Small government is better than large government

Hello. Thank you for acceptting the debate. I will try to get to all of your points. I should mention I am from Canada, but am very willing to talk about the US goverment speccifacly as it is a great example. I will define human rights as things that fall under the non agression principle. This means that you can do pretty much whatever you want as long as you don't dierctly hurt others (violince, cohersion, theft... etc.). Also you saying the government grants rights is incorrect. This implies that without government people would not have rights and also that the government can revoke rights at anytime since they are not truly our rights, but somethimg the governmet lets us have. 1. You say the government must protect us from corporations and rich people, but this is not the case. These people actually use the government to take advantage of people. Before I get into how I should state the diffrence between earned and unearned things/money. If a company or person provides a service that people volutanrly buy than they have honestly earned that money. On the other hand if someone robs or takes someone elses things without permission it is dishonset. The government allows people to make dishonest money. By lobbying the government rich people and companies can get laws written or subsities given that give them and unfair advatage that is undeserved. For example government bailed out banks that would have otherwise failed using taxpayes money. This allowed the super rich investers in the banks to suffer no consequences while making the taxpayers pay for it. It is imoral to take away honest money or provide someone with dishonest money 2. The smaller the government the less of an ability it has to take the peoples rights. Only the people can keep the government in check, but if the government is given powers such as being able to declare martial law and suspend citizens rights it is nearly impossible to control it. You justifty taxes by saying people use what the goverment forces them to pay for. Nearly all of these things minus (police military, courts) could be provided by the free market. I do not belive in an income tax because it implies the government owns our work. A more moral way of taxing would either be a flat tax or a user fee on services like roads. 2 a+b+c) Entitlemets are not rights. Rights come from feedoms that can only lead to some entitlments in very specific cases. The diffrence between freedoms and entitlements are that rights are from somethimg and entitlments are to something. For example you have the right to be free from imprisiment for no reason, so when you get arrested a lawyer is provided. On the other hand welfare, healthcare and housing are not rights or something the government must provide. These things envolve peoples time and effort so to say these are a right it implies that a person has a right to something that isn't theirs or is someone elses. You cant force someone to provide services against their will or someone to pay for a service you recive so the goverment shouldnt be allowed to either. The fact that it benifits the majority does not make it moral. I agree some people can not take care of themselves, but this is up to charity not governemnt. Majority of people dont want to see others die on the streets so if government cut taxes people would be willing to donate to charities. This also lead to better results as private charaties are far more efficent than the government. Charties that are ineffecient get a bad reputation and people stop donating to them. On the other hand goverment gets tax money regardless of how efficently they use it. This logic can be applied to things like education or any service that government attempts to provide. The way the government funds entitlements is also bad. They either tax, burrow or print money. All 3 of these things steal from the people by either directly taking their money (now taxes, later borrowing) or in the case of printing it devalues what peoples money is worth through inflation. 2 d) I would agree that these things are necesarry for national defense, but government is much bigger than those things. In terms of road I believe the government should make it easier for more competion from private groups which wluld drive down costs. 3. What makes US govermnet to large: - over 20 trillion dollars of debt with not actual intetions of paying it back. - Spying on its own citizens without warrants (ex FISA courts, wire tapping, mass collection of data) - envolment in other countries such as nation building (ex. the middle east which has not worked.) - foreign aid which takes taxpayers money and gives it to other people (could and should be done by charity)