If Apple were developing systems software and operating systems for vanilla x86 PCs, then I will agree with your statement. Apple would need a vanilla PC lab in order to test all of the hardware combinations.
However, Apple doesn't develop systems software for Windows that require in-depth knowledge about hardware drivers. When developing regular Windows systems software, it doesn't matter if you are using a vanilla Intel or AMD machine or a Mac (there is no difference between a Mac and a PC other than the fact that the Mac doesn't use legacy components such as BIOS, serial/parallel ports, floppy drives, etc.). With the Intel switch, Apple doesn't need to run out and buy a lab of vanilla PCs; they can just manufacture a few more Mac Minis, install Windows, and start hacking.
Perhaps if America had a national health service, like the rest of the civilized World, companies wouldn't need to embark upon such ridiculusness in an attempt to lessen health insurance bureaucracy.
Oh hell no! Socialized medicine only works in small, collectivist countries (Western European nations and Cuba, for example). Socialized medicine won't work in a large place like the United States; it is much too big and the costs are too great to support that type of health infrastructure without heavy tax increases (that would probably spark a riot, especially in less populated areas of the country).
And about that "civilized world" comment, well we divorced the Old World for a reason. Ideas that may work well for small, European countries may be a total blunder for the United States. Remember that the focus of the United States is supposed to be about the states. A state in the US is about equivalent to one country in Western Europe, minus the sovereignity. Socialized medicine may work well in one state, but might not work well in another state. But don't try to force that idea onto 300 million individuals. The United States is a federation of states; that is how the country should work (alas, sadly, the country has far removed itself from its constitutional roots since 1933).
However, I still admit that there is a problem with healthcare in this country. In fact, it is worse than socialized medicine; we have fascist medicine. What I mean by that is the doctors and medicine companies have gotten in bed with the government (much like how the **AA and other special interest groups influence the government), and now we are all paying for it. This article explains my viewpionts of why healthcare in the USA is so expensive.
The best approach for healthcare, IMO, is a free-market solution to the problem. Get the federal government out of health care, dismantle the AMA from all levels of government, and let other doctors compete. The costs of medicine and doctors will go down, individuals will finally afford healthcare for themselves again (just like in the old days), and our health care services will be more efficient and of a higher quality. Now, if a company or a state government wants to pick up the healthcare bill, more power to them, as long as they don't interfere with the market. But let's divorce big medicine cartels from the government first.
Socialized medicine might work some places, but the "S" word is derogatory in the U.S. and I don't see a good solution in either privatized or public health plans.
Any form of socialism works best on small geographic areas where almost everybody believes in some sort of collectivism; that's why Western European countries hasn't dumped its socialist programs. However, it completely falls apart in very large nations (the USSR is a great example). It is much easier to convince 35 million people of the same culture/beliefs to raise their taxes and shift their wealth around than to convince 300 million people who are mostly individualists to do the same.
I do not advocate socialism at all; I am a staunch free-market supporter. I believe that the problem with American healthcare is that the doctors and medicine companies have gotten in bed with the government (much like how the **AA and other special interest groups influence the government), and now we are all paying for it. We don't have socialized medicine in the USA (closest thing we have is Medicare and other programs); we have fascist medicine. This article explains my viewpionts of why healthcare in the USA is so expensive.
Your points are exactly correct. Even though it is possible to avoid all KDE applications and all GTK+ applications, there are some instances where you need to use a different application. For example, I use KDE as my main desktop, but I use OpenOffice as my office suite. Different applications require different interpreters (Perl, Python, Ruby, Java, and now C#), which takes up even more space and memory. Each project wants to do everything its own way, which is a major duplication of effort and requires lot of space.
My solution? Applications need to be standardized by the two leading GUI toolkits (GTK+ and QT). KDE and GNOME has already lead the way with standardization, but they need to go further. KDE and GNOME apps should standardize on interpreters so that way users shouldn't have to download a new interpreter whenever they use a new application. It would be nice if they stuck with a few interpreted languages instead of adopting every interpreted language under the sun. Applications also need to standardize on APIs; there should only be one audio API, one graphics API, one networking API, etc. Don't duplicate effort unless you have to. Applications that meet these standards should be marked "KDE-approved" or "GNOME-approved" so that way users can stick to one desktop environment.
If applications were standardized with GTK+, QT, common sound/graphics APIs, and just Perl and Python as our interpreters (don't bring C#, Ruby, Tcl, Java, and other languages into the mix unless you compile them in native code; yes, they are great languages, but do we really need n+1 interpreters for n projects?), then it will solve some major issues in the *nix world, especially bloated code. Then we can talk about other issues, such as consistency.
Spindler is not "forgotten". People who were Apple customers and employees at that time will never forget him, and still curse his name to this day. Spindler had no idea what he was doing, no sense of vision, and no understanding of what it was any of the departments under him were doing.
Exactly. During Spindler's tenure we got:
Pathetic computers (such as the Power Mac x200 series and the infamous PowerBook 5300). I just so happen to own a Performa 6220 (acquired through somebody giving it to me about a few years ago, along with a Mac SE. I like the SE better.). The architecture is so messed up, it couldn't even support a 28Kbps or faster serial port modem! That machine is currently collecting dust in a closet back home.
Copland disaster. Apple could have destroyed Microsoft and Windows 95 with a real, modern Mac operating system like what Copland promised. But delays after delays stalled the project until it was finally cancelled. It would be interesting to see what a modern, non-Unix (and non-Windows) GUI OS looks like, but Apple completely rested on their laurels here, and users were stuck with crashy and ancient OS 7, 8, and 9 until 2001 (OS X didn't really become stable until late 2002, IIRC). No wonder why Microsoft made a huge gain in marketshare during these years; I'd take Windows 2000 (or, heck, Windows 98) over Mac OS 9 any day.
Corporate infighting. Imagine all of the nice Apple products out there had they succeeded.
The years between 1995 and 1997 was the perfect storm for Apple. Lousy products, lousy leadership, and Microsoft's exploitation of Apple's failures almost killed Apple. You can thank Spindler for starting the mess. (A lot of people want to blame Gil Amelio for these problems, but Amelio did the best that he could to solve them and he did bring Jobs back). The best thing about Spindler is that he was kicked out and replaced with Amelio, who was then kicked out and replaced with Steve Jobs. Now the company is successful again and making great products.
From personal experience (been studying Nihongo for over six years; and I'm far from fluent):
If you are lucky and you are in college, take Japanese courses. If you are even more interested, minor (or, even better, major) in Japanese. Much hurdles will be solved. (If you don't have these luxuries, then read on.)
The first thing to learn is hiragana and katakana. Hiragana and katakana are the basic phonetic characters in Japanese. You must master these character sets in order to move on. (You can slide by with romanji, but the sooner you are confortable with hiragana and katakana, the better). But don't worry about it; there are only 100 or so characters to learn, and you will master these within a week or two, and there are numerous sites available.
