From: rdippold@cancun.qualcomm.com (Ron Dippold)
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: Re: Want _Your_ Blood to Boil too?
Date: 25 Aug 92 19:25:58 GMT
Organization: Qualcomm, Inc., San Diego, CA

duggan@terminus.gatech.edu (Rick Duggan) writes:
>In article <1992Aug19.133159.4961@tijc02.uucp> pjs269@tijc02.uucp (Paul Schmidt) writes:
>>I want people to be able to get the necessities in life.  I think people
>>in society should provide them -- voluntarily.  Americans give
>>$100,000,000 a year to charities in time and money voluntarily.  People
>>are willing to pay for the necessities of other people.  Government
>>collects its money by using force and has no incentive to use the money
>>wisely so the quality of the services will be poor and the cost high.
>>

>Okay, let's say your hundred million a year figure is true.  
>Conservately, I would estimate that 10% of the U.S. population
>lives in poverty.  That's 25 million people.

10% in poverty?  Or 10% at what the US Government calls the poverty
level - where those in "poverty" own their own homes, cars, TVs, and
satellite dishes?


>So, the rest of
>the generous Americans (I hate the word USans) give a paltry 
>$4 a year to each of these people, who, by some definition, are
>needy.  That doesn't sound like enough to really help at all.
>Even if it's only a million people, $100 is nowhere near enough.

We've spent enough on social programs to have lifted every single one
of these people out of poverty, if the amount of money spent was all
that mattered, and if we just gave them the money.  $100 per is
amazing, considering that we're being taxed at 40-50%, and this, we're
told, takes care of all these social problems.  If you want to use a
number, use the number for donations if all taxes related to social
spending were canceled.



>>This is where you have implied force.  Force is needed to collect taxes.
>>If a robber comes into your home and steals money from you, this is
>>morally wrong.  If 10 robbers steal from you, it is still wrong.  Same
>>with 100.  How many people does it take in a gang to make the immorality
>>of robbery a moral tax?

>There is very little similarity between the government and a robber
>who steals from you. 

The government can do it brazenly, is not content to rob you just
once, and is generally more vicious if you don't cough up the money.


>Does the robber provide you with police protection (obviously not :-)

They do if they're the mafia, which has many other similarities to the
government.


>, fire protection, roads, etc?

I don't need the government for that.


>The robber isn't providing you anything with the money he takes.

The mafia does.


>You might argue that the government doesn't provide 
>services effectively or efficiently with its (your) money, but they 
>are provided.  

I don't want them.  I really don't give a damn if the robber offers to
mow my lawn after he steals my money, or to protect me from other
robbers.  It doesn't make it right.


>Look, government isn't designed to be efficient.  I learned that
>in 8th grade U.S. history.  If it were efficient and able to 
>change quickly, it could too easily bend to current whims
>and deny rights to minorities.  (Or at least that's why I learned
>a bureaucracy isn't supposed to be efficient.)

Oh, please!  Government isn't efficient because it has no incentive to
be efficient when it can steal all the money it wants, and it never
will.  This is not a bad try at an excuse, however.  The apologist who
thought that up probably wasn't a bureaucrat.

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Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk