Government police and military organizations are horribly corrupt and horribly inefficient. Which particular privately run security forces and fire departments are you referring to? It would be interesting to examine the particular circumstances of each case and whether they were truly a product of the market or government was actually involved.
There are many sufficient answers to your "move away" argument, which I am sure is disingenuous (unless you can name for me a truly libertarian country), but I will only list one here: I own my property and I have the right to use it. No one has the right to force me to trade in my property for other property somewhere else.
The majority only placed those people in office because they saw those people as the lesser of two evils. (And that only applies to certain types of government.) I agree that the minority should be protected from the tyranny of the majority, but unlike you I am consistent in that belief. After all, what must the minority be protected from? Loss of life? Loss of property? But these are products of government. Every minority -- every individual -- should be protected from the loss of his property at the hands of government and even at the hands of a 99.99% majority.
You know as well as I that the definition of marriage has historically and traditionally involved a man and a woman and that it is recently that certain people have tried to redefine the word. Two examples which come reasonably close to a traditionally accepted definition:
From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:
Marriage \Mar"riage\, n. [OE. mariage, F. mariage. See {Marry},
v. t.]
1. The act of marrying, or the state of being married; legal union of a man and a woman for life, as husband and wife;
wedlock; matrimony.
[1913 Webster]
From Bouvier's Law Dictionary, Revised 6th Ed (1856) [bouvier]:
MARRIAGE. A contract made in due form of law, by which a free man and a free woman reciprocally engage to live with each other during their joint lives, in the union which ought to exist between husband and wife. By the terms freeman and freewoman in this definition are meant, not only that they are free and not slaves, but also that they are clear of all bars to a lawful marriage. Dig. 23, 2, 1; Ayl. Parer. 359; Stair, Inst. tit. 4, s. 1;
Shelford on Mar. and Div. c. 1, s. 1.
I will not bother to attempt a full definition, but suffice it to say that a marriage is a relationship between a man and a woman who are united as husband and wife. Nevertheless, I would not be terribly hurt, although I would disagree, if you wanted to use a different definition of the word, if you did not seek to use the power of government to enforce your definition on people against their will. Your use of violent force (through your agent, the government) is my main quarrel with you.
Actually, they do so in the article posted earlier, too (the SPLC, they say, "mixes church groups and religious conservative organizations in with the Ku Klux Klan and Nazis").
Follow your religion all you want, but those of us who don't belong to it don't appreciate you attempting to codify your unsubstantiated beliefs into our legal and political systems
I should be the one saying that to you, since you're the one who wants to "codify your unsubstantiated beliefs into our legal and political systems". Nothing in my religion makes me want to do such a thing to you. I'm the one who wants to stop anyone from doing that to anyone else. You seem to be confusing me and the TVC. Try understanding my position before trying to use it as a basis to criticize me.
Christian views carry far too little weight in law and government. If government were Christian, it would, by definition, be honest and not corrupt. A government which was Christian would allow you to do virtually anything you want, as long as you did not violate the rights of others. I don't see why you should be so opposed to that. Ultimately, it would not exist because government itself relies on the use of force against innocents. Regardless of whether you believe in its teachings, Christianity is not your enemy unless you use violence to make it your enemy.
You say "the Christian right" attempts to force its teachings on you, but what's the difference between them and you? You also attempt to force your teachings, your religious belief that theft and murder are acceptable, on all of us. Keep your religion out of my life.
1.) This, from your first link, is actually a rather good description of some of the problems in a centrally-planned economy, but is completely irrelevant to a free market:
There must be full information available to all participants. Product quality, locations and prices of alternative suppliers, every relevant piece of information must be known. Not quite sure if the wine is good or not? That's an information problem. Not sure if the used car has problems? Don't know where any gas stations are except the ones beside the freeway in a strange town? No way to monitor the quality of the building built in Iraq with U.S. aid? No way to be sure if consultants are worth the amount they are being paid? Information problems are common and they can cause substantial departures from the perfectly competitive, ideal outcome.
In fact, free markets are extraordinary in that they do not require full information from all participants. The division of labor allows different specialists to each perform what they are good at and to profit from it. Think of Wikipedia, which thrived and become enormously popular precisely because it is not centrally planned. In a free market, individual consumers do not need to be experts in every subject, partly because some people will choose to become experts in providing this type of information to consumers and in ensuring the quality of products, and partly because of the power of word-of-mouth communication regarding products and companies among buyers.
