>>>>Really? I never noticed your objecting to being "lumped in with him" when you get together with him to insult me.<<<<

What "insult" are you talking about?

>>>>>I don't believe that government per se is evil statism.<<<<<

I am well aware of that. In fact you view the state as a Force for Good, rather than the legalized mafia it is.

>>>> I believe that people's private pies are acquired through common, societal means<<<<<

Whoa. What are these "common societal means"?? What "common societal means did Jeff Bezos use when he had the idea for Amazon? Wozniak and Jobs? Henry Ford?

>>>> and that taxation is not theft because everyone has the opportunity to earn a living - or should - and SHOULD pay taxes, their own fair share of whatever it takes to keep the society functioning.<<<<

Again, whoa! By what authority do you assert this "should"? Who decides what is "fair" given that your authority is righteous? What do you mean by "keep society functioning"? Are you seriously saying that "society" cannot exist unless it is looted and tyrannized by other members of "society"?? I've got news for youse: when a society exists to be enslaved and plundered for a ruling class it is no longer much of a "society".

>>>> Not via government-funded research tax dollars going to private corporations, however.
<<<<

Well, now. Just WHO is giving the TAXPAYER FUNDED, yes, TAXPAYER FUNDED (because government HAS no money of their own), money to those evil private corps to begin with? It is not the idea of the looted taxpayer, I assure you.

>>>>Quote:
Neither of you sees a thing wrong with the sword of the state itself being used against the people, except when it is used in ways not in accord with your personal view of the world as it "should" be.XXXXX You believe that society should exist based on closed-off little enclaves in a privatized world, "covenant" communities.<<<<<<

Not necessarily. If people WANT that, they should have it.

>>>>>>I do see "a thing wrong" with the sword of the state used AGAINST the people. But I also believe that people allowed corporatocracy to take over government.<<<<

How did they allow it? By not voting for GOOD looters?? LOL! What "people" did you expect to stop it? The 99% who, "working within the system" "made their voices heard" and protested against the trillions in banker and union bailouts? And were IGNORED? The ones who are stripped of gun rights and treated as guilty at airports? The ones dumbed down for generations and taught to love Big Brother in the kidjails? Of course! The state class wielding absolute power are not bad, it is us who have zero power who are not stopping them who are the culprits!

>>>> This does not mean that it has to remain this way forever.<<<<

Well, YOU are welcome to reform statism for your own life. When you create your perfect state, let me know and I'll come for a visit.

>>>>You might try reading this to try to figure out how things got this way and how to reclaim government from the corporations that now control it.<<<<

Nah, sorry, no thanks. I am not interested in "reforming" evil, either the state or the indoctrination gulag. I am willing for YOU to live in such a system, if that is what YOU want, and live your life endlessly bickering over who gets "the pie", although I doubt there would be much "pie" for you to to loot for "society" but give to corporations.

>>>>>But no, you believe in a privatized market economy, privatized roads, privatized security forces, privatized everything, including the sale of one's own body parts for transplant.<<<

Only if one wants that. You are free to live in a community that is fully communistic and "unselfish".

>>>>>I don't. In fact, I can't imagine a much worse society in which to live than the ones you describe when talking about anarcho-capitalism and free markets,<<<<

So don't live in one. Contract with others and form your own commune/kibbutz type arrangement where there are no evil corporations or "sweatshops". What is the big deal?

>>>>>as if market mechanisms were a good stand-in for government.<<<<<

As if??? You are not getting this. Open your mind. Why would I want to "substitute" ANYTHING for state tyranny?? Market mechanisms are simply that. The most efficient, cheapest and fair means of production and distribution.

>>>> Nor am I pursuing perfect worlds.<<<<

Of course you are! You and Ron BOTH are. Instead of letting excellence and liberty call the shots, you want to be as little gods and decide how the pie of other peoples productivity "should" be divvied up, how they "should" live, what they "should think". You are a regular Church Lady with all your moral superiority in service of statism as YOUR "greatest good".

