Single Issue Voter?

[tandeetaylor]

By implication, I enjoy insulting and upsetting others. Which, woah, isn't true. I just don't mind doing it.

[David Floyd]

Sorry, that wasn't what I was implying at all. My post was in no way directed towards you.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Did we catch you on a bad day?

[Sandman]

How is the defense of a libertarian state funded and organised?

[loinburger]

Originally posted by David Floyd
Logic, language, and reason all exist outside of society. In fact, those are three of the things that make society possibility, so they in fact MUST exist outside of society.

Language cannot exist in a single individual -- you need multiple individuals, since it is a social construct. Logic is self-referential (it has no "universal" grounding) as shown by Godel, so without there being a human to create logic there would be no logic (although a single human could probably accomplish the task of forming a system of logic, multiple humans are not required as would be the case for language). But since reason is so dependent upon language, it means that even if there were a state of nature, the "reason" of those in a state of nature would bear absolutely no resemblance to our concept of reason -- their "reason" would consist only of logic and faith, since language constructs would not yet have been created.

Unless you are trying to say that there was NEVER a "state of nature" - and I don't agree that a state of nature existed for any considerable amount of time, by the way - and that man was living in a society since man, well, WAS, then what I am getting from you is that man does not need government or society in order to understand and exercise rights.

I don't find a state of nature to be particularly relevant to mankind, since even if mankind did exist in a state of nature at one point he has not done so for thousands of years. He's moved past that stage -- he's not a solitary animal, but a social animal.

If you ARE defining "society" as every second of man's existence, then I think we need to find another word to describe the situation in which a group of people come together in a group for protection of rights, defense, wealth accumulation, etc.

Society has existed for every second of Homo Sapien's existence, since (according to anthropologists) by the time of Homo Sapien's evolution man (and his precursors) had gathered under clan structures (simple societies). I don't know if Australopithecus also gathered in clans, but Australopithecus isn't modern man.

Well, I would say that it is quite difficult - almost impossible - to exercise one's rights without logic, language, or reason. I wouldn't say that the rights aren't there. Once one acquired language, for example, one would be able to exercise their right to speak. But the right didn't pop out of thin air when one learned language, but rather the ability became apparent.

However, you're missing another point. Even in the absence of logic, language, and reason, one can still walk around in the forest. That is, one can still exercise their right to liberty, even if they don't understand the concept.

Right to property (which is being discussed more than liberty) does not exist to somebody just walking around the forest, though. He can be free without having a concept of liberty, but he can't own a damn thing without some concept of property.

I can envision a few cases in which people are unable to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. I cannot envision a case where one has no options open to them in order to survive (unless this situation came about as a result of THEIR incompetence) - there are always families, churches, and charities available to ensure one doesn't starve to death. It won't be a comfortable existence, but, as you (and others) like to argue, society is certainly better than lack of society.

Barring another Depression, I agree that most people have options available to avoid starvation. However, one of the things that has changed over the years is man's concept of a "worthwhile existence" -- it is generally considered that an existence in which one lives hand to mouth is not an existence to be cherished, but merely an existence to be tolerated or even despaired over. "Equality of opportunity" doesn't mean "Giving everybody a more-or-less equal chance to be able to feed themselves," but means "Giving everybody a more-or-less equal chance to excel." F'rinstance, government subsidized student loans would be a prime example of trying to even the "opportunity gap" -- there's more to welfare than the dole.

But you see, this situation makes up the vast majority of welfare benefits - people unwilling to work or help themselves in anyway, or subject themselves to asking or begging for help from others.

Then the system should be reformed.

Excuse me. People have the opportunity to excel when the form a society, based upon the argument that 10 people together can produce more wealth than 10 people separately. A big government does not make this true - in fact, a big government tends to hamper this. The only government intervention that is necessary to ensure people have an "opportunity to excel" is intervention against those who violate the rights of others - rights you have already admitted exist outside of government and organized society.