2.) The falsity of "taxes are not theft" is obvious from the first consideration of the question. The proponents of this lie, as in the article you referenced, rely on the ability of one group to force a "contract" on another group against the will of the latter. Since such is against the nature of a contract, taxes are theft and the "taxes are not theft" hypothesis is absurd.
I refuted your "yet you do drive on publicly funded roads" already in my previous post. Why is the concept of free contract so hard for you to understand?
I have every right to use government roads and fire departments because the government steals my money and violently prevents private free market competition in these areas. A victim of theft has the right to recover what was stolen from him. Nevermind that my use of these services is irrelevant. Your ad hominem attacks are pathetic.
I only use government-built roads because the government uses monopoly powers to build those roads, hence driving out competition which would otherwise thrive. I am forced to use government roads instead of the private roads which government discourages. Even if you don't mind paying to build them, you should not be thankful for publicly funded roads, because you would have much better roads if the free market had been allowed to build them.
Conditions in Somalia have improved quite a bit since its government was thrown out, as bad as it was to begin with, it's still far from perfect. A central government was never well suited for the people of Somalia; they only had one because departing colonial powers forced it on them. But it's not quite true that "there isn't any government", when there are, in fact, rival governments which hold power over parts of the country.
You still don't seem to understand. I don't "deny" anyone any right. Human beings cannot grant or deny rights. I believe that people should keep all the rights they have, but I refuse to make up other "rights" and pretend that they exist.
You essentially claim that people should be able to marry regardless of gender, i.e. that any person, male or female, has the right to marry a man, and vice versa. This argument is comparable to the claim that everyone should have the right to be (naturally) 7 feet tall. The physical fact is that not everyone is 7 feet tall, whether he has the "right" to be or not. Likewise, a male is not physically capable of marrying a male; only a female can accomplish that task.
Let's say the government gives out "7 foot tall licenses" or "certificates of being 7 feet tall" to every 7-foot-tall person who applies for one. Over time, government passes laws which treat people with these certificates differently than people without them, and people clamor for equality. The shorter population demands that "certificates of being 7 feet tall" be granted to anyone who applies and finally a circuit court proclaims that the government must certify anyone who applies as being 7 feet tall, regardless of qualifications.
My argument is that a 5-foot tall lady who bears a government-granted "certificate of being 7 feet tall" is still 5 feet tall.
You've stated one of the more popular fallacies in support of government theft. The most obvious (and complete) response is that I did not freely contract and agree to pay such a fee in return for such services, therefore noone can morally extract the tax from me. In addition, in practice, governments always use the majority of their revenue in ways which a large percentage of the taxpayers do not support and which many taxpayers are even morally opposed to. Even if it were right to collect fees for actual services used such as roads in the absence of an explicit agreement/contract, there is clearly no justification for taking money from a person in order to fund activities with which he disagrees.
Another argument is that your case is its own downfall. Your argument assumes that people want services like police, fire department, courts, and roads. In general, I agree that these are useful services which most people desire. However, as even a rudimentary introduction to economics will teach you, when the demand for a product is high, someone is likely to produce the product on a free market. Your argument makes the leap from "these services are useful and desireable" to "a single entity should use violence to enforce its own monopoly in the production of these services". Like any other product, in the absence of violent and/or fraudulent monopolies such as government, the market will produce a far superior system of courts, police, fire protection, etc., than any government could accomplish.
First of all, Christians believe that "the earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof" (see Psalm 24). Thus, "Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's" implies that we should give everything to God, as it is all His. For another example of how God regards taxation, read the account in I Samuel where God warned the Israelites against taking a king:
6 But the thing displeased Samuel, when they said, Give us a king to judge us. And Samuel prayed unto the Lord.
7 And the Lord said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee: for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them.
When the people sought a king to judge them, they were rejecting God. God further warns them that the king will take what is theirs and He clearly does not see this taking as a good thing:
10 And Samuel told all the words of the Lord unto the people that asked of him a king.
11 And he said, This will be the manner of the king that shall reign over you: He will take your sons, and appoint them for himself, for his chariots, and to be his horsemen; and some shall run before his chariots.