>>>>The only apparent place where you feel property ownership should not prevail is in intellectual property.<<<<<

That is because it doesn't exist. An idea is something that is used by someone else you still have it. Not only that, in our current culture protected ideas are MADE prevalent and stored in peoples heads without their even realizing it via the media. IP is actually not a property right, it is a control on thought and behavior.

>>>> As if any book author or inventor should spend years creating something, only to give it away for free the next day.<<<

Oh, dear!! No one would write books without copyright law! LOL! You are against something being given away for free??!! But it benefits "society"! Why are you protecting THIS particular piece of "pie"?? Perhaps because it is so close to YOUR pie?

>>>> There is a legitimate need for copyright law and intellectual property rights for a certain limited number of years.<<<<

B.S.! Besides, your great state priests in black robes simply EXTEND the "protection" as they see fit for the corporations. And now we have universities and labs copyrighting the DNA of other humans, sometimes even without their knowledge. Someday the plan is to have to apply for permission to reproduce, and I'm sure, pay a royalty for the "right".

>>>>>You also claim to believe in self-ownership. However, that concept goes out the window if you think a mother should sacrifice her own life so a fetus can be brought to birth.<<<<<

I hope I would. Maybe you have to be a mother, or want to be one very badly to understand that. But I'm not saying YOU should have to. It would be personal choice. No one elses business.

>>>>> Gee, I guess women aren't self-owners after all. Turns out only men get to claim privilege as their own.<<<<<

How so? I believe that the unborn are human. You do not. Another reason why we should not live in the same "society". You need a "society" where the unborn can be butchered at will, even "celebrated" as a great "liberty".

>>>>>And how would you wield the force and coercion of private security forces in your Dream Land Anarcho-Capitalist utopia?<<<<<

I am not the one promising utopia. All I promise is liberty. The rest is up to you. YOU are the one claiming government does all sorts of good and society can't exist without it, claiming the utopian notion that you just need "good" rulers and "the people" need to control them and THEN "society" will be all that it "should" be....No thanks.

>>>>>>Would you charge anyone concerned over product safety or environmental safety with eco-terrorism? <<<<

Concerned? No. I wouldn't "charge" anyone with anything, except perhaps property destruction and demand recompense if they did.

Look over any thread where you and Ron have both commented on my commentary. Insults galore to be found there.

Another one of your "Why I hate government" diatribes, sprinkled with a few more insults and accusations, containing no positive suggestions on ways to make things better.



How about roads, shipping, employees, telecommunications and computer infrastructure, copyright law . . . ad infinitum.


ARPANET

Law, you know, that harebrained concept adjudicated in courts of law.

Henry Ford?


Chapter 11 of Underground, by John Taylor Gatto

"4Many people I meet consider the Ford Foundation a model of enlightened corporate beneficence, and al-
though Jesse Jackson’s "Hymietown" remark ended his serious political prospects in America, Ford’s much deeper and more relentless scorn for those he considered mongrel races and religions, particularly the Jews, has long been forgiven and forgotten. On July 30, 1938, the Hitler government presented Henry Ford with the Grand Cross of the Supreme Order of the German Eagle. Only three other non-Germans ever got that honor and Benito Mussolini was one of them."

Are you referring to the encouragement Ford gave Hitler, for which he won the Grand Cross of the Supreme Order of the German Eagle? Or his Frederick Taylorized assembly lines where the dumbed-downed grads found employment instead of fulfilling their human potential?

Funny how you seem to reject public school dumbing down, but actually embrace the other societal wonders men like Ford brought about, including the I AM AMERICAN song workers sang in the factory, assembly line efficiency and who knows what else. At the same time you manage to laud industrial magnates (the capitalists, as in anarcho-capitalism), you try to blame me and the Fabians for the massification of humans into hive drones, the soviet man.



No, I am referring to taking society back from the corporate "looters" and welfare recipients.

Your commentary would all be quite comical were you not serious about the absurdities you post here.