I disagree that government's only job is to insure that everybody's rights are respected. 10 people together can produce more than 10 people separately, but government must insure that those 10 people don't actually consist of 1 Lord and 9 Serfs, or 1 Mine Owner and 9 5-year-old Miners. If the government doesn't prevent the wealthy from preying on the non-wealthy and if it also doesn't provide the opportunity for the wealthy to be educated (through public education or student loans or whatever), then we'll eventually go back to a society where the coal miners are all 5-year-olds since they can fit in the mine seams better.

But in any case, there is no "right to excel". That idea is preposterous. One can only excel if one works hard and acts appropriately within society (which I define as not violating other people's rights). There are situations where hard work may not lead to "excellence", but rather "only" survival - but then again, survival itself is quite excellent when compared to death, which is a very possible result if one tries to live outside of society.

If you reduce men to animals, then they'll behave like animals. Life is about more than mere survival.

Reason? Well, that's a very interesting answer. I don't think it's a complete answer, but it still brings up an interesting point. If reason defines rights, then you must admit that everyone has the same rights, regardless of the society they live in - the concept of reason doesn't exist solely within a particular society, but rather is a universal concept.

No, reason is a function of language, and language varies significantly from culture to culture (and hence from society to society). Perhaps at some point in the future we'll all speak the same language (a very real possibility with the advent of global communications), but in the meantime reason is not identical the world over.

Faith also has a major influence on reason, and faith is anything but universal. Our society has tended towards pluralism which leads to a lessenning of faith's influence, but as any fundamentalist will tell you (or probably scream at you) faith is still a very integral part of many people's worldviews.

If you admit that, then what you are really saying is that rights are universal. If this is the case, then it simply becomes a matter of defining what these universal rights, possessed by everyone, are. I think the most reasonable definition is the right to life, liberty, and property (which is really just the fruits of one's labor). These are the most core rights - what everything boils down to, ultimately.

Rights can only be universal after everybody's language and faith are substantively equivalent, or at the very least until the predominant language and faith are substantively equivalent.

Are you saying it was morally repugnant all along, or that it was only morally repugnant when people thought it was?

It was morally repugnant when it was clear that the slaves were substantively equivalent to their owners. I don't know when this happened.

Actually not quite right. It was inconsistent to keep slaves when it was shown that slaves were human.

That's what I mean by "substantive equivalence." When people believed that slaves were subhuman then they were not substantively equivalent. When it was shown that this belief was unjustified (i.e. that slaves were human) then it was inconsistent to own slaves.

Two points. Poverty has nothing to do with slavery in that, on its own, poverty is not a violation of anyone's rights. Secondly, the Depression came about because of government intervention in the economy (whether you want to blame interest rates, tariffs, monetary policy, fiscal policy, manufacturing/agricultural subsidies, immigration, or what have you, it boils down to government intervention). This is not something a Libertarian government would do, as it does not fit within the definition of the proper function of government - preventing the violation of rights. So, arguing that welfare was necessary because of the Depression is not really a good argument, because if things were run along Libertarian lines worldwide, I find it hard to imagine that the Depression as we know it would have happened.

I wouldn't want a laissez-faire economic system because it would allow predatory (unfair) business practices. Even if somebody has a right to be unfair, it doesn't change the fact that they're being unfair.

But the ultimate source of that unfairness was the government itself, not some magical, out-of-thin-air Depression.

The Depression was simply the cause of people recognizing the unfairness that had previously existed but which nobody worried about (since it only affected the Irish, or the Italians, or single mothers, or whoever).

Wait a second. I thought we already established that slavery was wrong, regardless of its effect upon the economy. Now, the slaves may have been reaping an indirect benefit from the system (being in the United States rather than in Africa, especially in the time period we are discussing, is certainly a benefit), but that doesn't mean slavery was OK.

Same thing with wealth transfer programs. Sure, the person being taxed may reap an indirect benefit from them, but that doesn't make forced taxation a good thing.

And by the way, don't jump all over me for comparing slavery to welfare - you did it first

Slavery is wrong because there is no justification to take away somebody's liberty when they are substantively equivalent to you (i.e. capable of functioning within society). However, we still use "slavery" by employing chain-gangs and prison license plate factories or whatever have you -- a prisoner is not substantively equivalent to everybody else since he has demonstrated that he is not capable of functioning within society (at least for awhile). Rights/responsibilities only apply equally when everybody is substantively equivalent.

