libertarian fairies. It is curious that no one but whiny tax haters like you seem to be mired in these problems, even though a large number of Canadians cease to be residents through marriage and what not every year.
For most people like me, the only ties we retain are generally a passport (Canada won't let one renounce citizenship without having other citiz
You might be right in many cases. I actually met people who did believe as you describe, or at least that was my sense of it. They did however discuss the issue from a completely different, labouriously impersonal angle, and tried to persuade me on the basis of things such as effort/reward mechanisms in the free-market economy from a theoretical standpoint, instead of screaming "thief" and trying to impress me with the thickness of their wallets. I do not sense anything resembling that sort of depth of phillosophical foundations of his world-view from this fellow. He instead seems to be obsessed with his (or his family's) inherent superiority, combined with an ingrained persecution complex, which again is probably generational. These two together produce a supremely warped individual which believes that he deserves a great many things from the society, much more then he in fact receives (never you mind having to face the fact that even what he gets today is an abberration of the marketplace), due to that superiority and the gigiantic impact on the world he and his parents had, and the only reason he did not attain that stratospheric level is because the nasty communist taxation, along with the oppressive communist mobs behind it, have robbed him and his parents of their rightful destiny. If he could only get rid of these "thieves", once and for all, he would have rocketed to undescribeable heights. Similarly with his parents, who instead of having to work -- while reminiscing of "old good times" while bitching continously about "thieving Canadians", would have been surrounded by many maids and butlers, as they once were. The very way he presents his arguments is strongly suggestive of these kinds of mental issues. You probably recognise this strange combination of notions of ingrained superiority, bigotry and at the same time a very deep reaching persecution complexes, as it was present quite prominently at a root of quite a few violent catastrophes in history and around the world, when it managed to infect to a sufficient degree some group or sect. It is quite fascinating actually that it can produce such far ranging sets of mindsets, both religious and secular. Ironically amongst them the very attitudes of some of the Communists from whom his family run away.
Also I think it is a mistake to completely discount the influence of base, animalistic emotions, such as the subconscious need to hoard things and to dominate others, so strong in some people. I have read some quite persuasive arguments aimed at explaining the current recurrence of "neo conservativism", libertarianism and some similar world-views as a backlash against the rule of humanitarian ideals by those who are driven by such instincts. In short the idea is that these "phillosophies" aim at making the adherents feel that it is all right, and in fact "noble", "just" and "fair" to feel greed and to be selfish. As I said somewhere in that "discussion" upthread, it is in fact one of the oldest pursuits of mankind, to justify, in "moral" terms, ones avarice. Luckily for us all no one has yet come up with a method of doing so which is not full of gigiantic leaps of logic and outright laughable theories.
I don't know how I would have handled your opponent; he seems to be an unapologetic nutjob. I can't blame you for fighting dirty, and I don't know if trying to fight clean would have persuaded anybody. But I think that half the people in this country think that everyone on the opposite end of the political spectrum is evil, and we shou
Right, that will work wonders. Lemme see, you and 22013 families in your city pay for the police. But some, "I have better things to do with my money", 1231 or so do not. Someone is getting mugged on the street, a cop sees it and goes: "Police! The victim, please recite your Police subsciption number so that I know if I can help you!". That is assuming that the victim happened to be paying for the Blue Police LLC, Precint 54 as opposed to Red Police Inc. Sector 4 where he lives.
You are suggesting that a mob, perhaps a democratic mob (that is one that represents over 50% of the population) is moral in using force to get what it wants from everyone else.
No, turkey, it is 95% or so of the citizenry (Libertarians are luckily a rather rare aberration around here) decides that in order to participate in the deal called "Canada" one has to submit to certain obligations. This process is called a Social Contract. Which, among other things, involves payment for the national institutions. The contract is voluntary. You do not like it? You can take your ass to Belize or wherever there is no taxes. No one is going to stop you. But if you do submit to the contract, it will be enforced. No signing of any paperwork is needed. The acceptance of the contract and staying in the deal called "Canada" are synonymous. I hear they have a similar deal called the "US of A".