12 And he will appoint him captains over thousands, and captains over fifties; and will set them to ear his ground, and to reap his harvest, and to make his instruments of war, and instruments of his chariots.
13 And he will take your daughters to be confectionaries, and to be cooks, and to be bakers.
14 And he will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your oliveyards, even the best of them, and give them to his servants.
15 And he will take the tenth of your seed, and of your vineyards, and give to his officers, and to his servants.
16 And he will take your menservants, and your maidservants, and your goodliest young men, and your asses, and put them to his work.
17 He will take the tenth of your sheep: and ye shall be his servants.
18 And ye shall cry out in that day because of your king which ye shall have chosen you; and the Lord will not hear you in that day.
19 Nevertheless the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel; and they said, Nay; but we will have a king over us;
20 That we also may be like all the nations; and that our king may judge us, and go out before us, and fight our battles.
Second, even if Jesus had stated that individuals should pay taxes, such a statement would not make taxation non-theft. The idea that one should permit an evil act rather than actively oppose it does not imply that the act is not evil. To use another example, bank tellers are generally advised to cooperate with robbers so as the reduce the chances of people getting killed. This does not mean that bank robbery is not theft or that it is immoral to oppose bank robbery. Likewise with taxes.
I find it interesting that rather than try to distance themselves from the groups on the SLPC's list, these folks just scream liberal-conspiracy and claim that the list targets innocent conservative groups.
As Don Feder has observed: âoeWhat makes the Southern Poverty Law Center particularly odious is its habit of taking legitimate conservatives and jumbling them with genuine hate groups (the Klan, Aryan Nation, skinheads, etc.), to make it appear that thereâ(TM)s a logical relationship between say, opposing affirmative action and lynching, or demands for an end to government services for illegal aliens and attacks on dark-skinned immigrants.â
You know, most people grow out of saying "I know you are but what am I?" as a rebuttal by the time they can type....
You missed the point completely. I was refuting your fallacious appeal to authority argument. Appealing to the SPLC is just as bad as quoting the TVC in the first place.
By the way, why does anyone have to "resist the imposition of anti-Christian regulations and statutes on free people."?
This is not the position of the TVC, but the answer is because all government is of violence and theft and is hence anti-Christian. But you don't have to be Christian to realize that.
Or better yet, take the welfare out of the law -- it has no place there.
As good as that sounds, I'm afraid it's not terribly realistic.
Why not? In the specific case of the income tax, which is the main tax where this particular "discrimination" arises, it is certainly realistic. We've only had an income tax for fewer than 100 years anyway. Why should it be seen as necessary?
In the more general sense, eliminating government may be a more realistic goal than you realize. Certainly there is a lot of opposition to such an idea, but education, in theory, can overcome that. There are no real practical barriers to a market anarchy where individual liberty abounds. Any service or product which people now expect the government to provide is by definition a service or product which is in demand and thus one which private individuals and groups would provide on the market. For those without money, charity would abound in a free society where those inclined to give would have much more of their own of which to give.
Granted, human nature does tend toward lying, but I wouldn't go so far as to say that honesty is "inhuman". Regardless of one's opinion of homosexual relationships, calling one a marriage is a lie.
And no, abortion is not illegal for men. There are many men who perform abortions. That's not the only way in which your analogy fails, however.
Your last example is interesting. Outlawing heterosexual marriage would have the same effect as legislating the term "marriage" for homosexual relationships. The effect would be in statue only. Heterosexual marriages would not cease to exist; they would simply be illegal. Likewise, legislation cannot bring homosexual marriage, a contradiction in terms, into existence.
You are obviously confusing egalitarianism with justice. No, it would not be fair to outlaw marriage and only permit homosexual relationships. While everyone under such a law would have equality under the law -- everyone would be legally permitted to engage in homosexual relationships and noone would be permitted to marry -- equality is far from a decent standard for justice. Equality just means everyone's chains are the same length.
If Google wants to offer insurance benefits that include gay partners, well they can do so.
That's not quite true -- although as a state issue, Prop 8 doesn't have anything to do with this. Like hundreds of other benefits, health insurance has a FEDERAL tax benefit tied to marriage. Even if an employer offers insurance to a same-sex partner, that partner has to pay tax on the full retail value of that insurance, as if it were income. Only a married partner can receive health insurance without the additional tax burden. Because insurance on the retail market is so expensive, the additional tax often makes the insurance unaffordable (as I can attest from experience).
