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Re: shuttle disaster



On Fri, 2003-02-07 at 17:01, DvB wrote:
> 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.
[snip large rant]

Note I used the word "excess" when referring to that position on The
Issue Of Government Competence.

Only anarchists believe that government should not exist, and American
conservatives & libertarians are most emphatically *not* anarchists.
They more or less believe in a limited Federal government.

-- 
+------------------------------------------------------------+
| Ron Johnson, Jr.     Home: ron.l.johnson@cox.net           |
| Jefferson, LA  USA   http://members.cox.net/ ron.l.johnson |
|                                                            |
| "For me and windows it became a matter of easy to start    |
|  with, and becoming increasingly difficult to be produc-   |
|  tive as time went on, and if something went wrong very    |
|  difficult to fix, compared to linux's large over head     |
|  setting up and learning the system with ease of use and   |
|  the increase in productivity becoming larger the longer I |
|  use the system."                                          | 
|   Rohan Nicholls , The Netherlands                         |
+------------------------------------------------------------+



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