That is precisely what I reject. Without my consent, taking from me is immoral.
As I said, the deal is voluntary. You can leave at any time. As a matter of fact, this precisely what you did. Subsequently any whining, moaning and bitching about it being "without your consent" is just that. Childlish moaning of a spoiled brat who does not get his way.
Taxation is immoral, as it is just mob theft.
See above. It you were prevented from leaving, then you would have a point. But you do not.
Now there may very well be practical reasons to voluntarily support certain "institutions": hungry people might get angry and it may be cheaper to feed them than to spend the money on bullets to kill them when they come to rob me. But, don't let them breed.
This is how it would look like in practice: a network of "communities" walled in by 20 feet tall barb-wire topped walls with guard towers, machine gun emplacements and other "security" measures, surrounded by squalid shanty-towns full of millions of impoverished people, seething with hate and resentment. All kept in check by ruthless private armies in direct employ of these "city-states". And so on. What escapes you (and no surprise there) is that this shit has already been tried on multiple occasions, with disastrous results every and each time. Our Social Contracts (Canadian, US, Frech, German and many other varieties) are the direct result of those experiences.
Finally, a cooperative may enjoy economies of scale sufficient to subsidise a certain percentage of "free riders", and still be the best deal going. If that's true then it will arise naturally. (In practice large insurers buy smaller ones until there are a few big ones, for this reason). The wise insured would want the large insurers to be cooperatives.
Cooperatives of that sort always and inevietably fail spectacularly and on a grand scale because there exists no method which is practical in any larger scale then a village (where everybody knows everybody) to enforce cooperation. It takes only a number of wealthy and greedy free-loaders to ruin the whole thing. The whole idea is actually to create a fertile ground of hapless fools on on which such wanna-be warlords and princes could feed on. There is only two kinds of libertarians: the selfish, greedy, egoistical and dense as doorknob
In other words (taking this persecution complex, Baron Munchausen crap at face value) they run a commune, although I am sure that you are going to swear up and down that it was a "free market capitalist" society. Or perheaps Joseph, Franz, Angelica and Hannah ended up voting for Trudeau, and only your "blue blood" parents were the black sheep who ended up getting "shunned" for their uncureable greed, which would explain your great bitterness and subsequent departure.
It was they, not your ilk that built Canada after WWII, and you have the gaul to call them thieves?
Whoa, Nelly! Post WWII Canada was built by many, many people, those who were here long before WWII with the help of quite a few immigrants, most of whom were and are liberals. Hint: Trudeau did not vote himself in against the wishes of the majority of Canadians.
It is quite telling though of your self-centered, self-aggrandising, superiority complex attitude to claim that somehow a small band of immigrants, due to their inherent superiority, was single-handedly responsible for the post WWII success of Canada. I know what is coming next in this delusion: and then they were "robbed" by the great mob of the rest of Canadians (95% of whom, according to the general tone of your rants, were at that time welfare bums and another 4%, or so, the Westmount upper class).
Also, who called who a thief? I seem to recall you being rather adamant about it, on several occasions. I merely pointed out your, and by your own admission, your fathers, great hostility towards taxation in general. As to their financial status upon entry to Canada, it is your own claim of membership in aristocracy which I merely took to its logical conclusion.
That is precisely what you want. You want to have a functional society with no social contract of any kind whatsoever and with your contributions to its institutions based purely on your whim.
I don't believe any of that crap. This is the classic Baron Munchausen "I pulled myself and my horse out of the swamp by my own hair" story, which is one of the requisite fabrications of any divinely-annointed, aristocractic, elitist and supremely greedy dynasty. Why, you will not find any two-bit prince or a princelet who would not say the very same words about his "noble" grandfather (who in reality stole, pillaged and raped his marry way across the land). In your case, I am absoultely convinced that the defintion of "only clothes on their backs" somehow missed a few coffers full of jewelery and objects of fine art. Which later proved instrumental in the "hard work" "bringing them out of poverty". The "farm hand" experience, most likely involved purchasing the farm in question. The "maid" work, managing tea parties for fellow emigree aristocracy or something of the sort. Whatever it was, it is virtually guaranteed to be as unlike your description of "hard work" as humanely possible. Although I will grant your the "perseverance" part, as it is ususal for "nobles" whose asses were trounced down a few rungs of the social ladder to be really tenacious about getting back up on top. Apparently something about an addiction to dominating others.