>>>>>Look over any thread where you and Ron have both commented on my commentary. Insults galore to be found there.<<<
No time to go proving your point. I thought there was something in particular you objected to.

>>>>Another one of your "Why I hate government" diatribes, sprinkled with a few more insults and accusations, containing no positive suggestions on ways to make things better.<<<<

Here's a suggestion that I continually make that you never seem to grasp: STOP trying to ""make things better". Leave people ALONE. Free us from the tyranny of your "good intentions". My idea of how to "make things better" is to STOP trying to shove ways of making things better at gunpoint down peoples throats. LEAVE us alone. Maybe we don't want what YOU think is "better". Maybe you have no right to "make" anyone or anything "better", at least not by forcing another utopian scheme/reform on them via "governance". You are welcome to make YOURSELF "better", of course. But I'm sure you think YOU are fine just the way you are.
>>>>>Quote:
Whoa. What are these "common societal means"?? What "common societal means did Jeff Bezos use when he had the idea for Amazon? Wozniak and Jobs? Henry Ford?XXXXXX
How about roads, shipping, employees, telecommunications and computer infrastructure, copyright law . . . ad infinitum.<<<<<<

But they already OWN the roads, paid for them with taxes. No one provided them for free. There is no separate borg called “society” like a Great Oz that provides roads and other taxpayer funded “infrastructure”. Your notion that all are eternally beholden to the Great nebulous Society borg for anything they achieve /produce after they have been looted at gunpoint to pay for it is ludicrous and self serving. As far as copyright law, that is the game the current system of “governance” forces on people. And I don’t see that Henry Ford stopped a lot of people from using assembly line techniques. Rather, the rulers found it quite useful for their mind laundries.

>>>>Law, you know, that harebrained concept adjudicated in courts of law.<<<<

So your authority for demanding the looting of people by other people and decreeing their “fair share” to be looted is the looters? Dirty job, but someones gotta do it, right?

>>>>>Henry Ford?
Chapter 11 of Underground, by John Taylor Gatto
"4Many people I meet consider the Ford Foundation a model of enlightened corporate beneficence, and al-
………………was one of them."
Are you referring to the encouragement Ford gave Hitler, for which he won the Grand Cross of the Supreme Order of the German Eagle? Or his Frederick Taylorized assembly lines where the dumbed-downed grads found employment instead of fulfilling their human potential?<<<<<<

OOOOooooooo, noooooooo. Hitler, Nazi, evil, Nazi, Nazi, NAZI…eeeeeeeeekkkkkkkkk!!!!
Shall we go into the awards given the NYT reporter Duranty for his propaganda whitwashing the atrocities of Stalin, because, well, the NYT LIKES commies? As usual you see no evil but Hitler and Nazis. Shall we demonize and castigate Henry Ford (who had many faults) for his eugenicist views while ignoring those same views by Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood? The statement by Prince Philip that he’d like to be reincarnated as a deadly virus to wipe out most of the 3rd world? At least Henry Ford provided a useful business model. Hitler also greatly admired Saint Abe Lincoln, you know.

>>>>>Funny how you seem to reject public school dumbing down, but actually embrace the other societal wonders men like Ford brought about, including the I AM AMERICAN song workers sang in the factory, assembly line efficiency and who knows what else. At the same time you manage to laud industrial magnates (the capitalists, as in anarcho-capitalism), you try to blame me and the Fabians for the massification of humans into hive drones, the soviet man.<<<<<

Where the industrial magnates and business leaders and I part company is when they begin to use “governance” to mold society to THEIR benefit. And you have no issue with that as long as “society” is being molded as YOU deem proper. Well, I don’t like being molded by YOU or THEM.

>>>>>>Quote:
Are you seriously saying that "society" cannot exist unless it is looted and tyrannized by other members of "society"??XXXXXXX
No, I am referring to taking society back from the corporate "looters" and welfare recipients.<<<<<

What about the members of society who are not up for grabs by you OR them?