The relevant factor in wealth redistribution is that the wealthy man is, well, wealthy, while the poor man is poor. They're not substantively equivalent, so the question comes to fairness instead of rights. It isn't fair that the wealthy man should see no profit from his hard work so a system of total egalitarianism (communism) is inferior, and it isn't fair that the poor man should be denied an education and a chance at a decent job just because he was born poor or was laid off or whatever so a laissez-faire system is inferior, and so society has struck a medium -- the rich man is taxed more than the poor man (but not so much that he can't see any profit to his hard work), and the poor man is given the opportunity to improve his lot in life.

Look, you ignored the substance of my paragraph in order to rebut my use of two words that I could have left out and made the same point anyway.

I'd thought that those two (or three) words were the brunt of the paragraph -- that you were arguing that responsibilities were arbitrary and subjective.

"Now this isn't true at all. Without a society, one can certainly produce goods, and one can even produce services to sell or trade to others. The point of a society (well, one of the points, the main point being the protection of rights) is to maximize potential wealth, based on the argument that the total is greater than the sum of its parts. 10 people working independently will tend to be less productive than 10 people working together, basically.

So in that way, one is already deriving all the benefit they are entitled to. Entering into a society and making voluntary agreements to work with others in order to maximize wealth does not mean that you are obligated to some other "responsibilities", in order to give others extra benefits."

Somebody who is excelling in large part due to society (maybe they've build a trade empire that couldn't exist without stability) is deriving all of the benefit that they are entitled to, but this benefit imposes a responsibility upon them towards that society. Somebody who cannot excel because they never had the chance at an education or a decent job or whatever have you is not deriving any benefit from society -- they might even be better off without society.

[loinburger]

Originally posted by tandeetaylor
I agree. We do benefit from a society, so long as that society is one in which voluntary exchange is respected. I never said otherwise. In order to benefit from such a society, one must contribute. If I don't "contribute" to the Albertsons down the street, I don't get to benefit from having such a convenient store with all those convenient products. But I don't owe them if they don't give me anything in return. I pay the man who rings up the groceries, the man who stocked them, the man who brought them in his big truck, the man who arranged for the big truck to come, the man who grew or made them, etc... I don't owe my plumber next door neighbor for my groceries. You get what you pay for. Except in socialism.... you get what I pay for and vice versa.

So you benefit from society, but have no responsibility towards society. Does that pretty much sum up your position? That society is there to benefit you, but that you owe it nothing in return?

Read my posts again. I'm quite sure I've said before that it's better to live in society than not. I believe the phrase "division of labors" was used. I don't know, it's there. If I have to keep repeating myself, let's all just go to bed.

You complain about how there's nowhere for you to go to escape society, and yet you claim that you're not anti-social?

Why should he? Everything's taken care of.

What are you talking about? Are you trying to put more words in my mouth?

I'm sorry. I didn't realize I was doing anything other than carrying out your ideas to conclusions. I think that's OK, don't you? It's better than taking words out of my mouth and ignoring or forgetting what I actually said.

So "taking my ideas to ass-backwards conclusions that I would not draw" is somehow not the same thing as "putting words in my mouth"? I find this difficult to believe, particularly when the conclusions you draw rely on ideas that I've never espoused.

Yes. I don't have a job because of .... (insert something besides myself). It's called a cop-out.

So, since you know every detail of my situation, perhaps you'd care to explain what I could have done differently in order to have a job at the moment. Note that I'm currently earning more through my landscaping than I'd make at the factory and service jobs where they post the "help wanted" signs, so "go around looking for 'help wanted'" signs isn't a valid response. Tell me what I did wrong -- I'm all ears.

You know, I would think that considering your criticisms of my obnoxiousness and my use of bad debating strategy, you would really want to avoid those pitfalls, so that you could have the high ground. Well, you've lost it, if you really ever had it.