With nothing but perseverance, they managed to pull themselves up by their bootstraps to the point where they could eventually buy a small house in the countryside when I was born (it was a shack, really), and Mom could quit work to raise me. They moved out of a 1 room apartment into the upper half of a duplex in a part of town that actually had tree-lined streets and front yards. Of course, to save to be able to reach this point, they had no TV, stereo, car, and certainly didn't take annual vacations. The TV and car came later (and the luxery of Cable when I was five years old!) but my father didn't start to take vacations until he was around 55.
You forgot the "walking 17 miles in the snow up to his waist to work, and back, uphill both ways" part. Otherwise a good effort, as these fables go, keep it up.
Spoiled? I hardly think so. I remember well a digital watch that my father saved an entire year for, so that I might have it for Christmas. It was my only present that year. What I did have was an abundance of the teachings of a strong work ethic, something that is sorely lacking today.
Err, you could try to throw in that bit about your sick mother sharing selflessly the last piece of dried up bread and water with you, after the pinko-commie-medicare-MDs (led by Trudeau himself, personally) raided the place on your 3rd birthday and took your cake (for which your father worked the whole previous week 3-shifts everyday) along with all the food in the house. But they left the Bible and the US Constitution behind and thus your father could draw from them the abundance of teachings to pass on, gingerly, onto his offspring, so unjsustly treated by the foul country which dared to take them in .... err .. trap them! Yea, that's the ticket!
I am a Libertarian precisely because I saw them succeed, starting from nothing, with no government help, and in 20 short years enter the ranks of the middle class, from those of the abject poor refugee "servant" class. Not bad for effort expended over a generation.
No you are a Libertarian because you are a sociopathic, greedy, egoistical, spoiled brat. The rest is pure boloney.
Their suffering started precisely when government started to help the poor.
Three cheers for the Black-masked Trudeau Libertarian Suppression Brigade. They were a bit like a cross of Zorro and Robin Hood. Except for the mules instead of horses. And toilet plungers. A truly fearsome, libertarian-oppressing fighting force, if you ask me.
If anyone is spoiled, it is you, what with your "social safety net", "state employment insurance", and "universal health care", paid f
Perhaps Uzbekistan or Khazakhstan will evolve into something to your liking. Or maybe Liberia. In the meantime, here is that old explanation Mike Huben once wrote:
Thank you! I will have this quote pasted-in every time anyone starts developing any illusions as to practicality and common sense of the libertarian thought. I will take out, of course, that too-late-coming weasel phrase "or more likely that child's parents" as it is clearly an after-thought, added because you realised that without it something in the vicinity of 99% of Canadians (and probably a similar percentage of US kids) would not qualify. And yet it was, beyond any doubt, the very course of events in your spoiled childhood.
Why, thank you. I just hope that amidst all that low-brow (I admit, I try to play at the level of my opponents -- its quite fun and actually works!) entertainment, you found something of educational value. Sometimes, in my rare and brief moments of hopeful for the future thought, I fantasize that there are some people who do not understand what this new generation of greed worshipers is all about, and who do not think through the implications of what these mindless hoarders of "trinkets and baubles" want, and that I somehow, mostly accidentally, play some small part in opening some incidental reader's eyes to the unspeakable horrors which these minions of Mammon have in store for all of us.
I too will try to keep this bookmarked, for that "free organ trade" tidbit alone should give some serious pause to anyone with half a brain.