Next, start mastering basic vocabulary and grammar.
Learn kanji. Kanji is the biggest hurdle; you need to learn 1,945 kanji characters in order to be equivalent to a Japanese high school graduate in kanji knowledge. This is a long road (even after six years, I only know about 150 or so, but there are people, with the right books, who can get all of them mastered within a year or two). Once you master kanji, the rest should fall into place.
Don't forget your conversational skills. Podcasts are great for listening skills. Speaking is a harder skill. If you just so happen to live in a big city (especially in California; Bay Area, Sacramento, and Los Angeles area), there might be a Japanese-American community with native speakers. Make connections. If there isn't a Japanese community in your area, then try to find somebody.
Don't quit. Eventually you'll become fluent, even if it takes a decade or so.
Once you gain a good level of proficiency, take the JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test). If you pass the highest level, then you have just as much skills in Japanese as a native Japanese speaker, according to the test.
Travel to Japan, and see what Japan is all about.
Yokoso! Welcome to the club. Japanese is a very interesting language. It is much more challenging than the Romance languages (it took me only a year to develop near-fluent Spanish skills, in comparison). However, you will gain access to another culture and will allow you to translate all of that anime. I got interested in Japanese through Pokemon, by the way.
I am a freshman computer science student. Here is my advice.
Remember that a computer science curriculum teaches the theoretical foundations of computer science. You start with basic programming (C, Java, or [if you're really lucky] a functional programming language like Scheme), and then learn about data structures, algorithms, software engineering, architecture, systems programming, OSes, compilers, and theoretical computer science, as well as some CS topics of your choosing (numerical analysis, graphics, more software engineering, AI, etc.). Discrete mathematics is also very important; you can't do much in computer science without it. And don't forget your EE courses like digital design (designing circuits using Boolean logic) and assembly programming; you'll get to know about computers from an electrical engineering standpoint (different, but cool, IMO). As much as I like mathematics and theoretical CS, sometimes you need to get close to and examine the metal. I personally liken computer science, mathematics, and electrical engineering to be the holy trinity of computing, but I might be out there....
Computer science departments typically do not teach the ins and outs of APIs and industry programming languages unless it ties into learning about the fundamental concepts explained above (Java's usage in CS courses, for example). However, this doesn't stop you from learning these APIs independently. My suggestion are the following:
Research APIs. What platforms are they used for? What are the strengths-weaknesses of the APIs? What languages do they support?
Start with some basic tutorials to get a grasp for the language and/or API.
Start writing programs. You'll have to start small at first, such as older projects. For example, if you wrote a payroll application in C back in CS 101, why don't you reimplement it using Objective-C and Cocoa, along with a slick, shiny, plastic Mac interface? (Any other implementation would do; that is an example)
As your skills get better (and as you start taking more specialized computer science courses), try working on a bigger project. Writing a C compiler for a 16-bit microprocessor that you'll learn in an EE course will surely keep you busy (I haven't written a compiler yet, so I don't know how difficult this is, although this sounds very intersting). Perhaps coding a web browser in C# and.NET is more interesting.
Helpful hint: You might want to focus the skills you want to learn on a project that you would like to build someday. For example, if your dream is to build a small operating system, you will need to learn some assembly language, C (or some other "close to the metal" language), and the architecture that you plan on coding the OS for. Good OS books (like Tanenbaum's book) are also nice to own. Once you figure out learning the basic tools, theories, and practices, then you can start coding a small OS. Once your program is finished and running, then you can add all of the complex features that you like.
Enjoy your life as a computer science major. It is truly rewarding and interesting. Now I have to return to my own programming assignment....
Without a love of hard science and mathematics you will never be more than a mediocre programmer.
I disagree. There are plenty of good programmers who dislike the hard sciences and mathematics. As long as you know the algorithms, the data structures, the programming languages, and the APIs, and you know which tool to use at the right time (e.g., don't bubble sort a list of records stored as arrays when a mergesort or quicksort would do [we're talking O(n^2) [slow] performance compared to O(n log n) [much faster] performance, any programmer worth anything should know this]), then you should make a good programmer. You don't need to be Donald Knuth to be a 1337 programmer (although all of that CS/math knowledge surely helps).
However, you can't be a good computer scientist without an understanding (or at least appreciation) of mathematics (especially discrete math), and to a much lesser extent, physics, depending on the subfield. A good programmer, for example, knows that bubble sorts are slow compared to divide-and-conquer sorting algorithms. A computer scientist, however, not only knows these facts by heart, but also should be able to analyze those sorting algorithms and give big-O notations of their performance. If you want to do something such as computer graphics, then you'll need to learn calculus, linear algebra, physics, and graphic design. Quantum computing requires even more physics (to understand what a quantum computer is) and math to figure out how to write quantum algorithms. Numerical analysis requires extensive knowledge in continuous (non-discrete) mathematics, and the list goes on....
Another point: programmers may not be computer scientists, but I wouldn't label all programmers as "code monkeys"; as if programmers were inferior to computer scientists just because they don't do exercises from Concrete Mathematics every night before they go to bed. (This is coming from a CS freshman whose goal is to become a computer scientist; and yes, I'm a math minor and have a liking for physics). That is a tiny stench of elitism that can get you modded down here. There are many programmers out there that know how to apply computer science knowledge to create fast, small, and secure programs. They don't have to be Steven Wolfram clones, but that doesn't make them "code monkeys", either.
...seems to have a TPM chip. Thinkpads, MacBook Pros, some Gateway machines, just about every major new laptop manufacturer that I know of has already installed TPM chips in their laptops.
The important thing to remember, though, is that a TPM chip means nothing if you don't use an OS or software that utilizes the chip for nefarious purposes. If you stick to Windows XP, current versions of OS X (they only use the TPM chip to see if it is a genuine Macintosh), or a free OS (like Linux or BSD), then they won't utilize the TPM chip to restrict your moves. However, you might want to check out any upgrades to the proprietary OSes or proprietary software before you upgrade. You might also want to avoid DRM'd media as well and find alternatives before it is too late.
Now, if you really don't want a TPM chip in your machine, just buy the last model of the machine that you want that doesn't have a TPM chip. Apple, for example, still sells their G4 line of PowerBooks and iBooks. You'll have to weigh the advantages/disadvantages; do you want to sacrifice performance over a trusted computing chip that has little control depending on your software choices?
Interesting; you share much of the same views that I do. Yet, I call myself a libertarian; even though I don't agree 100% with the philosphy; I'm about 80% or so. I identify myself more with the Chicago school of economics than I do with the Mises school of economics, even though I base much of my viewpoints on both schools.
