Re: shuttle disaster
Ron Johnson <ron.l.johnson@cox.net> writes:
> On Fri, 2003-02-07 at 03:59, James Buchanan wrote:
> > > On Thu, Feb 06, 2003 at 11:34:51PM -0600, DvB wrote:
> > > > "James Buchanan" <jamesbuch@iprimus.com.au> writes:
> > > >
> > > > > Famine victims OK, but nobody has mentioned the people living in
> > > > > poverty in America. Boost welfare, more education funding,
> > subsidise
> > > > > pay rises for the lowest paid workers... ooops, America's budget
> > all
> > > > > gone ;-)
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > > <sarcasm>
> > > > Of course! If we spent that much, people with enough money to have
> > > > significant amounts of it in taxable stock accounts wouldn't be
> > able to
> > > > keep it all!
> > > > </sarcasm>
> > >
> > > Yeah, after all it's not their money .. they just worked hard to
> > earn
> > > it.
> >
> > I've lost the thread here, I don't really "get" the joke - can someone
> > explain this for me please. Maybe it's because I'm not American. :-)
>
> It seems as if there's a lot of (US) Americans on the list who think
> that Federal projects are a very good way to solve many/most of
> society's ills, and thus taxes are a Good Thing. Likewise, there
> seems to be another faction that thinks that gov't mostly can't find
> it's arse with both hands, a map, a flashlight (electric torch), and
> GPS, and thus excess taxes are a Bad Thing, because, by and large,
> the Private & NGO sectors can do a more efficient job with the money.
In that case, you should probably move to do away with the
government. The government is, by definition, a way for society to pool
its resources for the common good (mostly by providing services like law
enforcement, education, health care, utilities and
transportation). Governments also aren't normally able to pull money out
of their arses (even if they could find them with both hands, a map, a
flashlight and a GPS) and, hence, rely on specific sources of income
(mostly taxes) to implement and run these services.
If you have a problem with what the government is doing or how it is
spending your (and my) money, then you should probably make use of our
wonderful, democratic system that we think everyone else should
emulate. I, for instance, wrote a letter to my senator telling him how
idiotic I thought it was that our leaders were planning to open up ANWAR
for oil drilling instead of actually finding a solution to the
problem, and actually got a reply (which surprised me). I assume many
other people also did so, since that moronic political maneuver hasn't
been brought up for quite a while.
Furthermore, if you think that the fact that we're not $300B in the hole
means we have excess taxes, you probably need your head checked (or
maybe your need help finding your arse, so you can pull it out). Once
you find a private company or NGO that's willing to provide adequate
transportation service to my metropolitan area, without making a profit,
I might also be willing to discuss the possibility of giving them my
taxes intead of the government.
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