Ah yes, the outraged indignation of an injured selfish ego. Music to my ears. Its all there: complete lack of any substantive argument, epithets and cowardice. Wait, the threats of violence are missing! Tsk, Tsk! You gotta work on that one, Mr, Coward, Anonymous. I know that your indignation at my insolence brought you out, unwisely, from your mision of moderating every second post on Slashdot "Overrated" so maybe you just should go back to that past-time. Might as well, as you are bringing as much to the discussion doing that as posting, trust me on this one. Watch out for metamoderators though. Karma is a bitch, you know.
The top of the thread:
You did, of course, not being a disingenious shill, include the $200-600 (depending on employment type/other factors) a month health insurance per-person in the household in the US equation
Your reply:
In my case, the cost of our health coverage is more like $1200 a month, but my employer covers all of it...
This implies that you are talking about the $1200 a month in the context of the original post, since you did not specify otherwise.
Many Canadians tell me they are afraid of having to pay several hundred dollars a month for health insurance if they work in the U.S. I tell them life is "still cheaper", given the taxes they'd save.
Not after you factor in, the apparently necessary, from your responses, M16s, barbed wire and pitbulls.
And no, I don't even pretend to take you seriously anymore.
Translation: they refused to pay for an expermental procedure, whose actual applicability to the case is entirely of your own making post-facto and therefore extremely questionable when compared to that of the doctors at the time. They also failed to run him through the prototype, semi-functional CT scan machine somewhere at some lab down at MIT, why, those commie-penny-pinching bastards! But of course, it had to be their fault! Why your father could not have just had an uncureable at that time disease, never! It doesn't happen to superior, God-chosen people like you and your family members! Only commie-pinko-MDs in Canada could have conspired to assasinate him, by devious means of failing to develop clairvoyance and time travel!
worked like sons and daughters of bitches to rebuild a fraction of what Nazis and Soviet communists had stolen from them, and when they achieved that goal, through nothing more than the sweat of their brows,
What exactly needed "rebuilding" around here?
Who the fuck helped them? No one.
Err, I seem to recall faintly, somewhere in your frothing narrative, something about a country called Canada taking them in with nothing but clothes on their backs, or I could be wrong.
A hard life, perhaps, but a noble and rewarding one, if the socialists would just get out of the way.
I am quite convinced by now that Canada should not have let them in and left all that pleasure of their presence to the real Communists. Who I am sure would have been really impressed.
If they, barely speaking English, could pick themselves up by the bootstraps and make a decent life for themselves, then let the welfare lardasses do the same. I for one will not be fooled, cheated and robbed the way they were.
I know, you will focus on fooling, robbing and cheating others yourself personally instead. You are quite advanced along that way already. But I am quite glad that I get to watch this from afar. US citizens watch out though.
My mother had maids at her disposal and ended up as one herself.
Whiney, aristocratic, spoiled brats for generations it seems. She probably tried to order around these "unsufferable Canadian peasants" on arrival and was greatly surprised they did not obey in an instant.
Still, with no welfare, she did well... Until the damn bastard socialists forced her back to work to help pay my father's increasing taxes.
Yes, I can just see that. Trudeau had conspired personally to do it at the 1st Congress of Canadian Communist Party in Ottawa when they hammered out their 5-year Collectivisation of Means of Production plan. As I said, the famous 1970s Trudeau global economics, complete with that nasty Arab, Trudeau al Quebeq, being responsible for the OPEC oil-crisis.
You know, in Texas, it is legal to kill adult trespassers after dark, minors too, if they are threating or armed. I can only hope the likes of people like you find themselves down there on a dark night, and stop to ask for directions at the "wrong" house. People like you are truely vile and deserve all the bad karma they can attract.
Finally the true you shines through all that smoke and mirrors about charity and kindness to neighbours. A wacko, rabid, greedy in the extreme, egoistical, sociopathic maniac with an M16 and probably a family pitbull, shooting people for "tresspassing" on his, I mean HIS! HIS and NOONE ELSES! HIS alone and you fuckers all dont come near or I will blow your brains out! You hear!! Property.