When somebody hits me, I hit them back. When somebody insults me, I insult them back. This is because there are some people (often the ones who will hit you or insult you with little to no provocation) who don't understand that it's wrong to maliciously harm others, so the only way for them to stop their childishness is to convince them that it's not worth their time (because they'll get a bloody nose). This doesn't always work with insults, admittedly, since many of the same immoral halfwits who begin throwing around insults are also far too dense to ever recognize the sheer irony in their trying to take the moral high ground.

But seriously... I believe that our rights exist because of our particular nature. I believe that one of the things that makes us different from animals is our complex form of language. Humans did have rights before they were articulated, they just had them taken away easier before that.

More unsubstantiated claims. "I believe that this is so" is not a sound justification.

Oh was that me? Now wait. That's not all I've done!

You've yet to substantiate a single claim you've made, other than to say "I believe that this is so" or something similar.

You're using the dictionary as your moral compass? Nice....

Reason is based in part on language, so without sufficiently knowing a language it's not possible to be reasonable.

I don't know (1.be informed 2. be aware of 3. be aqcuainted with) how to answer (1. reply 2. serve or suit 3. be responsible for) that. It's just so overwhelming (1. covering completely 2. crushing)!

I can't help it that you don't understand what the term "selfish" means.

Selfishness does not equal complete disregard for others.

I call bull****...

Selfish: Concerned only with oneself.

I have never said that I believe that I shouldn't consider the rights of others in persuit of my interests, and let me state it for the record here: I think it is morally wrong to disregard the rights of others in the persuit of my interests. If I say it twice, will you remember that I said it?

You can say it all you want, but I still call bull****. Your actions speak louder than your words.

[tandeetaylor]

Fine. If you think I'm lying, that's not something I can really argue about. (And for the ****ing record-- this forum is only about words-- the fact is you don't know my actions)

And if you think I'm a half wit and not worthy of your respect then this discussion is over. Bye bye.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by David Floyd
Logic, language, and reason all exist outside of society.

HUHWHAT!

You cannot possibly believe this? If you do, please show the wolf-boy that has invented his own logic, reason, and language.

[loinburger]

Originally posted by tandeetaylor
Fine. If you think I'm lying, that's not something I can really argue about. (And for the ****ing record-- this forum is only about words-- the fact is you don't know my actions)

I know that you started maliciously abusing people on this forum for no other reason than because they had a different opinion than you, so I know for a fact that you're the type of person who maliciously abuses people and then tries to claim that it's moral for you to do so (your "freedom of speech" justification). Maybe you only act this maliciously in online discussions (it's easier to not feel guilty about abusing somebody who is anonymous than when the abuse is to somebody's face), but malice is still malice regardless of whether or not it's motivated by cowardice.

And if you think I'm a half wit and not worthy of your respect then this discussion is over. Bye bye.

See ya. Come back after you've grown up a bit, 'cause there's hope for you yet.

[tandeetaylor]

Originally posted by loinburger
I know that you started maliciously abusing people on this forum for no other reason than because they had a different opinion than you

I really don't consider it malicious abuse, but the same can be said of you.

then tries to claim that it's moral for you to do so (your "freedom of speech" justification).

No, you said, do I have a right to insult people, and I said, yes, I do. Stoping ****ing putting words in my mouth.

Maybe you only act this maliciously in online discussions

Only in that my intent is clearer in person. I have to defer once again to connor. He was constantly trying to counsel me when we were still together that I should use more tact online because it did just seem like I was a *****. I didn't take his advice then and I'm not taking now, because, frankly, I don't know how to write words that are other than what I would say. It's a problem that you can't hear my voice and you can't see my face, but that's just the way it is, I guess. Sure, I get pissed at things people say to me, it's human, but I have never been intentionally malicious. Blunt, maybe. It's not entirely the same thing.

See ya. Come back after you've grown up a bit, 'cause there's hope for you yet.

Oh don't try to take some moral high ground that you're all great because you can say nice things about me in the end. You've said several things that disqualify the above statement. So either apologize for those things and admit that you were wrong to say them in the first place, or stick with calling me a foolish sociopathic half-wit. I don't really give a damn, I just wish you would be consistent.

[Capt Dizle]

and on it goes...

[David Floyd]

Language cannot exist in a single individual -- you need multiple individuals, since it is a social construct.

