Don't imbue someone else's argument with your own cynical interpretation of it. The purpose of the free market is not, and never was, to "benevolently" do anything. The free market is based on each participant serving his best interests based on the rule of law, which upholds contracts and private property rights.
The free market is factually, by far, the most efficient means of allocating capital and providing redundancy to the overall economic system. Arrangements are made and broken spontaneously, everywhere, based on the needs and desires of the participants -- and of their free will. The more government intervention you introduce into the system, the more bureacracy, higher costs, infringements of liberty, opportunity for corruption, and points of failure you end up with.
Virtually no one is espousing a system with no rules, no law backing up transactions and contracts, etc. But that need only be a very minimal construct, and up that point, the less government, the better -- there are plenty of examples exhibiting the power of the free market and the good it does people.
Simple-minded criticism of the free market is one of the shortest-sighted commentaries someone could offer, with even a limited understanding of economics, government, history, and liberty, and I'm surprised so many people on this site continue to do so.
Not hardly. You don't assign context for any of these events. Employment terminated? Why? Whose fault? And the person can't get another job? Somehow the employer must continue to employ every single person, regardless of circumstance, indefinitely? That's ridiculous.
Mortgage foreclosed? Again, whose fault? Why did it happen? Plenty of people live beyond their means, plenty squander money on huge TVs, expensive cars, drugs, or gambling -- is it still someone else's fault? Moreover, a foreclosed mortgage is hardly the end of a life -- plenty of people have come back from that and more, to be highly successful through (the proverbial) hard work and sacrifice. Such things may sound trite to you, but history is littered with evidence of their efficacy.
Illness? Without a context, this is even more meaningless than the others. The possibilities are so broad as to cause, repercussions, cost, likelihood of recovery, and so on that you may as well add a bullet for "Number of people who have experienced extreme badness."
Your laundry list would make a terrific inventory of tearjerker talking points for a bleeding-heart argument like Moore's, but tugging at the heartstrings to gain sympathy for someone else's plight shirks the very important issue of one's responsibility over one's own life, and the limitless potential to improve it (if one doesn't immediately scapegoat and give up out of self pity).
"On your last point, which seems to disregard subjective, emotional and supersititous arguments, I ask you: post here on slashdot a reason why any person should continue living, without relying on subjective, emotional or superstitous arguments."
You're clearly right. Based on that logic, let's go ahead and infuse emotion and intuition into scientific research -- a regime of objectivity and logic is useless, obviously, because at the end of it all, we can't apply rationale to tell us WHY we're here. You can bring up the philosophical subjects of the meaning of life and the nature of God all you want, but let's apply objectivity wherever we possibly can, please.
Haha, oh, you're right, that proves it. Take a logic class.
Heck, we don't even have to go back to June. Let's try this one: "Factory workers are homicidal maniacs -- look at how little they care about human life."
No? I quote: "A fifth victim died early Saturday of wounds suffered in a rampage here on Friday at a meatpacking plant, where an employee opened fire with two handguns he had smuggled into work." - New York Times, July 3 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/04/national/04sh oot.html?ex=1089604800&en=2b1e072ab83b053f&ei=5006&pa rtner=ALTAVISTA1
Thanks for the example, and for defending a baseless generalization that defies logic and lacks any understanding for other people.
You haven't defined what it means to have power over someone else. With a loose definition here, you could easily in one fell swoop interpret full socialism to be the only system to pass your definition. If a guy gambles all his money away, owes someone a thousand bucks, and asks me to loan it to him before the mob comes to collect, do I have power over him? If I have the money, and refuse to loan it to him, have I ruined his life? I could have saved it, surely, but in not saving, have I ruined? The extension of this situation is that I would need to provide to those in need to the best of my abilities in order to be just, which is a socialistic world view.
Re: the environment, every system is a subsystem of something larger. A tree is a system, as is a grove, as is a forest, a continent, an ocean, a planet. To help the poor people in Africa (in the true long-run sense), they're going to need capitalism to efficiently distribute resources, which means development, which means the destruction of many ecosystems. Which one wins out for you, people or the environment?
There's an easy way to answer the poster specifically, but without providing examples: provide a definition.
In the case of air pollution, what's the definition of "ruining the environment"? How many parts per million per year of what materials, having X effect of A, B, and C elements of the environment? Where do you draw the line?