And no, I do not plan to visit the apparently very hospitable state of Texas. Too many insane, armed and dangerous animals like you roaming unchained. But if you keep this up, I have a feeling that your children will be, sooner or later, having this conversation on some future In
No, because, Mr. Oblivious, it would result in the poor nearly all missing kidneys, ligaments, lungs, bone marrow, parts of intestines and whatever else. It would result in women selling their scalps to old but rich witches, young men to old ones etc and so on. It would result in impoverished women selling their bodies and dying in the process so that their children can have food for the next year or so and thus have some chance of survivial. It would result in a mass influx of body parts from Africa and Asia to the US because a $100 is a fortune in some village in Cambodia. And so on an so forth. It is an arrogant, dog-eat-dog idea, meant for the wealthy to be using other people as spare parts because of their financial situation. I can't believe I have to be explaining this. It is paramount to trading in human life. On the other hand this probably explains why the whole question of Medicare and many other things, have such terrifyingly selfish and egoistic tone with you and why matters of most basic decency escape you completely.
but a brief return from January 2003 to May, 2004 proved that they hadn't gone down much, and services had gone into the sewer: Metro Toronto had a shortage of 1400 doctors,
Caused by increase in training time, erroneous reduction of training spots in the 1990s when there was a surplus, immigration restrictions and only 3% due to brain-drain. Also the number itself is highly questionable and debatable. Loosening the immigration quotas alone would increase supply by 22% according to this, speedier training by another 24%. That is in addition to increases in funding already in the system.
Prior to that I had savings which were earning in excess of the tax-free $1,000 interest limit
Right. You had savings by age of 14 which earned more then $1,000 in interest. A really fat piggie bank, that you needed a front loader to move. The discussion really ends here as it is futile debating spoiled, priviledged brats who have no clue how life works for most people. All that whining and victimhood complexes of yours and your father's should have been a clear warning sign of greed monkeys at large.
and the local school didn't even sand or salt their parking lots.
I am sure that had a lot to do with the budgets and not anything to do with the anti-salt crusade which has been sweeping major cities for some time now. Perhaps they used sand as everybody else seems to be nowadays (as to shut the rusty car owners up and another thing, supposedly to prevent concrete from crumbling).
Should I just cut them off, then?
No, you should pay plentiful taxes to a sane, civilised government so that your taking advantage of them today can be at least partially recompensed to them when they need medical care or help when they get old. You probably think that you are doing them great favours by paying them somewhat more then the least possible minimum and not realising that it is only a stop-gap and ultimately very selfish meeasure as it leaves them completely dependant on your whim and their own good health.
Basic ethics 101 is somewhat beyond the scope or capability of a Slashdot thread. Suffice to say that carving one's body parts out of desperation for money is not generally counted amongst enlightened activities in civilised societies.
Sounds like a "democratic" mob enslaving the productive to me, you know, "the few"?
Next thing, at the apex of hypocrisy, you are going to count yourself amongst the "productive".
Of which I was in well in excess of 100% of the contributor toward anything I received. Funny how everyone else is the poor "taxpayer" except the one paying the most taxes!
Your fibs are getting so thick that I am losing track, when did that tax paying start? At 18 at the earliest. When did you leave? At 23? 25? Lets hear how that "in excess of 100%" was possible.
I took 10 kids off the street and put them in school last month in Rwanda.
Whcih you flew on your flying carpet to the Tax Free Land where Rivers Run of Milk and Honey. Or something of the sort. Just for your information, your chest beating combined with incessant fibbing and complete lack of moral fiber rendered your credibility somewhat, slightly south of zero.
spending so much to eradicate Malaria?
Many possible reasons. Pangs of guilt. Tax breaks. Ego and legacy building, i.e. see Rockefeller, Carnegie and Vanderbilt. And possibly the wee fact that his unjstified hoarding of all that wealth, in all likelyhood was, in some part, responsible for the governments not having any to spend on that. One might ask just how much, say, Rwanda's impoverished government paid to Microsoft. Just a thought.
You have a twisted view of the world, where everyone who succeeds is presumed to have exploited someone else.