My only beef with the Libertarian Party is that its views are a bit too far on the libertarian scale, almost borderlining on anarchocapitalism. Anarchocapitalism advocates the removal of all government (not only federal, but state and local as well). Even though it is the ultimate philosophy in both economic freedom and personal freedom, I don't think it is very effective in the long run, since there are some legitamite uses for a government. A good democratic/republican government (notice the lowercase letters) should be able to voice the needs of not only those who have money, but also those who don't. (That is one of my problems with anarchocapitalism; how would the poor hire arbitration forces when dealing with coercion and there is no police force, for example?) We need some government, but not the big government that Democrats and Republicans are pushing. (I'm not saying the the Libertarian Party supports this, but they are of a further libertarian bent than some of the classical liberal parties in Europe, which are much more moderate).
We need small, decentralized government that has a civil liberties + free market philosophy. The federal government still retains its courts, military/defense, some small regulations on businesses (anti-trust, environmental stuff [but modeled in a free-market style], national natural monopoly issues, etc.), interstate highway funding (but not without the strings attached, such as a nationally set drinking age; that should be a state's rights issue, as well as environmental/air pollution restrictions that actually hurt those cities more than it helps; don't get me started on highway funding....), and even national parks (goes in line with free-market environmentalism), but everything else must be transferred to state/local governments, privatized, or outright removed. States, depending on their voters, can implement a free-market-style safety net such as school vouchers, negative income taxes, and "health care vouchers" (for lack of knowledge of a proper term) for the poor/disabled. States can also handle infrastructure. Local governments can handle things that are best handled on a local level (police, fire, school districts, ordinances, etc.).
I feel that on a state/local level, a combination of free-market ideas plus a safety net and infrastructure will work decently, provided that they stay within the principles of the market, and that those programs don't become socialistic in the long run. The federal government's power should be limited greatly, except for a select few issues that I've already enumerated. All levels of government should adopt civil libertarian views on social and personal issues, IMO.
I am a self-proclaimed minarchist (supporter of small-government) who supports free markets and civil liberties. I'm not a "taxation is theft" anarchocapitalist, but I do not lean on the left with anything. I suppose these are the viewpoints that you have also, unless I am missing something.
In Europe, where a liberal is more or less a classical liberal, then yes. In America, where a liberal is more or less a social democrat, then no. In America, European liberals are called classical liberals, libertarians (although there are different strands of libertarianism ranging from a civil liberties + free market stance with "states' rights" to anarchocapitalism), or economic conservatives.
My only problem with social democracy (I am a libertarian [but in Europe, I would be called a liberal]) is that social democrats and classical liberals/libertarians have a very different definition of freedom. Social democrats recognize civil liberties and are great at defending them, but they don't believe in free markets at all. Classical liberals/libertarians, however, recognize that freedom is the sum of both civil liberties and free markets. Free-markets are not about exploitation, despite what Marx and other leftists say. Free markets solutions work very well in most issues as long as there are some checks on growth of monopolies (which is where I disagree with some of my fellow libertarians here).
However, I am not completely anti-social democratic. (That statement alone has probably raised the eyebrows of a few readers here). Their social programs run circles around our hodgepodge of federal and state social programs in the US. Why do they work so well? I believe that the reason why it works well in European countries is because of two reasons; the smaller sizes of the nations, and the breakup of those countries. It is easier to tax and redistribute wealth in a smaller area than in a larger area. European nations are also very small and are about equivalent to an individual state in the US, except each individual state is a soverign nation. Since those countries are small "soverign states," policies can be implemented based on the culture of that nation-state. Since European cultures are generally more collectivist, and there is a larger number of collectivists living in a nation-state, they are open to social democracy. It actually works, provided that they either don't overtax its citizens or have an influx of right-wing candidates.
Why wouldn't it work in the United States? Ideally, the United States is supposed to be a collection of states, each with its own culture and way of doing things. In an ideal libertarian framework for the US, the federal government will have very little control over the states and its core functions would be reduced to the military, the courts, and the interstate highway system, while the states, counties, and cities take care of the rest. If a state wanted to implement social democracy within the state, it should do so as long as none of its policies violates the Constitution of the United States. Likewise, you can have conservative states, libertarian states, progressive states, etc. That is the way this country is supposed to work, and it works best this way, IMO.
However, certain social programs such as Medicare, Social Security, nationalized education, nationalized welfare, etc. are not doing well. They are way too big, overtly bureaucratic, and actually degraded the quality of the services and increased the costs in this country. For example, education in the US is getting worse each year. Why, even though we're spending more on education each year? It's not the amount of funding; it is the bureaucracy of the programs in general. Education was much better when it was left to the individual states.
So, social democracy can work in small areas, but it doesn't work well in large areas. However, if social democracy is implemented, it should use market techniques. For example, instead of thinking in terms of public schools, socialized medicine, welfare, and Social Security, think of school vouchers, health care vouchers, negative income taxes, and private pensions for elderly and disabled workers. My suggestions not only provide a good safety net for the citizens in a state, but it is also compatible with free markets as well. Milton Friedman has written about much of the ideas that I suggested; you can read Capitalism and Freedom and Free to Choose to find out more if these ideas seem intriguing. Citizens under these suggestions aren't restricted to a government monopoly of services; they can pick and choose.
now, if you are ready to actually listen to what i say, for the 3rd time now: government i don't love, government i don't hate, government i merely accept. it has plenty of waste and negatives. these need to be cleaned up. they disgust me. but cleaning up the mess is not to be confused with throwing out government's rightful roles.
I think our major source of disagreement is the proper functions of government. I believe that government should be kept small, be split up into various powers (local government has most power, state government has less power, and federal government has the least power; federalism or "state rights"), and focus on defending its citizens and protecting individual liberties. I believe that freedom is the ultimate goal. You are a strong believer of a national safety net and other mildly leftist views, but I don't know how you are in other aspects, so I guess I shouldn't really call you a government lover (your Hillary Clinton joke, for one, reveals something. We're on the same page now;)). (There are plenty of leftists who have just as much, if not more, suspicion of government power than I do, and I am an ardent libertarian).
