From: Mike Lorrey (mlorrey@datamann.com)
Date: Wed Jul 18 2001 - 13:30:00 MDT
Randy Smith wrote:
>
> >From: Mike Lorrey
> >
> >Miriam English wrote:
> > > OK... I would have said this a little differently, but let's take
> your
> > > example. It reduces to: A person's right to life is dwarfed by
> another
> > > person's right to wealth. Huh?!?
> > >
> > > You can see how silly this line gets. This will happen anytime you
> try to
> > > talk about morality in terms of absolutes. This is exactly what
> religions do.
> >
> >Miriam, it is quite simple: what IS wealth? What IS money? It is a
> >symbol of value added by labor. Every dollar in the world represents
> >time from someone's life spent sweating their butt when they could
> have
> >been smelling the roses. Some people's ideas, decisions, and
> leadership
> >skills are immensely valuable, so some people make more money than
> >others.
> >
> >So the question is: in a society that abhors slavery, what is the
> >rationale for confiscating the labor of free individuals? I have yet
> to
> >hear anyone come up with an explaination why enslaving 100% of the
> >population 10% of the time is any less morally abhorrent than
> enslaving
> >10% of the people 100% of the time. If you can come up with a morally
> >and logically consistent answer to this, I am all ears. Nobody else
> has
> >to date.
>
> I prefer to see govt as management running a jointly owned place of
> business -- the USA (england etc). People vote for the management
> much as stockholders vote for management.
But stockholders don't get billed, and customers always have a choice of
the services they wish to receive or not, and are billed according to
what services they demand and use. Here, it is those who use the
services least that pay the most, and those that use the most that pay
the least. That is NOTHING like a jointly owned place of business.
>
> What is the rationale for the the management of this place of business
> throwing-out/fining some owner who refuses to pay his share of
> maintenance fees? Same thing, etc....
Only if the owner agrees to receive the services offered.
>
> You may well argue that the fees are misspent; no doubt there is such
> in any large corporation; but if you don't like the situation, you can
> leave (or try to change it).
>
> Slaves can't leave; they are chained. Taxpayers who don't like the
> maintenance fees, can leave....no chains!
And go where, exactly? And there certainly ARE chains: you don't get to
leave with your net worth, generally half of your assets are seized (if
not all with many countries) when you leave. We even have such a law
here in the US (passed, of course, during the Clinton administration).
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