That is untrue. But success and gigiantic wealth are not one and the same. Gigiantic wealth and hoarding money "success" do not make. There is another, much more important ingredient in success. One that makes this woman more successful then Bill Gates will ever be, by far, and that coming from an atheist should tell you something. Tommy Douglas was a very successful man. Conrad Black was not. You see a pattern? Can you tell that ingredient?
Ya know, perhaps I should fire my lawn care people, dismiss my housekeeper, and give the money used to pay them to the government. They'd surely be better off without the money they earn with the "social services" they'd get instead, right?
In a sane society, you would be cutting your own lawn (or having neighbourhood kids do it for pocket money) and these people would be doing some meaningful work somewhere else, where they can get quaint things like retirement benefits, which I am sure you will not provide to any of them (nor they can afford to save for them), the great phillantorpist that you are.
No, it was health alone. Quote you: Yes, even if I had to pay it out of pocket, it would be cheaper
Cheaper. As in you get more for the same amount of money. So that in order to get the same as you, the Canadians would have to pay more money. Or is basic logic too hard for you?
The point is, that even paying $1200 a month for health insurance, my tax burden in the U.S. is so much lower that I'd still be ahead.
As I said, this could possibly only apply to the 150K+ personal income bracket in Canada, i.e the top 1% or so.
Now, six figures might sound like a big income, but realize that it provides for all the needs of four people. A 25-30k income is not that much.
No the $1200 we discussed was always per person. The whole thread is about insurance per person. Or is your lying web getting too tangled?
That is not a question of "better". It is a question of your relative importance in the scheme of things. Which is not a very great one.
I suppose you think that electrical engineers also produce "fluff", after all they don't produce food.
In the relative scheme of things, they are (along with the grid workers) way ahead of you.
I've been financially independent since about 14.
Oh goodey, he started paying taxes at 14! If you keep this up, we are going to learn about that giant software corporation, employing thousands of people you started at the ripe age of 3.
But up until then, it was my father who was taxed severely, who provided support for me.
No, he paid his taxes for the roads he used, the medicare he used and the police that protected him etc. You got an advance, against your future taxes, on account of being a child.
In the mid 1970s my mother had to return to work just to pay our growing tax burden!
The bullshit is getting real thick. I can see how someone coming from a family of fibbers and "me poor victim, everyones is robbing me!" whiners could inhereit the attitude. For your information, dumbass, there was never a time in Canadian history when what you say would be true. While on the other hand, there was a global economic down-turn just around the time of Trudeau. Taxation had nothing to do with that whatsoever. But those who loathe to pay their share, will always find some whiny excuse not to. And so will their children.
And, they arrived in Canada as refugees, with nothing, at a time when there was no assistance for such refugees other than being allowed admittance.
Oh things are getting clear now. Not only did Canada graciously take the bastards in they were not satisifed with the Canadian standards! How dare these pesky Canadians do that?! I mean didn't they know they were dealing with royalty?! As someone on this thread already mentioned, you were never a Canadian, nor were your parents. Your vile attitude is just too jarringly foreign to us.
Certainly no welfare. (My father had to work off that admittance by working as a farm hand in Manitoba for nothing more than room and board)
That only happens in the case of "economic refugees" or some other sneaks who get in here to make a buck. Specially in Canada which has one of the most lavish refugee programs around. Which is quite consistent with their and your attitudes. No wonder Canadians are becoming more weary of immigrants as time goes on. I used to argue for multi-cultural Canada with a fair share of grateful refugees, willing to become rightful members of our society, to propagate our values and create and share our wealth but upon discovering the kind of "refugee" your parents where, I am having serious doubts. Perhaps some test is in order or something.
When he got sick, he had private health insurance in the 1950s (working for RCA Victor at the time).
Oh yea, was it not you here before whining how your father was horribly served by them nasty socialized medicare commies and how wonderful and joyous his services were before in the pay-for-play medicine? Not that he got older and his body was falling apart later on or anything and not like these nasty were not capable of magic, they just spitefully refused to use their pixie dust on him or something along these lines. Didn't I debunk your whining once already? I can't remember, so many drooling trolls, so little time.
Matter of fact, things went well for them, working hard, until Trudeau put that damn social safety net into high-gear and started to tax them in spades.