Now, I wasn't always a libertarian; I grew up in a Democratic household and believed in Democratic principles (heck, I used to like Bill Clinton, Kerry, and even Gray Davis) until about a year ago, when I got very fed up with the state of politics in the USA in general and started reading about various different political philosophies. I ended up gravitating toward libertarianism, which matched much of my views about freedom and much of my knowledge of economics. I am still not 100% libertarian; there are certain parts of the philosophy that I grapple with (I don't support a national safety net at all, but I have no huge qualms over a state or local safety net, as long as it doesn't interfere with the market), but I have converted much of my viewpoints to a libertarian framework.
i know: difficult, gradual change
I'm not a radical. I realize that a libertarian just can't be elected in office and turn the country into Ancapistan overnight. The people will shoot him or her if that happens. That's one reason why the Libertarian Party hasn't won any major federal elections yet; altough their platform and philosophy is attractive, the platform is a bit too radical. Instead, the change must be implemented slowly. Libertarians should focus their initial changes on civil liberties, the most restrictive regulations of the market, and controlling spending. After we get the basic goals completed, then we can talk about privitizing Social Security, eliminating various federal departments, returning to a gold standard, eliminating welfare and replacing it a negative income tax, etc. Congressman Ron Paul is a great example; he sticks firmly to his principles and won't compromise them away, but he also knows his limits.
Libertarians won't win if they promise an overnight revolution. Heck, getting back our civil liberties is considered radical to some people. Returning all of our freedoms require a long process. It took over 70 years for the United States to turn from a laissez-faire economy in which the people were almost free (minus state-enforced Jim Crow laws and Prohibition) (1929) to the big government that we see today. It is going to take 70 years to turn this country into one that matches libertarian goals.
...
I had you wrong for a while. You seem a bit more reasonable; it's just that your very initial post was a complete attack and misunderstanding of libertarianism, and I had to educate you on what libertarianism is really about.
To the extent I support government-funded education and healthcare, I support them on a local level. I believe in education vouchers; education is another case of some government support (but locally). I am not a fan of government-funded health care due to the hidden bureaucracy, but it is best implemented on a local level. Local governments and state governments are much more representative to the needs of the people, and to the extent that I support any sort of social safety net, those two levels of government is where I would support them. They represent the community, and I can always move if they pass legislation that I strongly disagree with. I don't support them on national levels, however; they become much too big and bureaucratic, drive up the costs, pander to special interest groups, restrict the freedom of all citizens, sometimes become propaganda machines, and don't accurately reflect the needs of the communities that they are serving. Education and health care has gotten much worse in the USA since the federal government started taking over in the 1960s and 70s.
The only reason why I support an interstate highway system is because it is easier for the federal government to own all of those interconnecting roads than each individual state. My defense for the interstate highway system is also tied into the fact that those highways serve a distinct military purpose as well. If the nation is in any danger, people and goods should be transported as quickly as possible. However, the government should have no say over the funding of local and state highways. On the local and state level, I support public-private partnerships with road building. Local and state governments are strapped for cash these days, and public-private partnerships are a way to construct much-needed road projects without substantially raising taxes. I don't think privitizing the nation's highways is feasible nor practical, but building new private roads is a great idea.
Most of my criticisms of government come from the national level. I have better things to say about state and local government, but they are not bastions of freedom, unfortunately.
American health care is so expensive not because of a failure of the free market. In fact, we already have quasi-socialized medicine. This country has more government regulation and restrictions in healthcare than even Cuba does (and Cuba is communist!). Read this; this will explain my viewpoint. The AMA is to the medical industry as the RIAA is to music industry.
We don't need even bigger government controlling our health care. Do you really want your health care to be dealt with in the same way as a DMV line (which is a problem in Canada, long lines for health care services). We need less government involved in medicine so that way the market can do its thing and competition can arise. Monopolistic cartels like the AMA need to be divorced from the government so that way people can choose from a wider range of doctors. People should be able to buy their medicine from foreign countries and not be restricted to whatever the government tells them to buy. This will drive down prices of both medicine and treatment and make health care much more affordable.
We don't need socialized medicine. We already have socialized medicine for the disabled, poor, and elderly, and everybody has to deal with government regulations and restrictions on healthcare. We need free-market medicine.
now, along the same lines, if i waved a magic wand, and removed all of the governments in the world, new governments would immediately spring into existence to fill the void, because government is a phenomenon of humans in social groups that unremovable from how human nature plays out. that is, government is not good, government is not bad
Prove it.
people will try to regulate their behavior and the behavior of others. there you go: government. POOF. you can call this evil, ugly, impoverishing, anti-freedom, whatever you want to call it. but it is real, and it is not going away, unless you have some magic machine which alters human nature
I am not an anarchist; I am a libertarian. I recognize that some government is needed to protect the rights of other people, and I do allow the federal government to have a interstate highway system and a military. Local and state governments can fill in some more services as long as they aren't socialistic or totalitarian. However, any more government control than this is evil, ugly, impoverishing, and illiberal (in the classical sense of the word).
government just happens, just like shit just happens, if that allegory suits your negative impression of government
Prove it.
I personally don't like government at all. I've seen nothing but corruption, bad leadership, needless regulation and legislation, nanny laws, and other bad things throughout my life, to the point that I lost faith in government to solve anything. However, I recognize that government is a necessary evil needed to defend people when coercion occurs. However, government shouldn't abuse that power to perform coercion (which, unfortunately, it does). That is what libertarianism is about.
You, however, seem to be a government worshiper. Everything in society has to be fixed by the government. The government is the savior, the government is the good Samaritan, the government this, the government that. Society this, society that. You don't understand the true role of government. You think that people like having their rights being ran over. You think that people like their governments fighting wars, controlling the economy, inflating its money supply, overtaxing them, and all of this other stuff.
Newsflash; for the umteenth time; the government doesn't not exist to be Superman. Its purpose isn't to come around and solve societal problems. Governments can't be compassionate, they can't be helpful, they can't really be anything. A government holds a monopoly of force and uses it to achieve certain goals; that's all a government does. I've already told you the libertarian goals of using government power. However, you seem to want to use the gun for everything. What does the gun know about health care, for example, that the market has been proven to do better?
Removing huge amounts of government isn't absurd. You shouldn't be calling me absurd because you don't understand libertarianian; that's the real absurdity. Government is NOT (and in some cases, never) the best solution for fixing all of societal problems. You don't care about freedom; it's all about "society" and "compassion" to you. You sound like the communists that you denigrated a few posts ago.
Go ahead, love the government all that you want, I don't care.
Just keep in mind that your freedom is a very important value that shouldn't be taken away by government force. Freedom being defined both in civil liberties and in economic liberties.
The most compassionate government is one that just gets out of my darn way. As long as I am not harming anybody else, I am free.
You're still missing my point. You're still conflating government with society.
Government shouldn't force citizens to pay for socialized health care, nor any other socialist program. Period. No "society" excuses, no "social contract" mess, none of that stuff. Government is not society. Socialized health care hurts free market providers of health care by adding layers of bureaucracy and needless government restrictions on medicine, health care, and doctors. Socialized health care also forces all citizens (or the rich ones) to pay directly to causes for other people. If you want more information, read this; it will explain it much more thoroughly.