Granted, but multiple individuals can cooperate in certain ways without creating a society in the way we would understand it.

Logic is self-referential (it has no "universal" grounding) as shown by Godel, so without there being a human to create logic there would be no logic (although a single human could probably accomplish the task of forming a system of logic, multiple humans are not required as would be the case for language).

Well, without having read Godel's writings on the subject, I'm gonna have to disagree. I don't think logic is created so much as it is articulated. Let's take a simple statement: "If I jump off this cliff, I will die." Regardless if a person was able to articulate this in words, that person would still die if he jumped off the cliff. He might not KNOW he would die, and he might jump off for fun, but the fact that if a person jumps off a cliff, they will die, remains true no matter what (barring parachutes, rivers, whatever).

What we call "logic" simply seems to be our articulation for a natural condition, in the same way that the word "rights" is also an articulation of a natural condition.

But since reason is so dependent upon language, it means that even if there were a state of nature, the "reason" of those in a state of nature would bear absolutely no resemblance to our concept of reason -- their "reason" would consist only of logic and faith, since language constructs would not yet have been created.

OK, I can probably agree with this, but language can be created by two people coming together and deciding that if one of them decides to piss in the river, they should cry out "Urdulagu" first so that the other person doesn't walk in on them.

I don't find a state of nature to be particularly relevant to mankind, since even if mankind did exist in a state of nature at one point he has not done so for thousands of years. He's moved past that stage -- he's not a solitary animal, but a social animal.

Agreed.

Society has existed for every second of Homo Sapien's existence, since (according to anthropologists) by the time of Homo Sapien's evolution man (and his precursors) had gathered under clan structures (simple societies). I don't know if Australopithecus also gathered in clans, but Australopithecus isn't modern man.

Well, I think there's a substantive difference between a clan structure and founding a village. Sure, they're both societies, but in the context we are talking about, a village fits more within our understanding, I think. Ancient man would have formed clans, I imagine, primarily for protection, whereas it seems to me that one would found a village as not only a means of mutual protection but also as a means of mutual agriculture, production, whatever.

Right to property (which is being discussed more than liberty) does not exist to somebody just walking around the forest, though. He can be free without having a concept of liberty, but he can't own a damn thing without some concept of property.

Sure, but having a concept of property is just as natural as having a concept of liberty. It doesn't matter if one can articulate it or not. Grog instinctively isn't going to want Lug to take his the shiny rock they both fancy any more than he's gonna want Lug to bash him over the head and tie him up in his cave.

Barring another Depression, I agree that most people have options available to avoid starvation. However, one of the things that has changed over the years is man's concept of a "worthwhile existence" -- it is generally considered that an existence in which one lives hand to mouth is not an existence to be cherished, but merely an existence to be tolerated or even despaired over. "Equality of opportunity" doesn't mean "Giving everybody a more-or-less equal chance to be able to feed themselves," but means "Giving everybody a more-or-less equal chance to excel." F'rinstance, government subsidized student loans would be a prime example of trying to even the "opportunity gap" -- there's more to welfare than the dole.

A couple of points. First of all, "worthwhile existence" is by definition arbitrary - the definition depends upon the society, the relative wealth of the members of the society, etc. But a person living hand-to-mouth isn't having any actual rights violated. They aren't being killed, no one is impeding their liberty, and they can own whatever property they can create or afford.

And remember, even without living their particular society's definition of "worthwhile existence" doesn't mean they'd be better off outside of society. Without society, they would still have their rights, of course, but anyone could come along and take them away and no one could or would do anything about it. That's what the government is for - protecting one's rights. Not providing a "worthwhile existence" - that's YOUR responsibility to YOURSELF

I disagree that government's only job is to insure that everybody's rights are respected. 10 people together can produce more than 10 people separately, but government must insure that those 10 people don't actually consist of 1 Lord and 9 Serfs,

Of course the government has a responsibility to ensure that the rich don't violate the rights of the poor, that was my initial point.

or 1 Mine Owner and 9 5-year-old Miners.

