09-19-2017, 05:24 PM
(09-19-2017, 03:23 PM)noway2 Wrote:(09-18-2017, 10:11 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: But some of the important rights are negative rights. The freedom to drive without expecting a grossly-incompetent driver (such as drunk or on drugs) implies that there is no right to drive while drunk or on drugs. Real incomes for working people were already much above what they were in 1927 by 1937 in part because of wage-and-hour laws that kept an employer from compelling one to choose between working uncompensated overtime or losing a job. Licensing requirements for driving a car may have kept some really-stupid people from driving a car. When you think about it, the average person first eligible to get a driver's license (at 16) is as intellectually-developed as a full adult with an IQ of 80. License plates? Those make it far easier for the police to track stolen cars and people using cars in the commission of crimes.
You obviously have more freedom earning $50K a year than by earning $10K a year, at the least in consumer choice. There is obviously far more consumer choice today than in 1927. The only clear negatives to life being better for most people relate to population growth; housing rent is much bigger as a share of income, and commutes are longer.
There is an expression, probably an old one, I see bantered about and one that I have come to accept as an axiom: Freedom is messy. Still, I would gladly trade much of the bullshit, both corporate and especially government that we deal with today in exchange for freedom. Government is nothing but force and not a force for "good", though I realize that some think that is is or should be. There is also a saying about you're right to swing your fist ends at my nose and this is where things like drunk driving comes into play. Freedom does not mean you have the "right" to operate a vehicle on a public thoroughfare while intoxicated on the basis that you're putting other people in danger who do not have any say, meaning ability to agree to it, in the matter.
We obviously gave up some freedom to get more mobility, which explains the heavy regulation and taxation of automobiles and their fuels. When people relied heavily upon libraries for information accessible to anyone, we needed taxes to pay for them. Is education a public good (because it improves the earning potential for us all and makes life safer) or a private good because it gives people earning power? K-12 education is free, but college education is expensive. You can learn what is necessary to be a retail clerk or restaurant worker (with a below-average income) clerk in K-12 education, but certainly not enough to be an accountant (who gets an above-average income). Much of the object6ive of a K-12 education is to make one a suitable citizen, which means that one can cast a vote. Considering who got elected in 2016, maybe K-12 education isn't adequate for certain demographics.
Quote:The problem is that government is the idea that you can take a subset of individuals and bestow upon them super powers making them into rulers. It is an absurd principle in that people can't grant upon others that which they don't possess themselves. For that matter I do not believe that government should have police - agents of force who are paid through stolen funds taken under threat of violence (taxes) to enforce the edicts of the politicians. The "legal" system has become a big business in and of itself and it needs to end. What it has become is mostly a system designed to extort money out of the people in order to perpetuate itself while being wholly incapable and inadequate of dealing with "crime". The system has excelled at one thing and that is creating a whole host of "crimes" that are nothing but "crimes" against the State and then demands tribute under the threat of violence in response.
Ineffective police or corrupt police make life easy for gangsters. I want people busted for driving stolen cars. Without adequate police and fire protection, crime happens and houses burn down that otherwise wouldn't. Insurance is a cost of upkeep of a house and of a car -- if people are to buy those on mortgages or other loans. Without adequate police, we end up with private enforcers beholden to the richest person around.
Quote:As I've said in other threads, burn it down and lets return to a circa 1850 agrarian society; one that simply can't support "government" intrusion like we have today. I would much rather have that and have true freedom than the conveniences of today. As the album title of the Dead Kennedy's said in mockery: "give me convenience, or give me death" - it's become the AmeriKan motto.
Most of us would be serfs if such an economy were to re-appear.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.