Ah yes, the famous Trudeau global economic crisis of the 1970s. They still swear revenge down in Nepal over that one.
No, we owe Canada nothing that hasn't been "paid back" many times over, culminating with the death of my father at the hands of a health care system that didn't w
You don't get it at all. And it is getting really creepy.
You know, it seams that you think everyone earning a decent wage is trying to stash every penny they get, are miserly tippers, and never help anyone else. No doubt there are people like that. Perhaps you think people are like that because you are like that
If I were like that, I would be looking for an overpaid job in some other country where the taxes are lower so that I can stash away every penny ... oh wait, this does sound familiar.
But, you see, the people who shun Mr. Greedy...Rents would only be the ones who felt that he was mean or unfair, and the more (or less) that number is, the more (or less) inconvenient his life would be made. Sounds like a nicely balancing system.
No it doesn't. If he were to abuse horribly a few people, he would still have a pretty fair chance to never face retribution. A system used by crooks for ages.
I pay my part-time housekeeper more than she asks (about double minimum wage) in line with the market. I routinely tip 20-25% to waitstaff, and, as the "holiday season" rolls around, I'm particularly obvious in demonstrating charity to my kids over and above my usual contribution levels -- $20 into a Sally Ann kettle on a whim is typical for me....
The ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come have been visiting?
This is not to "easy my concience"
I've heard of many things but an idea of "easy conscience" is new to me. Must be some Objectivist/libertatian thing. A conscience completely devoid of altruism, probably. Since you mentioned Alissa Zinovievna Rosenbaum ... err ... Ayn Rand ... and her opus magnum, "Atlas Shrugged" I can only assume you subscribe to her style of conscience: non existant kind.
But, I don't like to be considered "Mr. Greedy...Rents", so while I like to live well, and save for a rainy day, I do make a concious effort to "spread the wealth" to a reasonable degree.
You remind me of a Victorian Lord tossing a few silver coins out of the window of his gilded carriage to some diseased wretches in rags on the street and calling it "charity".
The thing is, together, our voluntary, collective efforts add up to far more than I ever saw governments in Canada accomplish.
I am sure of it. Last time I heard the Government still refused to send those very polite men, going "Si Senor" and bowing constantly, holding their hats in hand, when they cut loans and polish cars to every gated "community". What a band of no good, lazy "thieves" of your hard-erned money! Not even a proper caddy boy to carry your golf clubs around! Completely outrageous! But you and your friends could accomplish that and much more in no time flat!
Like all thieves who encounter an unwilling victim, you see me as a sociopathic amoral monster.
There we go again, the dude gets his education thanks to taxpayers and then whines about them being thieves! Of his money!
There is no hope for you.
If by that you mean that there is no hope of me ever becoming like you, I take that as a compliment.
Pity Canada.
No need. We are doing quite fine without you. No doubt to your never ending confusion and resentment.
That is flatly untrue. Most of the IT in the medicine, like everywhere else, is in administration. Even MRI and similar systems can be made to function as purely analog systems (much more clumsily but functional).
No, I am not all that important, as an individual. But, in a free market I interact with others to produce what is wanted and needed. I am paid what the market deems me to be worth.
Great, we are making progress. Now for step 2 of the therapy: are all of the societal interactions governed by free market?
And what, precisely, would that be? At my best estimate I paid far more in taxes that I ever received in goods and services. Don't you think that if I was getting more than what I paid, I would want to stay in Canada so long as the good times lasted?
You did receive more then you paid, by far, in your first 20 years of life. Then the deal became more fair and you were expected to shoulder a part of the burden. But that was not compatible with your selfish, greedy, egoistic psyche. That is when you left in a hurry for a place where you could cash in on what Canada gave you and where you do not have to be "bothered" by demands of any contributions to be made back by you.
This really puts an end to any kind of discussion of morality with you. You are offically a sociopathic, amoral monster. With utterly no clue as to consequences of trade in organs. I pity you.