Ah, child labor, what a tricky issue. It seems to me that, before a child becomes an adult (and wherever that line is, we can both agree a 5 year old isn't an adult), then a child is primarily under the authority of their parents. Now, granted, the parents can't kill the child, or sell him into slavery, or things of that nature, but if it is necessary, for whatever reason, for the child to work, then that seems to me to be a parental design, not a governmental one. Now, it might not be the best parenting decision, but I think we can also both agree that parents make better parenting decisions than the government does.

If the government doesn't prevent the wealthy from preying on the non-wealthy and if it also doesn't provide the opportunity for the wealthy to be educated (through public education or student loans or whatever), then we'll eventually go back to a society where the coal miners are all 5-year-olds since they can fit in the mine seams better.

Your point seems to be that the wealthy shouldn't prey on the poor. I would agree, in the context that the wealthy shouldn't be allowed to violate the rights of the poor. Outside of that, as long as the contracts are voluntarily arrived at - and one can't voluntarily contract themselves into slavery, in my opinion - then there is no real problem.

If you reduce men to animals, then they'll behave like animals. Life is about more than mere survival.

Men can't be reduced to animals, because men are not animals.

And life certainly can be solely about survival. What do you think life was about before things like agriculture, medicine, etc.? Yep, primarily survival.

No, reason is a function of language, and language varies significantly from culture to culture (and hence from society to society). Perhaps at some point in the future we'll all speak the same language (a very real possibility with the advent of global communications), but in the meantime reason is not identical the world over.

I'm gonna have to disagree. Reason is expressed and defined through language, yes. But we all once spoke the same language. In the case of English, a rough track of our language would be English-Germanic-IndoEuropean-EuroAsiatic-Nostratic-ProtoWorld. Now, that's going from memory without looking it up, and I might have gotten a couple wrong or left out a couple, but the point remains that many serious linguists believe (and I agree) that all languages go back to the same place.

In any case, the concept of reason is not something that is particular to one language - a concept that only a few people have defined correctly. Everyone has the ability to reason, and, using their language, can reason out the same rights as we can.

Rights can only be universal after everybody's language and faith are substantively equivalent, or at the very least until the predominant language and faith are substantively equivalent.

Again, I disagree. Reason is already universal, and as such everyone doesn't need to speak the same language to arrive at the same reasoned conclusions. If that were the case, how could people who speak different languages independently discover the same thing, around the same time?

It was morally repugnant when it was clear that the slaves were substantively equivalent to their owners. I don't know when this happened.

No, slavery was morally repugnant all along because Africans are just as human as Europeans, whether Europeans realized it or not.

That's what I mean by "substantive equivalence." When people believed that slaves were subhuman then they were not substantively equivalent. When it was shown that this belief was unjustified (i.e. that slaves were human) then it was inconsistent to own slaves.

Not quite what you said originally, but in any case, I agree. I only repost your statement here because you use "substantive equivalence" later in a different way.

I wouldn't want a laissez-faire economic system because it would allow predatory (unfair) business practices. Even if somebody has a right to be unfair, it doesn't change the fact that they're being unfair.

And, in a free market, if a business is being unfair, consumers have the ability to change these unfair practices.

The Depression was simply the cause of people recognizing the unfairness that had previously existed but which nobody worried about (since it only affected the Irish, or the Italians, or single mothers, or whoever).

Well, one point here. I would wager that much of that unfairness was propagated by the government. Ramo or chegitz might know more about that than I do, but I would imagine the source of much of the unfairness was within the government.

Slavery is wrong because there is no justification to take away somebody's liberty when they are substantively equivalent to you (i.e. capable of functioning within society).

However, we still use "slavery" by employing chain-gangs and prison license plate factories or whatever have you -- a prisoner is not substantively equivalent to everybody else since he has demonstrated that he is not capable of functioning within society (at least for awhile). Rights/responsibilities only apply equally when everybody is substantively equivalent.