That's one reason the marriage issue is so important to same-sex couples. Many federal benefits are tied up with the act of marriage, in law.
So the answer is to get government out of the business of taxation. Not to call something what it is not. Whatever the virtues or vices of homosexual relationships, one thing that they cannot be is marriage. Just as a relationship between two men cannot be an alarm clocks or a French hen, neither can it accurately be called a marriage.
Well, apparently you weren't told. There is no rights differential. Heterosexuals and homosexuals all have the right to marry. Homosexuals generally choose not to, because they prefer someone of the same sex. In other words, noone has the right to marry someone of the same sex, whether he is gay or straight. Heterosexuals do not have more rights.
Max is/was/will always be a guy who stole identities and money other people, in many cases making their lives living Hell. You can toot all you want about the evil FBI, but fact of the matter is that Max is a thief who took things that didn't belong to him.
Speaking of making up definitions... nice signature.
Point of fact, the difference between embryo and fetus is purely subjective.
From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:
fetus
n : an unborn or unhatched vertebrate in the later stages of development showing the main recognizable features of the mature animal [syn: {foetus}]
(emphasis added)
From a moral standpoint, a fetus is equivalent to an embryo. Then again, so are you.
I'm not sure what you mean by "more tools of socialism rather what we have now". They are socialistic instruments in the sense of denying property rights and redistributing property from one group to another.
Austrians do tend to be minarchists or anarchists, yes. Anyone who really understands the nature of the state and its horrible effects on people and markets would have to be an anarchist. It takes awhile for some to get there, though; there's a lot to learn, and many have not actually seriously considered anarchy, largely because it is so different from most of recorded history.
Actually Congress gets around it, largely, with funding:
The Congress has enlarged the federal role in ensuring highway safety since passage of the Federal Aid-Highway Act. In 1965 Congress added 23 U. S.C. 135, 79 Stat. 578, requiring each State to have a federally approved highway safety program 'designed to reduce traffic accidents and deaths.' And because of the absence of effective state action, the following year the Congress passed the Highway Safety Act, 23 U.S.C. 401 et seq. Section 402(a) provides that the Secretary promulgate regulations for the state highway safety program. Pursuant to this provision the Secretary has promulgated [416 U.S. 946 , 948] regulations regarding highway skid resistance and guardrailings. 344 F. Supp., at 1348 n. 14. Congress increased the federal role because state highway safety programs had 'generally been missing.'3 As in the Federal- Aid-Highway Program, the Secretary is to withhold federal funds from States which do not comply with the federal regulations. 23 U.S.C. 116(c).
I've never seen any law that doesn't get applied at some arbitrary point. To claim that this one is weaker than others because it's arbitrary is absurd. Every law is an arbitrary creation of man that's then arbitrarily enforced.
Not every law, no. Only statutory law. That still leaves economic law, physical law, customary law, natural law, and contractual law.
And from that point of view, 90% of all laws are unconstitutional (maybe more).
More, and that is certainly not a valid defense of them.
Slashdot Mirror
There are many sufficient answers to your "move away" argument, which I am sure is disingenuous (unless you can name for me a truly libertarian country), but I will only list one here: I own my property and I have the right to use it. No one has the right to force me to trade in my property for other property somewhere else.
The majority only placed those people in office because they saw those people as the lesser of two evils. (And that only applies to certain types of government.) I agree that the minority should be protected from the tyranny of the majority, but unlike you I am consistent in that belief. After all, what must the minority be protected from? Loss of life? Loss of property? But these are products of government. Every minority -- every individual -- should be protected from the loss of his property at the hands of government and even at the hands of a 99.99% majority.
From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]: Marriage \Mar"riage\, n. [OE. mariage, F. mariage. See {Marry}, v. t.] 1. The act of marrying, or the state of being married; legal union of a man and a woman for life, as husband and wife; wedlock; matrimony. [1913 Webster]
From Bouvier's Law Dictionary, Revised 6th Ed (1856) [bouvier]: MARRIAGE. A contract made in due form of law, by which a free man and a free woman reciprocally engage to live with each other during their joint lives, in the union which ought to exist between husband and wife. By the terms freeman and freewoman in this definition are meant, not only that they are free and not slaves, but also that they are clear of all bars to a lawful marriage. Dig. 23, 2, 1; Ayl. Parer. 359; Stair, Inst. tit. 4, s. 1; Shelford on Mar. and Div. c. 1, s. 1.