Government is not society. Society is not government. Governments don't "look out for the less fortunate" by stealing from the rich. They look out for the less fortunate by leaving people alone. Using government to force people to accept some grand, idealistic, pie-in-the-sky humanitarian social goal doesn't work. Voluntary organizations are much better at helping the poor, disabled, and unhealthy than any government bureaucratic mess does.
Why do you think that the government is so good at solving social problems? And before you criticize my laissez-faire policies, why don't you look back at the history of the world. Governments didn't become socialist until the 20th century. Before then, people relied on the market for just about everything. And (gasp) it worked. Government doesn't solve problems, it just creates problems.
a society that cares for its citizens is antithetical to libertarianism.
You are making a classical statist mistake; conflating government with society. Government and society are two different beasts. Society is the collection of all of the human beings in a certain region. Government is a ruling body that makes and enforces law. Libertarianism is a political philosophy, not a societal philosophy. Even if libertarianism were a societal philosophy, there will be people who care for its citizens. Read below.
libertarianism only works in a world where humans are so venal and selfish and lizard-like that they can, indeed, see someone fall down, break their arm, and starve to death and completely ignore them
In a free society, there will be social institutions that will heal those who broke their arms and those who are starving. There are churches, volunteer organizations, families, community food banks, etc. The difference is that people voluntarily choose to donate to these causes. People aren't as selfish as you think they are. There will always be people willing to help.
Socialist programs, on the other hand, require that the government steal money from its citizens to fund the programs. There is a huge difference between voluntary programs and government programs. In order for a government to support a social safety net, it first must rob from its citizens in order to provide the safety net. Governments are not charity cases. Governments are ruling institutions that use their monopoly of force to push any idea that the rulers want. Did you read the article in my last post?
Socialism in any shape or form (from modern liberalism all the way to communism) fails to respect the freedom of its citizens. But socialism is the ultimate conflation of government and society, and that it what you seem to be pushing. Socialism is the complete ideological opposite of libertarian, not communism. (At least pure communism understands the role of reducing or eliminating government, even though communism is still completely flawed from the bottom up). Socialism is about government steamrolling individual freedom and free markets in order to promote government and social agendas. Socialism isn't about freedom, it is about governmental control. Government and society should be kept far apart from each other. Government should not be promoting social goals. Social goals are best left to society to manage, not a government to stick guns to the heads of its citizens and coercively enforce its goals.
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If Apple were developing systems software and operating systems for vanilla x86 PCs, then I will agree with your statement. Apple would need a vanilla PC lab in order to test all of the hardware combinations.
However, Apple doesn't develop systems software for Windows that require in-depth knowledge about hardware drivers. When developing regular Windows systems software, it doesn't matter if you are using a vanilla Intel or AMD machine or a Mac (there is no difference between a Mac and a PC other than the fact that the Mac doesn't use legacy components such as BIOS, serial/parallel ports, floppy drives, etc.). With the Intel switch, Apple doesn't need to run out and buy a lab of vanilla PCs; they can just manufacture a few more Mac Minis, install Windows, and start hacking.
Something's wrong with that sentence. What's wrong?
s/girl/mom. That's more like it.
Now enjoy your NetBSD-running VAX in your mom's basement.
Oh hell no! Socialized medicine only works in small, collectivist countries (Western European nations and Cuba, for example). Socialized medicine won't work in a large place like the United States; it is much too big and the costs are too great to support that type of health infrastructure without heavy tax increases (that would probably spark a riot, especially in less populated areas of the country).
And about that "civilized world" comment, well we divorced the Old World for a reason. Ideas that may work well for small, European countries may be a total blunder for the United States. Remember that the focus of the United States is supposed to be about the states. A state in the US is about equivalent to one country in Western Europe, minus the sovereignity. Socialized medicine may work well in one state, but might not work well in another state. But don't try to force that idea onto 300 million individuals. The United States is a federation of states; that is how the country should work (alas, sadly, the country has far removed itself from its constitutional roots since 1933).
However, I still admit that there is a problem with healthcare in this country. In fact, it is worse than socialized medicine; we have fascist medicine. What I mean by that is the doctors and medicine companies have gotten in bed with the government (much like how the **AA and other special interest groups influence the government), and now we are all paying for it. This article explains my viewpionts of why healthcare in the USA is so expensive.
The best approach for healthcare, IMO, is a free-market solution to the problem. Get the federal government out of health care, dismantle the AMA from all levels of government, and let other doctors compete. The costs of medicine and doctors will go down, individuals will finally afford healthcare for themselves again (just like in the old days), and our health care services will be more efficient and of a higher quality. Now, if a company or a state government wants to pick up the healthcare bill, more power to them, as long as they don't interfere with the market. But let's divorce big medicine cartels from the government first.
Any form of socialism works best on small geographic areas where almost everybody believes in some sort of collectivism; that's why Western European countries hasn't dumped its socialist programs. However, it completely falls apart in very large nations (the USSR is a great example). It is much easier to convince 35 million people of the same culture/beliefs to raise their taxes and shift their wealth around than to convince 300 million people who are mostly individualists to do the same.
I do not advocate socialism at all; I am a staunch free-market supporter. I believe that the problem with American healthcare is that the doctors and medicine companies have gotten in bed with the government (much like how the **AA and other special interest groups influence the government), and now we are all paying for it. We don't have socialized medicine in the USA (closest thing we have is Medicare and other programs); we have fascist medicine. This article explains my viewpionts of why healthcare in the USA is so expensive.
Hmmm, doesn't Apple use DRM in its iTunes music and in OS X?
Your points are exactly correct. Even though it is possible to avoid all KDE applications and all GTK+ applications, there are some instances where you need to use a different application. For example, I use KDE as my main desktop, but I use OpenOffice as my office suite. Different applications require different interpreters (Perl, Python, Ruby, Java, and now C#), which takes up even more space and memory. Each project wants to do everything its own way, which is a major duplication of effort and requires lot of space.
My solution? Applications need to be standardized by the two leading GUI toolkits (GTK+ and QT). KDE and GNOME has already lead the way with standardization, but they need to go further. KDE and GNOME apps should standardize on interpreters so that way users shouldn't have to download a new interpreter whenever they use a new application. It would be nice if they stuck with a few interpreted languages instead of adopting every interpreted language under the sun. Applications also need to standardize on APIs; there should only be one audio API, one graphics API, one networking API, etc. Don't duplicate effort unless you have to. Applications that meet these standards should be marked "KDE-approved" or "GNOME-approved" so that way users can stick to one desktop environment.
If applications were standardized with GTK+, QT, common sound/graphics APIs, and just Perl and Python as our interpreters (don't bring C#, Ruby, Tcl, Java, and other languages into the mix unless you compile them in native code; yes, they are great languages, but do we really need n+1 interpreters for n projects?), then it will solve some major issues in the *nix world, especially bloated code. Then we can talk about other issues, such as consistency.