I'm surprised that an ostensibly technical person wouldn't get this concept, since mathematics, science, and programming are rife with the need for this type of logic. If you don't start out with a definition, and simply use examples, you change the rules as you go along, based on a system in your head. That makes for a moving target, and it allows you to never get pinned down or have to admit that something you emotionally don't like doesn't actually equate to "ruining the environment."
"Just look at the blatant disregard for the envrionment that anyone who drives an H2 has."
Also, don't generalize like this -- it's intellectually weak. This is a case of you basing your logic on examples that emotionally strike you as being iconic of something you dislike, with no reason involved. Plenty of H2 owners use the thing for in-town driving only, just to make a showy appearance of it on occasion, but you can bet they're using a lot less gas than plenty of others who drive their Civics 3 times as far to get to work each day.
Examples shouldn't provide the basis for an argument -- they should supplement it.
I read a good deal of comments that have been posted so far, but frankly, the pile's enormous and the themes are pretty consistent... I've seen way too many posts sympathetic to this overbearing sort of gov't legislation, to one degree or another.
Put simply, the government has no place in determining what's "nice" or "fair" or "decent" behavior to respect the sensibilities of other citizens. The government's only responsibility is to protect the *rights* of all citizens. I couldn't find it -- can someone point me to the paragraph in the BoR with Southwest Airlines?
Some of you (otherwise intelligent) people seem to have forgotten that this is a society driven by a market economy. If some dude saves for 25 years for the money to open his own hardware store, he should have enough control over his own business that he can say, "I don't hire ugly people because they scare off customers, and I don't let fat people shop here, because they knock too much stuff off the shelves." Who cares? You have no inherent right under government to shop at Narrow Mind Hardware. If, in the market, his store survives because enough people shop there still, then he deserves to be around. Otherwise, he'll go out of business.
Let the market take care of that stuff. Government has no place legislating politeness, taste, religion, decency, or anything of the sort. Remember: It doesn't matter if you're blind, deaf, fat, gross, strong, tall, Asian, Catholic, a programmer, or stupid; you have no right under government to be served by Southwest Airlines unless they choose to do so by accepting your money. Stop supporting gov't largess and stripping me of my rights.
Slashdot Mirror
Don't imbue someone else's argument with your own cynical interpretation of it. The purpose of the free market is not, and never was, to "benevolently" do anything. The free market is based on each participant serving his best interests based on the rule of law, which upholds contracts and private property rights.
The free market is factually, by far, the most efficient means of allocating capital and providing redundancy to the overall economic system. Arrangements are made and broken spontaneously, everywhere, based on the needs and desires of the participants -- and of their free will. The more government intervention you introduce into the system, the more bureacracy, higher costs, infringements of liberty, opportunity for corruption, and points of failure you end up with.
Virtually no one is espousing a system with no rules, no law backing up transactions and contracts, etc. But that need only be a very minimal construct, and up that point, the less government, the better -- there are plenty of examples exhibiting the power of the free market and the good it does people.
Simple-minded criticism of the free market is one of the shortest-sighted commentaries someone could offer, with even a limited understanding of economics, government, history, and liberty, and I'm surprised so many people on this site continue to do so.
Not hardly. You don't assign context for any of these events. Employment terminated? Why? Whose fault? And the person can't get another job? Somehow the employer must continue to employ every single person, regardless of circumstance, indefinitely? That's ridiculous.
Mortgage foreclosed? Again, whose fault? Why did it happen? Plenty of people live beyond their means, plenty squander money on huge TVs, expensive cars, drugs, or gambling -- is it still someone else's fault? Moreover, a foreclosed mortgage is hardly the end of a life -- plenty of people have come back from that and more, to be highly successful through (the proverbial) hard work and sacrifice. Such things may sound trite to you, but history is littered with evidence of their efficacy.
Illness? Without a context, this is even more meaningless than the others. The possibilities are so broad as to cause, repercussions, cost, likelihood of recovery, and so on that you may as well add a bullet for "Number of people who have experienced extreme badness."
Your laundry list would make a terrific inventory of tearjerker talking points for a bleeding-heart argument like Moore's, but tugging at the heartstrings to gain sympathy for someone else's plight shirks the very important issue of one's responsibility over one's own life, and the limitless potential to improve it (if one doesn't immediately scapegoat and give up out of self pity).