I will not bother to attempt a full definition, but suffice it to say that a marriage is a relationship between a man and a woman who are united as husband and wife. Nevertheless, I would not be terribly hurt, although I would disagree, if you wanted to use a different definition of the word, if you did not seek to use the power of government to enforce your definition on people against their will. Your use of violent force (through your agent, the government) is my main quarrel with you.
Follow your religion all you want, but those of us who don't belong to it don't appreciate you attempting to codify your unsubstantiated beliefs into our legal and political systems
I should be the one saying that to you, since you're the one who wants to "codify your unsubstantiated beliefs into our legal and political systems". Nothing in my religion makes me want to do such a thing to you. I'm the one who wants to stop anyone from doing that to anyone else. You seem to be confusing me and the TVC. Try understanding my position before trying to use it as a basis to criticize me.
You say "the Christian right" attempts to force its teachings on you, but what's the difference between them and you? You also attempt to force your teachings, your religious belief that theft and murder are acceptable, on all of us. Keep your religion out of my life.
There must be full information available to all participants. Product quality, locations and prices of alternative suppliers, every relevant piece of information must be known. Not quite sure if the wine is good or not? That's an information problem. Not sure if the used car has problems? Don't know where any gas stations are except the ones beside the freeway in a strange town? No way to monitor the quality of the building built in Iraq with U.S. aid? No way to be sure if consultants are worth the amount they are being paid? Information problems are common and they can cause substantial departures from the perfectly competitive, ideal outcome.
In fact, free markets are extraordinary in that they do not require full information from all participants. The division of labor allows different specialists to each perform what they are good at and to profit from it. Think of Wikipedia, which thrived and become enormously popular precisely because it is not centrally planned. In a free market, individual consumers do not need to be experts in every subject, partly because some people will choose to become experts in providing this type of information to consumers and in ensuring the quality of products, and partly because of the power of word-of-mouth communication regarding products and companies among buyers.
2.) The falsity of "taxes are not theft" is obvious from the first consideration of the question. The proponents of this lie, as in the article you referenced, rely on the ability of one group to force a "contract" on another group against the will of the latter. Since such is against the nature of a contract, taxes are theft and the "taxes are not theft" hypothesis is absurd.
I have every right to use government roads and fire departments because the government steals my money and violently prevents private free market competition in these areas. A victim of theft has the right to recover what was stolen from him. Nevermind that my use of these services is irrelevant. Your ad hominem attacks are pathetic.
I only use government-built roads because the government uses monopoly powers to build those roads, hence driving out competition which would otherwise thrive. I am forced to use government roads instead of the private roads which government discourages. Even if you don't mind paying to build them, you should not be thankful for publicly funded roads, because you would have much better roads if the free market had been allowed to build them.
Conditions in Somalia have improved quite a bit since its government was thrown out, as bad as it was to begin with, it's still far from perfect. A central government was never well suited for the people of Somalia; they only had one because departing colonial powers forced it on them. But it's not quite true that "there isn't any government", when there are, in fact, rival governments which hold power over parts of the country.
You essentially claim that people should be able to marry regardless of gender, i.e. that any person, male or female, has the right to marry a man, and vice versa. This argument is comparable to the claim that everyone should have the right to be (naturally) 7 feet tall. The physical fact is that not everyone is 7 feet tall, whether he has the "right" to be or not. Likewise, a male is not physically capable of marrying a male; only a female can accomplish that task.
Let's say the government gives out "7 foot tall licenses" or "certificates of being 7 feet tall" to every 7-foot-tall person who applies for one. Over time, government passes laws which treat people with these certificates differently than people without them, and people clamor for equality. The shorter population demands that "certificates of being 7 feet tall" be granted to anyone who applies and finally a circuit court proclaims that the government must certify anyone who applies as being 7 feet tall, regardless of qualifications.
My argument is that a 5-foot tall lady who bears a government-granted "certificate of being 7 feet tall" is still 5 feet tall.