Because Apple != NeXT. Just because Apple uses NeXT technology doesn't make it NeXT.
Exactly. During Spindler's tenure we got:
The years between 1995 and 1997 was the perfect storm for Apple. Lousy products, lousy leadership, and Microsoft's exploitation of Apple's failures almost killed Apple. You can thank Spindler for starting the mess. (A lot of people want to blame Gil Amelio for these problems, but Amelio did the best that he could to solve them and he did bring Jobs back). The best thing about Spindler is that he was kicked out and replaced with Amelio, who was then kicked out and replaced with Steve Jobs. Now the company is successful again and making great products.
Yeah, I just noticed that after posting. I know better. Thanks.
From personal experience (been studying Nihongo for over six years; and I'm far from fluent):
Yokoso! Welcome to the club. Japanese is a very interesting language. It is much more challenging than the Romance languages (it took me only a year to develop near-fluent Spanish skills, in comparison). However, you will gain access to another culture and will allow you to translate all of that anime. I got interested in Japanese through Pokemon, by the way.
I am a freshman computer science student. Here is my advice.
Remember that a computer science curriculum teaches the theoretical foundations of computer science. You start with basic programming (C, Java, or [if you're really lucky] a functional programming language like Scheme), and then learn about data structures, algorithms, software engineering, architecture, systems programming, OSes, compilers, and theoretical computer science, as well as some CS topics of your choosing (numerical analysis, graphics, more software engineering, AI, etc.). Discrete mathematics is also very important; you can't do much in computer science without it. And don't forget your EE courses like digital design (designing circuits using Boolean logic) and assembly programming; you'll get to know about computers from an electrical engineering standpoint (different, but cool, IMO). As much as I like mathematics and theoretical CS, sometimes you need to get close to and examine the metal. I personally liken computer science, mathematics, and electrical engineering to be the holy trinity of computing, but I might be out there....
Computer science departments typically do not teach the ins and outs of APIs and industry programming languages unless it ties into learning about the fundamental concepts explained above (Java's usage in CS courses, for example). However, this doesn't stop you from learning these APIs independently. My suggestion are the following:
Enjoy your life as a computer science major. It is truly rewarding and interesting. Now I have to return to my own programming assignment....
I disagree. There are plenty of good programmers who dislike the hard sciences and mathematics. As long as you know the algorithms, the data structures, the programming languages, and the APIs, and you know which tool to use at the right time (e.g., don't bubble sort a list of records stored as arrays when a mergesort or quicksort would do [we're talking O(n^2) [slow] performance compared to O(n log n) [much faster] performance, any programmer worth anything should know this]), then you should make a good programmer. You don't need to be Donald Knuth to be a 1337 programmer (although all of that CS/math knowledge surely helps).
However, you can't be a good computer scientist without an understanding (or at least appreciation) of mathematics (especially discrete math), and to a much lesser extent, physics, depending on the subfield. A good programmer, for example, knows that bubble sorts are slow compared to divide-and-conquer sorting algorithms. A computer scientist, however, not only knows these facts by heart, but also should be able to analyze those sorting algorithms and give big-O notations of their performance. If you want to do something such as computer graphics, then you'll need to learn calculus, linear algebra, physics, and graphic design. Quantum computing requires even more physics (to understand what a quantum computer is) and math to figure out how to write quantum algorithms. Numerical analysis requires extensive knowledge in continuous (non-discrete) mathematics, and the list goes on....
Another point: programmers may not be computer scientists, but I wouldn't label all programmers as "code monkeys"; as if programmers were inferior to computer scientists just because they don't do exercises from Concrete Mathematics every night before they go to bed. (This is coming from a CS freshman whose goal is to become a computer scientist; and yes, I'm a math minor and have a liking for physics). That is a tiny stench of elitism that can get you modded down here. There are many programmers out there that know how to apply computer science knowledge to create fast, small, and secure programs. They don't have to be Steven Wolfram clones, but that doesn't make them "code monkeys", either.
Slashdot needs to be kept family friendly and safe for work.
Now, I'll return to reading technological flamewars, astroturfing, political trolls, goatse trolls, ....
...seems to have a TPM chip. Thinkpads, MacBook Pros, some Gateway machines, just about every major new laptop manufacturer that I know of has already installed TPM chips in their laptops.
The important thing to remember, though, is that a TPM chip means nothing if you don't use an OS or software that utilizes the chip for nefarious purposes. If you stick to Windows XP, current versions of OS X (they only use the TPM chip to see if it is a genuine Macintosh), or a free OS (like Linux or BSD), then they won't utilize the TPM chip to restrict your moves. However, you might want to check out any upgrades to the proprietary OSes or proprietary software before you upgrade. You might also want to avoid DRM'd media as well and find alternatives before it is too late.
Now, if you really don't want a TPM chip in your machine, just buy the last model of the machine that you want that doesn't have a TPM chip. Apple, for example, still sells their G4 line of PowerBooks and iBooks. You'll have to weigh the advantages/disadvantages; do you want to sacrifice performance over a trusted computing chip that has little control depending on your software choices?
Interesting; you share much of the same views that I do. Yet, I call myself a libertarian; even though I don't agree 100% with the philosphy; I'm about 80% or so. I identify myself more with the Chicago school of economics than I do with the Mises school of economics, even though I base much of my viewpoints on both schools.
My only beef with the Libertarian Party is that its views are a bit too far on the libertarian scale, almost borderlining on anarchocapitalism. Anarchocapitalism advocates the removal of all government (not only federal, but state and local as well). Even though it is the ultimate philosophy in both economic freedom and personal freedom, I don't think it is very effective in the long run, since there are some legitamite uses for a government. A good democratic/republican government (notice the lowercase letters) should be able to voice the needs of not only those who have money, but also those who don't. (That is one of my problems with anarchocapitalism; how would the poor hire arbitration forces when dealing with coercion and there is no police force, for example?) We need some government, but not the big government that Democrats and Republicans are pushing. (I'm not saying the the Libertarian Party supports this, but they are of a further libertarian bent than some of the classical liberal parties in Europe, which are much more moderate).
We need small, decentralized government that has a civil liberties + free market philosophy. The federal government still retains its courts, military/defense, some small regulations on businesses (anti-trust, environmental stuff [but modeled in a free-market style], national natural monopoly issues, etc.), interstate highway funding (but not without the strings attached, such as a nationally set drinking age; that should be a state's rights issue, as well as environmental/air pollution restrictions that actually hurt those cities more than it helps; don't get me started on highway funding....), and even national parks (goes in line with free-market environmentalism), but everything else must be transferred to state/local governments, privatized, or outright removed. States, depending on their voters, can implement a free-market-style safety net such as school vouchers, negative income taxes, and "health care vouchers" (for lack of knowledge of a proper term) for the poor/disabled. States can also handle infrastructure. Local governments can handle things that are best handled on a local level (police, fire, school districts, ordinances, etc.).