But, if Mr. GreedyIOwnAllThePropertyInTownAndChargeHighRents wants to buy a cup of coffee in town, well he might just find that all the coffee vendors charge $10,000. He can drive to the next town. Sounds fair to me.
Replace the coffee guys with Revenue Canada and the town with a country. You were saying?
The fact of the matter is that if Mr. Greedy...Rents is all that greedy and mean, he will be shunned. Ask your local Amish or Mennonite about shunning, some time.
Yes that is a practical way to deal with the problem in a country of 300 million. That is probably why it works so well over there.
When was the last time a Canadian politician waited for health care?
Depends what kind. An elective surgery they do. And when they try to use their money to circumvent the process they get caught and pay the price. It happened several times. Luckily it is rather tough to sneak past all of these doctors and nurses who, for the most part, believe in the system.
You make yourself sound far more important then you are (it figures). First of all, I did not mention all programmers, only the ones doing whatever vertical thing you are in, which is still a significant number. Furthermore, if all programmers went away, and even if digital computers went away, DVDs, cell phones and what not, the society would march on. Communications would be based on analog technologies, music would still play from cassettes and so on. That is the whole point of the excercise. Now, for an amusing contrast, remove all farmers. How about just bakers? Construction workers? See the difference?
People don't need indoor plumbing either, but, thanks to John Crapper, they sure are glad they have it.
Crapper was not the inventor, ancient Romans were. He did not even invent the modern toilet. However, the utility of indoor plumbing vs computers, puts plumbers ahead of you and me on importance to society scale. Funny that.
FWIW, some of my "fluff" goes into testing every phone line in England,
Which operated long before you, software, computers and even transistors waltzed onto the scene.
I wonder what "fluff" wouldn't exist in the future if people like me didn't exist.
There would be other fluff to compensate. But no matter which way you cut it, the society can survive without all but a very few core professions. And yours is not one of them. And yet you expect to get paid as if the whole thing operated out of your ass.
Atlas shrugged, indeed.
You, Atlas?! Oh pooor you, carrying all the weight of the world on your poooor shoulders. No wonder you expect to get paid like a king! Carrying a planet on your back is hell of a job, why with all of them freeloader bakers, miners and plumbers riding on it! How dare they!
Lemme get this straight: I pay $X in taxes to support Y services of which I receive $Z (Z No, you don't want me to "pay back" anything. You want me to be an indentured tax slave and pay more. Fuk 'dat noi
No I want you to cough up what you did not pay and yet got service for. Don't come back. Just send one big fat cheque for your earlier years, when you did not pay and mooch. Then we are done.
If anything, the GPL exemplifies the free market.
Really? And what is the "currency" of that market? Just curious.
You would have then belonged to less then 1% of your population with incomes in six digits. Not even worth discussing in regards to what are the conditions for most Candadians and Americans.
and, really, it is not a large fraction of my remuneration and I am not in the "CEO class", just a middle class working stiff
With more then $1200 a month taxation for health alone in Canada?! A working stiff? Is that software you are working is somehow connected to one of the Colombian cartels?
The same way as it is immoral for a billionaire to buy some living person's organs even if that person agreed to it out of desperation so that she can assure some future for her children. The fact that someone is willing to pay for something, and even the fact that someone is willing to sell it, does not make the transaction moral! Just the fact that I have to explain this to you, tells volumes about your psyche.
Taxation is "theft!" (paraphrasing) ... you "thief" .... Well, for you, $10,000. ... There are ways to deel with what you perceive as greed other than by theft
Wait a minute. Sooo ... making someone contribute to a common societal fund is not ok and theft ... but extorting money from him when he is buying cofee ... is a great idea and a viable, practical method to ensure end to profiteering! Woohoo! Really?! Wait, what does that cofeee vendor do with that $9,999 of "extra" profit?! Are you off your medication again?
You seriously do not expect me to believe that all those people manfuactured all of their experiences, complete with insurance company phone numbers and statements? Are you suggesting that DailyKos has some sort of supernatural powers and is capable of conjuring insurance companies out of thin air to bolster someone's diary on it?