Another argument is that your case is its own downfall. Your argument assumes that people want services like police, fire department, courts, and roads. In general, I agree that these are useful services which most people desire. However, as even a rudimentary introduction to economics will teach you, when the demand for a product is high, someone is likely to produce the product on a free market. Your argument makes the leap from "these services are useful and desireable" to "a single entity should use violence to enforce its own monopoly in the production of these services". Like any other product, in the absence of violent and/or fraudulent monopolies such as government, the market will produce a far superior system of courts, police, fire protection, etc., than any government could accomplish.
6 But the thing displeased Samuel, when they said, Give us a king to judge us. And Samuel prayed unto the Lord. 7 And the Lord said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee: for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them.
When the people sought a king to judge them, they were rejecting God. God further warns them that the king will take what is theirs and He clearly does not see this taking as a good thing:
10 And Samuel told all the words of the Lord unto the people that asked of him a king. 11 And he said, This will be the manner of the king that shall reign over you: He will take your sons, and appoint them for himself, for his chariots, and to be his horsemen; and some shall run before his chariots. 12 And he will appoint him captains over thousands, and captains over fifties; and will set them to ear his ground, and to reap his harvest, and to make his instruments of war, and instruments of his chariots. 13 And he will take your daughters to be confectionaries, and to be cooks, and to be bakers. 14 And he will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your oliveyards, even the best of them, and give them to his servants. 15 And he will take the tenth of your seed, and of your vineyards, and give to his officers, and to his servants. 16 And he will take your menservants, and your maidservants, and your goodliest young men, and your asses, and put them to his work. 17 He will take the tenth of your sheep: and ye shall be his servants. 18 And ye shall cry out in that day because of your king which ye shall have chosen you; and the Lord will not hear you in that day. 19 Nevertheless the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel; and they said, Nay; but we will have a king over us; 20 That we also may be like all the nations; and that our king may judge us, and go out before us, and fight our battles.
Second, even if Jesus had stated that individuals should pay taxes, such a statement would not make taxation non-theft. The idea that one should permit an evil act rather than actively oppose it does not imply that the act is not evil. To use another example, bank tellers are generally advised to cooperate with robbers so as the reduce the chances of people getting killed. This does not mean that bank robbery is not theft or that it is immoral to oppose bank robbery. Likewise with taxes.
I find it interesting that rather than try to distance themselves from the groups on the SLPC's list, these folks just scream liberal-conspiracy and claim that the list targets innocent conservative groups.
Oh, and the TVC does distance itself from groups like the Aryan Nation:
As Don Feder has observed: âoeWhat makes the Southern Poverty Law Center particularly odious is its habit of taking legitimate conservatives and jumbling them with genuine hate groups (the Klan, Aryan Nation, skinheads, etc.), to make it appear that thereâ(TM)s a logical relationship between say, opposing affirmative action and lynching, or demands for an end to government services for illegal aliens and attacks on dark-skinned immigrants.â
You know, most people grow out of saying "I know you are but what am I?" as a rebuttal by the time they can type....
You missed the point completely. I was refuting your fallacious appeal to authority argument. Appealing to the SPLC is just as bad as quoting the TVC in the first place.
By the way, why does anyone have to "resist the imposition of anti-Christian regulations and statutes on free people."?
This is not the position of the TVC, but the answer is because all government is of violence and theft and is hence anti-Christian. But you don't have to be Christian to realize that.
As good as that sounds, I'm afraid it's not terribly realistic.
Why not? In the specific case of the income tax, which is the main tax where this particular "discrimination" arises, it is certainly realistic. We've only had an income tax for fewer than 100 years anyway. Why should it be seen as necessary?
In the more general sense, eliminating government may be a more realistic goal than you realize. Certainly there is a lot of opposition to such an idea, but education, in theory, can overcome that. There are no real practical barriers to a market anarchy where individual liberty abounds. Any service or product which people now expect the government to provide is by definition a service or product which is in demand and thus one which private individuals and groups would provide on the market. For those without money, charity would abound in a free society where those inclined to give would have much more of their own of which to give.
And no, abortion is not illegal for men. There are many men who perform abortions. That's not the only way in which your analogy fails, however.
Your last example is interesting. Outlawing heterosexual marriage would have the same effect as legislating the term "marriage" for homosexual relationships. The effect would be in statue only. Heterosexual marriages would not cease to exist; they would simply be illegal. Likewise, legislation cannot bring homosexual marriage, a contradiction in terms, into existence.