I feel that on a state/local level, a combination of free-market ideas plus a safety net and infrastructure will work decently, provided that they stay within the principles of the market, and that those programs don't become socialistic in the long run. The federal government's power should be limited greatly, except for a select few issues that I've already enumerated. All levels of government should adopt civil libertarian views on social and personal issues, IMO.
I am a self-proclaimed minarchist (supporter of small-government) who supports free markets and civil liberties. I'm not a "taxation is theft" anarchocapitalist, but I do not lean on the left with anything. I suppose these are the viewpoints that you have also, unless I am missing something.
In Europe, where a liberal is more or less a classical liberal, then yes. In America, where a liberal is more or less a social democrat, then no. In America, European liberals are called classical liberals, libertarians (although there are different strands of libertarianism ranging from a civil liberties + free market stance with "states' rights" to anarchocapitalism), or economic conservatives.
My only problem with social democracy (I am a libertarian [but in Europe, I would be called a liberal]) is that social democrats and classical liberals/libertarians have a very different definition of freedom. Social democrats recognize civil liberties and are great at defending them, but they don't believe in free markets at all. Classical liberals/libertarians, however, recognize that freedom is the sum of both civil liberties and free markets. Free-markets are not about exploitation, despite what Marx and other leftists say. Free markets solutions work very well in most issues as long as there are some checks on growth of monopolies (which is where I disagree with some of my fellow libertarians here).
However, I am not completely anti-social democratic. (That statement alone has probably raised the eyebrows of a few readers here). Their social programs run circles around our hodgepodge of federal and state social programs in the US. Why do they work so well? I believe that the reason why it works well in European countries is because of two reasons; the smaller sizes of the nations, and the breakup of those countries. It is easier to tax and redistribute wealth in a smaller area than in a larger area. European nations are also very small and are about equivalent to an individual state in the US, except each individual state is a soverign nation. Since those countries are small "soverign states," policies can be implemented based on the culture of that nation-state. Since European cultures are generally more collectivist, and there is a larger number of collectivists living in a nation-state, they are open to social democracy. It actually works, provided that they either don't overtax its citizens or have an influx of right-wing candidates.
Why wouldn't it work in the United States? Ideally, the United States is supposed to be a collection of states, each with its own culture and way of doing things. In an ideal libertarian framework for the US, the federal government will have very little control over the states and its core functions would be reduced to the military, the courts, and the interstate highway system, while the states, counties, and cities take care of the rest. If a state wanted to implement social democracy within the state, it should do so as long as none of its policies violates the Constitution of the United States. Likewise, you can have conservative states, libertarian states, progressive states, etc. That is the way this country is supposed to work, and it works best this way, IMO.
However, certain social programs such as Medicare, Social Security, nationalized education, nationalized welfare, etc. are not doing well. They are way too big, overtly bureaucratic, and actually degraded the quality of the services and increased the costs in this country. For example, education in the US is getting worse each year. Why, even though we're spending more on education each year? It's not the amount of funding; it is the bureaucracy of the programs in general. Education was much better when it was left to the individual states.
So, social democracy can work in small areas, but it doesn't work well in large areas. However, if social democracy is implemented, it should use market techniques. For example, instead of thinking in terms of public schools, socialized medicine, welfare, and Social Security, think of school vouchers, health care vouchers, negative income taxes, and private pensions for elderly and disabled workers. My suggestions not only provide a good safety net for the citizens in a state, but it is also compatible with free markets as well. Milton Friedman has written about much of the ideas that I suggested; you can read Capitalism and Freedom and Free to Choose to find out more if these ideas seem intriguing. Citizens under these suggestions aren't restricted to a government monopoly of services; they can pick and choose.
I think our major source of disagreement is the proper functions of government. I believe that government should be kept small, be split up into various powers (local government has most power, state government has less power, and federal government has the least power; federalism or "state rights"), and focus on defending its citizens and protecting individual liberties. I believe that freedom is the ultimate goal. You are a strong believer of a national safety net and other mildly leftist views, but I don't know how you are in other aspects, so I guess I shouldn't really call you a government lover (your Hillary Clinton joke, for one, reveals something. We're on the same page now ;)). (There are plenty of leftists who have just as much, if not more, suspicion of government power than I do, and I am an ardent libertarian).
Now, I wasn't always a libertarian; I grew up in a Democratic household and believed in Democratic principles (heck, I used to like Bill Clinton, Kerry, and even Gray Davis) until about a year ago, when I got very fed up with the state of politics in the USA in general and started reading about various different political philosophies. I ended up gravitating toward libertarianism, which matched much of my views about freedom and much of my knowledge of economics. I am still not 100% libertarian; there are certain parts of the philosophy that I grapple with (I don't support a national safety net at all, but I have no huge qualms over a state or local safety net, as long as it doesn't interfere with the market), but I have converted much of my viewpoints to a libertarian framework.
I'm not a radical. I realize that a libertarian just can't be elected in office and turn the country into Ancapistan overnight. The people will shoot him or her if that happens. That's one reason why the Libertarian Party hasn't won any major federal elections yet; altough their platform and philosophy is attractive, the platform is a bit too radical. Instead, the change must be implemented slowly. Libertarians should focus their initial changes on civil liberties, the most restrictive regulations of the market, and controlling spending. After we get the basic goals completed, then we can talk about privitizing Social Security, eliminating various federal departments, returning to a gold standard, eliminating welfare and replacing it a negative income tax, etc. Congressman Ron Paul is a great example; he sticks firmly to his principles and won't compromise them away, but he also knows his limits.
Libertarians won't win if they promise an overnight revolution. Heck, getting back our civil liberties is considered radical to some people. Returning all of our freedoms require a long process. It took over 70 years for the United States to turn from a laissez-faire economy in which the people were almost free (minus state-enforced Jim Crow laws and Prohibition) (1929) to the big government that we see today. It is going to take 70 years to turn this country into one that matches libertarian goals.
...
I had you wrong for a while. You seem a bit more reasonable; it's just that your very initial post was a complete attack and misunderstanding of libertarianism, and I had to educate you on what libertarianism is really about.
You didn't even read my post. I already told you; I already accept government for very basic functions; I don't feel like explaining it again.
But, then again, I expect more uneducated and ignorant responses from you.
I wonder how this physics can be applied to make this particular single geek....not single?
