Fundemntal change in America has started..

Originally posted by Wajoma
lolol we've seen your example, one department in one state creates a code. While in another department in another state they try to break that code. An example of the broken window fallacy if ever there were one.

The notion that a complete absence of government equates to freedom for the individual is ideological and irrational. There are too many modern examples of failed governments to suggest that people do better in the absence of government.

In the early Middle Ages you will find that people could be classified into serfs, free men, knights and nobility. Serfs were subject to the will of others and had no freedom. Free men had the protection of legal rights and duties and the extent of their freedom was measured in the extent to which their lives were surrounded with laws. Some rulers tried to limit their freedom - not by means of stronger laws, but by means of arbitrary rule. It was laws that proclaimed freedom, arbitrary power that was the alternative. As for Knights, their violence was beyond control for some centuries until slowly brought under a measure of control by giving them a role in local government, responsible for order instead of chaos. Without laws there is no freedom - only the rule of the strong.

The theory of small government does not have to follow your extreme anti government tirades, and obviously allows for a residual government role but it is still not coherent. It is part of a desire among fundamentalists (naturally) to revert to a former age of innocence but fails to register that arrangements that may (depending on your values) have sufficed in the distant past lose their value in the face of modernity. In the US, this seems to entail an appeal to the period of the expanding frontier, when natural resources - not least land - were virtually free and government was remote. Sadly, the American economy has, since then, become enclosed within a plutocracy and it is their interests your ideology protects. And America's dominance of the world economy was itself a product of the devastation of two world wars, but is fading before your bleary eyes.

Freedom to an American today seems to amount to freedom for corporations to be free from responsibility. Look to your food industry to account for the epidemic of obesity, look to your pharmaceutical industry to explain why profitable drugs that are known to cause harm get support, while inexpensive remedies such as vitamin rich diet are neglected.

Yes the US government system is corrupt and Europe or the world generally has nothing useful to learn from that direction. I am sick of hearing UK politicians spouting second hand American ideological crap. The solution is not anarchy. Democracy is tough work and you are too lazy to earn the freedom that comes through struggle alone.

Originally posted by finnegan
The notion that a complete absence of government equates to freedom for the individual is ideological and irrational..

I stopped reading at "complete absence". I do not advocate a complete absence of goobermint nor am I aware of anyone else doing so either, you're talking to your own fantasies.

Originally posted by twhitehead
The fallacy is to assume that growth to be necessarily infinite.

[b]I can think of no country as an example contrary to this,
Well all that tells us is how ignorant you are.

and most definitely on an average the world slips further into statism.
Again, that tells us about your ignorance more than about the world.
And again, you are c ...[text shortened]... thing. Any policy ever made could be interpreted as socialist or statist if you try hard enough.[/b]

No-one mentioned infinity, that is your own invention.

You're way out of your depth here, not every new policy results in the subjugation of the individual to the mob, believe it or not laws are created that protect one's life and property from the initiation of force by others. These policies are not collectivism, socialism nor communism.

Lately anytime someone indicates a pattern then projects where that pattern might lead if it is followed (note no mention of infinity) zahlanzi begins squawking like a parrot "slippery slope fallacy, rawk, slippery slope fallacy" now you as something even less than a parrot have picked up on it.

The point remains, not all slippery slopes are fallacies.

Originally posted by Wajoma
I stopped reading at "complete absence". I do not advocate a complete absence of goobermint nor am I aware of anyone else doing so either, you're talking to your own fantasies.

I stopped reading at "I stopped reading at..."

Originally posted by KazetNagorra
Using the Internet to communicate this point really hammers it down.

It should be totally unnecessary to point out major improvements to the human condition have not been the result of direct or even indirect governmental actions.

Having read through RHP threads regularly, I felt perhaps it wasn't so unnecessary after all and a small, tender, reminder might be helpful to some RHP forums participants.


[/i]btw: your post quoted here .. ?????[i]

Originally posted by finnegan
I stopped reading at "I stopped reading at..."

That's advisable for you, so as to maintain your delusion.

You'll note the different approaches, I quoted you and gave a reason, whereas you just clamped your hands to your ears and scrunched your eyes closed.

Says something about you.

You stated your premise then proceeded on one of your pseudo intellectual rambles. The premise that I am an advocate for a "complete absence" of goobermint is total bollloxs. You may have got away with it if not for that "complete" but it's a familiar flaw of yours, I.e. trying to fluff out your posts gets you in trouble.

Originally posted by Wajoma
That's advisable for you, so as to maintain your delusion.

You'll note the different approaches, I quoted you and gave a reason, whereas you just clamped your hands to your ears and scrunched your eyes closed.

Says something about you.

You stated your premise then proceeded on one of your pseudo intellectual rambles. The premise that I am an advo ...[text shortened]... ete" but it's a familiar flaw of yours, I.e. trying to fluff out your posts gets you in trouble.

I quoted you and gave a reason

To be clear, you did not quote anything beyond my opening phrase. Had you read it through you would have seen that it anticipated your protest and negated it. However, regardless of what you think about government, the things you said were purely and simply an anti government rant, not an argument for small government.

I responded to your earlier post as I saw it and you declined to read and consider my response. Hence you are not qualified to express an opinion.

Originally posted by Wajoma
When buying and selling are controlled by legislation the first to be bought and sold are the legislators.

The greater the state's control of the economy the more they have to sell, a vicious circle. Want to do something about that? Reduce guvamint interfance..

So less government legislation will lead to less of a concentration of wealth and power in the hands of the very few? That's the premise of your argument? Or am I misquoting you and infering things you never intended?

Originally posted by Wajoma
No-one mentioned infinity, that is your own invention.

You're way out of your depth here,....

I stopped reading at 'You're way out of your depth here...'

Originally posted by kmax87
So less government legislation will lead to less of a concentration of wealth and power in the hands of the very few? That's the premise of your argument? Or am I misquoting you and infering things you never intended?

Correct, on a small scale consider taxi licensing in Aus. Why is it controlled by cartels and why does a license sell for half a million dollars. The small guy the independent guy is squeezed out.

That's crony capitalism for you, the bureaurats have something to sell I.e. their ability to enforce a protection racket. Take that ability away from them.

Now scale that up to larger industries, it's goobermint control and regulation that makes monopolies possible, because they have a monopoly franchise on the initiation of force and threats of force.
No

Originally posted by finnegan

I quoted you and gave a reason

To be clear, you did not quote anything beyond my opening phrase. Had you read it through you would have seen that it anticipated your protest and negated it. However, regardless of what you think about government, the things you said were purely and simply an anti government rant, not an argument for small ...[text shortened]... u declined to read and consider my response. Hence you are not qualified to express an opinion.

I quoted your premise, it's a very important part of an argument. Your premise was utter tosh. More accurately a lie, but I'm being polite.

You continued with some bs about the US system as if I'm anymore an advocate of it than I am an advocate for a "c o m p l e t e" abscense of guvamint, or that the two systems are congruous.

Then to add to your steaming pile you used phrases like "your food industry" and "your pharmaceutical industry" as if I were a US citizen. I hold a NZ passport but have spent more than half my adult life living, working and travelling outside of NZ. Including (but not limited to) the US, Australia, New Caledonia, South Africa, Israel, Indonesia, the UK and the Philippines.

This is where the anti-goobermint tirades come from, not a couple of non-Amazon books and some wikihow or ask.com cut and pastes.