You are obviously confusing egalitarianism with justice. No, it would not be fair to outlaw marriage and only permit homosexual relationships. While everyone under such a law would have equality under the law -- everyone would be legally permitted to engage in homosexual relationships and noone would be permitted to marry -- equality is far from a decent standard for justice. Equality just means everyone's chains are the same length.
Was your post meant to imply that it's wrong to want to keep one's own property safe from thieves?
American business is a game, where the winners are those who best exploit their workers, the tax code, government contracts, and the environment.
I don't like doublespeak either. Like calling the attempt to keep some of their own money and stay in business "exploiting the tax code".
Now, this charming piece of work is by "The Traditional Values Coalition", which is catagorized by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group.
And "The Southern Poverty Law Center" is categorized by The Traditional Values Coalition as poor on facts and substance. So what?
If Google wants to offer insurance benefits that include gay partners, well they can do so.
That's not quite true -- although as a state issue, Prop 8 doesn't have anything to do with this. Like hundreds of other benefits, health insurance has a FEDERAL tax benefit tied to marriage. Even if an employer offers insurance to a same-sex partner, that partner has to pay tax on the full retail value of that insurance, as if it were income. Only a married partner can receive health insurance without the additional tax burden. Because insurance on the retail market is so expensive, the additional tax often makes the insurance unaffordable (as I can attest from experience).
That's one reason the marriage issue is so important to same-sex couples. Many federal benefits are tied up with the act of marriage, in law.
So the answer is to get government out of the business of taxation. Not to call something what it is not. Whatever the virtues or vices of homosexual relationships, one thing that they cannot be is marriage. Just as a relationship between two men cannot be an alarm clocks or a French hen, neither can it accurately be called a marriage.
Well, apparently you weren't told. There is no rights differential. Heterosexuals and homosexuals all have the right to marry. Homosexuals generally choose not to, because they prefer someone of the same sex. In other words, noone has the right to marry someone of the same sex, whether he is gay or straight. Heterosexuals do not have more rights.
If you trust Barack Obama, you've already compromised your own security.
From the oppressive Bose-Einstein statistics!
Max is/was/will always be a guy who stole identities and money other people, in many cases making their lives living Hell. You can toot all you want about the evil FBI, but fact of the matter is that Max is a thief who took things that didn't belong to him.
You could say that about everyone in government.
Point of fact, the difference between embryo and fetus is purely subjective.
From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]: fetus n : an unborn or unhatched vertebrate in the later stages of development showing the main recognizable features of the mature animal [syn: {foetus}]
(emphasis added)
From a moral standpoint, a fetus is equivalent to an embryo. Then again, so are you.
Austrians do tend to be minarchists or anarchists, yes. Anyone who really understands the nature of the state and its horrible effects on people and markets would have to be an anarchist. It takes awhile for some to get there, though; there's a lot to learn, and many have not actually seriously considered anarchy, largely because it is so different from most of recorded history.
The Congress has enlarged the federal role in ensuring highway safety since passage of the Federal Aid-Highway Act. In 1965 Congress added 23 U. S.C. 135, 79 Stat. 578, requiring each State to have a federally approved highway safety program 'designed to reduce traffic accidents and deaths.' And because of the absence of effective state action, the following year the Congress passed the Highway Safety Act, 23 U.S.C. 401 et seq. Section 402(a) provides that the Secretary promulgate regulations for the state highway safety program. Pursuant to this provision the Secretary has promulgated [416 U.S. 946 , 948] regulations regarding highway skid resistance and guardrailings. 344 F. Supp., at 1348 n. 14. Congress increased the federal role because state highway safety programs had 'generally been missing.'3 As in the Federal- Aid-Highway Program, the Secretary is to withhold federal funds from States which do not comply with the federal regulations. 23 U.S.C. 116(c).
(emphasis added)
Mindy MEYERS, Etc., et al. v. Commonwealth of PENNSYLVANIA et al. No. 73-721. Supreme Court of the United States. April 15, 1974
I've never seen any law that doesn't get applied at some arbitrary point. To claim that this one is weaker than others because it's arbitrary is absurd. Every law is an arbitrary creation of man that's then arbitrarily enforced.
Not every law, no. Only statutory law. That still leaves economic law, physical law, customary law, natural law, and contractual law.
And from that point of view, 90% of all laws are unconstitutional (maybe more).
More, and that is certainly not a valid defense of them.