Hmmm.... (goes off to find a solution)
To the extent I support government-funded education and healthcare, I support them on a local level. I believe in education vouchers; education is another case of some government support (but locally). I am not a fan of government-funded health care due to the hidden bureaucracy, but it is best implemented on a local level. Local governments and state governments are much more representative to the needs of the people, and to the extent that I support any sort of social safety net, those two levels of government is where I would support them. They represent the community, and I can always move if they pass legislation that I strongly disagree with. I don't support them on national levels, however; they become much too big and bureaucratic, drive up the costs, pander to special interest groups, restrict the freedom of all citizens, sometimes become propaganda machines, and don't accurately reflect the needs of the communities that they are serving. Education and health care has gotten much worse in the USA since the federal government started taking over in the 1960s and 70s.
The only reason why I support an interstate highway system is because it is easier for the federal government to own all of those interconnecting roads than each individual state. My defense for the interstate highway system is also tied into the fact that those highways serve a distinct military purpose as well. If the nation is in any danger, people and goods should be transported as quickly as possible. However, the government should have no say over the funding of local and state highways. On the local and state level, I support public-private partnerships with road building. Local and state governments are strapped for cash these days, and public-private partnerships are a way to construct much-needed road projects without substantially raising taxes. I don't think privitizing the nation's highways is feasible nor practical, but building new private roads is a great idea.
Most of my criticisms of government come from the national level. I have better things to say about state and local government, but they are not bastions of freedom, unfortunately.
American health care is so expensive not because of a failure of the free market. In fact, we already have quasi-socialized medicine. This country has more government regulation and restrictions in healthcare than even Cuba does (and Cuba is communist!). Read this; this will explain my viewpoint. The AMA is to the medical industry as the RIAA is to music industry.
We don't need even bigger government controlling our health care. Do you really want your health care to be dealt with in the same way as a DMV line (which is a problem in Canada, long lines for health care services). We need less government involved in medicine so that way the market can do its thing and competition can arise. Monopolistic cartels like the AMA need to be divorced from the government so that way people can choose from a wider range of doctors. People should be able to buy their medicine from foreign countries and not be restricted to whatever the government tells them to buy. This will drive down prices of both medicine and treatment and make health care much more affordable.
We don't need socialized medicine. We already have socialized medicine for the disabled, poor, and elderly, and everybody has to deal with government regulations and restrictions on healthcare. We need free-market medicine.
Prove it.
I am not an anarchist; I am a libertarian. I recognize that some government is needed to protect the rights of other people, and I do allow the federal government to have a interstate highway system and a military. Local and state governments can fill in some more services as long as they aren't socialistic or totalitarian. However, any more government control than this is evil, ugly, impoverishing, and illiberal (in the classical sense of the word).
Prove it.
I personally don't like government at all. I've seen nothing but corruption, bad leadership, needless regulation and legislation, nanny laws, and other bad things throughout my life, to the point that I lost faith in government to solve anything. However, I recognize that government is a necessary evil needed to defend people when coercion occurs. However, government shouldn't abuse that power to perform coercion (which, unfortunately, it does). That is what libertarianism is about.
You, however, seem to be a government worshiper. Everything in society has to be fixed by the government. The government is the savior, the government is the good Samaritan, the government this, the government that. Society this, society that. You don't understand the true role of government. You think that people like having their rights being ran over. You think that people like their governments fighting wars, controlling the economy, inflating its money supply, overtaxing them, and all of this other stuff.
Newsflash; for the umteenth time; the government doesn't not exist to be Superman. Its purpose isn't to come around and solve societal problems. Governments can't be compassionate, they can't be helpful, they can't really be anything. A government holds a monopoly of force and uses it to achieve certain goals; that's all a government does. I've already told you the libertarian goals of using government power. However, you seem to want to use the gun for everything. What does the gun know about health care, for example, that the market has been proven to do better?
Removing huge amounts of government isn't absurd. You shouldn't be calling me absurd because you don't understand libertarianian; that's the real absurdity. Government is NOT (and in some cases, never) the best solution for fixing all of societal problems. You don't care about freedom; it's all about "society" and "compassion" to you. You sound like the communists that you denigrated a few posts ago.
Go ahead, love the government all that you want, I don't care.
Just keep in mind that your freedom is a very important value that shouldn't be taken away by government force. Freedom being defined both in civil liberties and in economic liberties.
The most compassionate government is one that just gets out of my darn way. As long as I am not harming anybody else, I am free.
You're still missing my point. You're still conflating government with society.
Government shouldn't force citizens to pay for socialized health care, nor any other socialist program. Period. No "society" excuses, no "social contract" mess, none of that stuff. Government is not society. Socialized health care hurts free market providers of health care by adding layers of bureaucracy and needless government restrictions on medicine, health care, and doctors. Socialized health care also forces all citizens (or the rich ones) to pay directly to causes for other people. If you want more information, read this; it will explain it much more thoroughly.
Government is not society. Society is not government. Governments don't "look out for the less fortunate" by stealing from the rich. They look out for the less fortunate by leaving people alone. Using government to force people to accept some grand, idealistic, pie-in-the-sky humanitarian social goal doesn't work. Voluntary organizations are much better at helping the poor, disabled, and unhealthy than any government bureaucratic mess does.
Why do you think that the government is so good at solving social problems? And before you criticize my laissez-faire policies, why don't you look back at the history of the world. Governments didn't become socialist until the 20th century. Before then, people relied on the market for just about everything. And (gasp) it worked. Government doesn't solve problems, it just creates problems.
You are making a classical statist mistake; conflating government with society. Government and society are two different beasts. Society is the collection of all of the human beings in a certain region. Government is a ruling body that makes and enforces law. Libertarianism is a political philosophy, not a societal philosophy. Even if libertarianism were a societal philosophy, there will be people who care for its citizens. Read below.
In a free society, there will be social institutions that will heal those who broke their arms and those who are starving. There are churches, volunteer organizations, families, community food banks, etc. The difference is that people voluntarily choose to donate to these causes. People aren't as selfish as you think they are. There will always be people willing to help.
Socialist programs, on the other hand, require that the government steal money from its citizens to fund the programs. There is a huge difference between voluntary programs and government programs. In order for a government to support a social safety net, it first must rob from its citizens in order to provide the safety net. Governments are not charity cases. Governments are ruling institutions that use their monopoly of force to push any idea that the rulers want. Did you read the article in my last post?
Socialism in any shape or form (from modern liberalism all the way to communism) fails to respect the freedom of its citizens. But socialism is the ultimate conflation of government and society, and that it what you seem to be pushing. Socialism is the complete ideological opposite of libertarian, not communism. (At least pure communism understands the role of reducing or eliminating government, even though communism is still completely flawed from the bottom up). Socialism is about government steamrolling individual freedom and free markets in order to promote government and social agendas. Socialism isn't about freedom, it is about governmental control. Government and society should be kept far apart from each other. Government should not be promoting social goals. Social goals are best left to society to manage, not a government to stick guns to the heads of its citizens and coercively enforce its goals.