>>>>>Your commentary would all be quite comical were you not serious about the absurdities you post here.<<<<<

And a post from you would not be complete without this hackneyed insulting (oh, but I am so awful with my joining Ron and “insulting“ you)“ending”. I think it is the “editor” in you. Must have an “ending” to make the post “complete“, tie it together, and might as well sum up any points I might make as “absurd”

Aha, so you do favor force and coercion, but only for the things you agree with in principle.

Taxation isn't theft if you use public roads, public transportation, other infrastructure, fire departments and those "heroes in blue" you love to disparage.

And btw, the military adventurism - with over 1 million dead Iraqis - is now to the tune of trillions. Where are the social programs that come close to those figures? That support Boeing and Raytheon and other "defense" contractors?

If the injured party were dead, his problems would be over. Your own might not be, relying as you do on the market and insurance companies to solve all problems - the ones God doesn't take care of.

>>>>Aha, so you do favor force and coercion, but only for the things you agree with in principle.<<<<

? What are you referring to?

>>>>Taxation isn't theft if you use public roads, public transportation, other infrastructure, fire departments and those "heroes in blue" you love to disparage.<<<<<

Why isn't it? What is yourt definition of theft? Do you have one? Or do you simply decide arbitrarily that stealing for the things you want others to pay for is not theft?

>>>>>And btw, the military adventurism - with over 1 million dead Iraqis - is now to the tune of trillions. Where are the social programs that come close to those figures? That support Boeing and Raytheon and other "defense" contractors?<<<<<

So your definition of theft depends upon amount stolen and the purposes for which it is stolen? The ends (ends YOU favor) justify the means? What makes YOUR ends better than say, Cheneys? Please articulate your definition of theft. I am not trying to pick on you ("Aha"!!..???), I want to understand why you think stealing is not stealing if government does it for the ends you favor.

>>>>>Quote:
Nope. The wronged party can deal with the drivers insurance co. or the perpetrator can be shunned and refused trade. Life can become very hard, very fast.XXXXXXX
If the injured party were dead, his problems would be over. Your own might not be, relying as you do on the market and insurance companies to solve all problems - the ones God doesn't take care of.<<<<<

?? I'm not sure what you are referring to. The role of insurance would simply be a type of guarantee of a standard of behavior...or financial restitution for loss suffered by others for our transgressions/mistakes. This seems to freak you out. This makes no sense as under the current system there is little restitution for wronged parties, other than INSURANCE. People are fed into the criminal justice industry, jailed, lives ruined, fines paid, not to victims, but to the state. People would have the right to restrict their associations and trade to insured people, people would have the option to not be insured and run the risk of finding trade difficult. For example, what would be so wrong with a young person who caused a death in a car accident to contract with the family of the deceased to work in some capacity for a length of time as restitution? There would be only social pressure providing incentive for this, the person might find others unwilling to trade or socialize with him unless he does behave in a manner of responsibility. This is where smaller, more homogeneous communities would be of value. If the individual left without restituting (?), people in a new community might require some kind of recommendation or insurance,guarantee of a standard of behavior before trading or socializing.

My definition of theft is taking something from someone that doesn't belong to you. Get it?

As explained above, I do not view taxation as theft because people earn a living in society based on societal mechanisms, not strictly market mechanisms (unless you're von Hayek in Chile), and people have an obligation to support the common ground that allows societies to function.

This is already happening in limited ways via the worldwide Restorative Justice movement.

>>>>My definition of theft is taking something from someone that doesn't belong to you. Get it?<<<<

Then by your own definition, taxation is theft.

>>>>>As explained above, I do not view taxation as theft because people earn a living in society based on societal mechanisms, not strictly market mechanisms (unless you're von Hayek in Chile), and people have an obligation to support the common ground that allows societies to function.<<<<<

No, what you are saying is that you think some people should be allowed to steal to finance YOUR ideas...and have decreed that THIS is "not theft".

Got it?