The relevant factor in wealth redistribution is that the wealthy man is, well, wealthy, while the poor man is poor. They're not substantively equivalent, so the question comes to fairness instead of rights. It isn't fair that the wealthy man should see no profit from his hard work so a system of total egalitarianism (communism) is inferior, and it isn't fair that the poor man should be denied an education and a chance at a decent job just because he was born poor or was laid off or whatever so a laissez-faire system is inferior, and so society has struck a medium -- the rich man is taxed more than the poor man (but not so much that he can't see any profit to his hard work), and the poor man is given the opportunity to improve his lot in life.

OK, this is what I was alluding to above when I said you used "substantial equivalence" differently. Initially, you used "substantial equivalence" to mean being able to function within society. You even used it that way in the first paragraph in the above quote.

But then, in the second paragraph, you used the term to mean being able to function THE SAME in society.

And I disagree. To use your term, a poor man and a rich man are "substantially equivalent" because they are both recognized as human and as such possess the same basic rights. They simply have different financial abilities.

The rich man has the ability to exercise his right to property in the form of buying a car. The poor man is not able to buy a car, because he can't afford one. Does that mean that the poor man has some intrinsic right to own a car? No - he only has a right to own a car if he can afford to buy a car. Having property rights does not mean that you have the right to any property you want - it only means that once you own property as a result of producing it or purchasing it, it is yours and no one elses.

A rich man and a poor man certainly aren't equivalent in terms of financial ability, but they are nonetheless equal in terms of their basic rights.

I'd thought that those two (or three) words were the brunt of the paragraph -- that you were arguing that responsibilities were arbitrary and subjective.

No, I was arguing that there are no added responsibilities because everyone already derives a benefit from society.

Somebody who is excelling in large part due to society (maybe they've build a trade empire that couldn't exist without stability) is deriving all of the benefit that they are entitled to, but this benefit imposes a responsibility upon them towards that society.

I don't see how that follows. Everyone within the society is already substantially benefitted from society, in terms of mutual protection, mutual production or agriculture, being able to take advantage of the skills of each other in terms of medicine, or basket weaving, or cooking, or whatever, and a whole host of other things. But I fail to see why those who excel the most in society bear any added responsibility towards others - their excellence is already benefitting others.

Somebody who cannot excel because they never had the chance at an education or a decent job or whatever have you is not deriving any benefit from society -- they might even be better off without society.

I fail to see how anyone would be better off without society, because of the things laid out in the above paragraph. Even at the very least, society isn't making things any worse for this hypothetical person, and is in fact providing them with protection and the ability to be social (which you've already stated is a necessity). Humans obviously have the need to stay alive, and by your own argument have the need to be social. Even if one is deriving no other benefit from society, they are deriving those, so I don't see how you can say that person would be better off outside of society.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by loinburger
I know that you started maliciously abusing people on this forum for no other reason than because they had a different opinion than you,

She has mellowed out quite a bit since her first appearence on the boards.

[DanS]

"You appear to be operating under the false assumption that I was waiting for a "nice job" to come along, DanS."

Not at all. But there were options that you didn't avail yourself of, which then costs your fellow citizens money. Granted, any rational person would have done the same as you when presented a similar choice.

"This, of course, brings me back to my point that in many cases the people who participate in debates like this seem to have little concept of what a real recession is, and why our governments use the safety net of social security."

This is a little unfair, Laz. You are staking out an exclusionary position for yourself. "Nobody can understand because they don't know how bad it was" blah. Don't discount the experiences of others. Many here have been in similar situations, but have fought out of it without state largesse, mostly because the largesse wasn't offered.

Anyway, you didn't address the part time jobs that presumably were available. Or why you didn't have a job during school in anticipation of the future.

"This, of course, brings me back to my point that in many cases the people who participate in debates like this seem to have little concept of what a real recession is, and why our governments use the safety net of social security."

What I think you are experiencing is a fairly unsympathetic American view toward government doing too much. Our current prosperity appears in part to be based on these unsympathetic views.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Your "options", Dan, consist of getting a job that wasn't there, or using a credit card I didn't have. Banks are not noted for extending credit facilities to people living on unemployment benefit.

Why didn't I have a job in preparation? Because on the first occasion I had a university place set up (which fell through due to administrative errors), and in the second occasion I had a work placement set up which fell through when the company went bankrupt.

Keep the helpful suggestions coming....