"On your last point, which seems to disregard subjective, emotional and supersititous arguments, I ask you: post here on slashdot a reason why any person should continue living, without relying on subjective, emotional or superstitous arguments."
You're clearly right. Based on that logic, let's go ahead and infuse emotion and intuition into scientific research -- a regime of objectivity and logic is useless, obviously, because at the end of it all, we can't apply rationale to tell us WHY we're here. You can bring up the philosophical subjects of the meaning of life and the nature of God all you want, but let's apply objectivity wherever we possibly can, please.
Haha, oh, you're right, that proves it. Take a logic class.
h oot .html?ex=1089604800&en=2b1e072ab83b053f&ei=5006&pa rtner=ALTAVISTA1
Heck, we don't even have to go back to June. Let's try this one: "Factory workers are homicidal maniacs -- look at how little they care about human life."
No? I quote:
"A fifth victim died early Saturday of wounds suffered in a rampage here on Friday at a meatpacking plant, where an employee opened fire with two handguns he had smuggled into work."
- New York Times, July 3
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/04/national/04s
Thanks for the example, and for defending a baseless generalization that defies logic and lacks any understanding for other people.
You haven't defined what it means to have power over someone else. With a loose definition here, you could easily in one fell swoop interpret full socialism to be the only system to pass your definition. If a guy gambles all his money away, owes someone a thousand bucks, and asks me to loan it to him before the mob comes to collect, do I have power over him? If I have the money, and refuse to loan it to him, have I ruined his life? I could have saved it, surely, but in not saving, have I ruined? The extension of this situation is that I would need to provide to those in need to the best of my abilities in order to be just, which is a socialistic world view.
Re: the environment, every system is a subsystem of something larger. A tree is a system, as is a grove, as is a forest, a continent, an ocean, a planet. To help the poor people in Africa (in the true long-run sense), they're going to need capitalism to efficiently distribute resources, which means development, which means the destruction of many ecosystems. Which one wins out for you, people or the environment?
There's an easy way to answer the poster specifically, but without providing examples: provide a definition.
In the case of air pollution, what's the definition of "ruining the environment"? How many parts per million per year of what materials, having X effect of A, B, and C elements of the environment? Where do you draw the line?
I'm surprised that an ostensibly technical person wouldn't get this concept, since mathematics, science, and programming are rife with the need for this type of logic. If you don't start out with a definition, and simply use examples, you change the rules as you go along, based on a system in your head. That makes for a moving target, and it allows you to never get pinned down or have to admit that something you emotionally don't like doesn't actually equate to "ruining the environment."
"Just look at the blatant disregard for the envrionment that anyone who drives an H2 has."
Also, don't generalize like this -- it's intellectually weak. This is a case of you basing your logic on examples that emotionally strike you as being iconic of something you dislike, with no reason involved. Plenty of H2 owners use the thing for in-town driving only, just to make a showy appearance of it on occasion, but you can bet they're using a lot less gas than plenty of others who drive their Civics 3 times as far to get to work each day.
Examples shouldn't provide the basis for an argument -- they should supplement it.
I read a good deal of comments that have been posted so far, but frankly, the pile's enormous and the themes are pretty consistent... I've seen way too many posts sympathetic to this overbearing sort of gov't legislation, to one degree or another.
Put simply, the government has no place in determining what's "nice" or "fair" or "decent" behavior to respect the sensibilities of other citizens. The government's only responsibility is to protect the *rights* of all citizens. I couldn't find it -- can someone point me to the paragraph in the BoR with Southwest Airlines?
Some of you (otherwise intelligent) people seem to have forgotten that this is a society driven by a market economy. If some dude saves for 25 years for the money to open his own hardware store, he should have enough control over his own business that he can say, "I don't hire ugly people because they scare off customers, and I don't let fat people shop here, because they knock too much stuff off the shelves." Who cares? You have no inherent right under government to shop at Narrow Mind Hardware. If, in the market, his store survives because enough people shop there still, then he deserves to be around. Otherwise, he'll go out of business.
Let the market take care of that stuff. Government has no place legislating politeness, taste, religion, decency, or anything of the sort. Remember: It doesn't matter if you're blind, deaf, fat, gross, strong, tall, Asian, Catholic, a programmer, or stupid; you have no right under government to be served by Southwest Airlines unless they choose to do so by accepting your money. Stop supporting gov't largess and stripping me of my rights.
-Prophasi