Libertarians: What do you not agree by?

[dustind]

Spending money on a service that everyone receives, and has a vote on the matter is different than robbing from one person to give to another. Both are theft, but one is less prone to abuse.

Civilizations have fallen because 51%+ of the people where able to vote for the other 49%'s money. You can only take so much for the military before people say enough, and start cutting back, because we are all in the same boat. Depending on need some will want it bigger, some smaller, many will not care. That percent in each of the three groups varies by size vs need of the military. The bigger it gets, the more want it smaller, and vise versa. Like all bureaucracies, the people working in it are looking out for themselves more than their department, but that is only a few people, unlike welfare.

With welfare, people will always want more, and welfare breeds poverty. Politicians can also use welfare, and other types of government pork to buy votes. The vote buying effect is huge, and becomes the number one reason behind most welfare decisions a politician makes.

My reply to this thread as a whole is. Libertarians are trying to get freedom, not a better socialism. Pointing out small day to day problems with socialism and the nanny state, and fixing them is not what we are about.

 

[Sean Smith]

I'd much rather cut a monthly or yearly check to DefenseCo, Inc. than have a large amount of my annual earnings sent off to a pork-laden, bureaucratic, infighting-riddled, inefficient monstrosity of a military industrial complex which is bent on finding the best way to acquire more of my stolen loot to misspend.

And I'd rather be fed peeled grapes by sugar-plum fairies than go to work every morning, but I don't see that happening anytime soon, either.

Since you are in the realm of pipe dreams, why not just make all the bad people outside this libertarian utopia go away, too?

 

[Tamara]

Sean Smith,

And I'd rather be fed peeled grapes by sugar-plum fairies than go to work every morning, but I don't see that happening anytime soon, either.

Since you're big on logical fallacies, let's discuss reductio ad absurdum, special pleading, inconsistency, straw man, meaningless question and non sequitur. (Rarely have I seen so many crammed between a capital letter and a period. )

"" back atcha.

 

[atek3]

As long as the exorbitant profits are available from the drug trade we will have dealers standing on the corners by our school houses passing out samples. For a few dollars of their product they can hook a child and create a customer that will purchase their product at many times the cost of production. Remove the profit, and you will remove the problem. Legalize it ALL. Have the federal government produce it, and tax it, and sell it cheap enough to put the dealers out of business, ( I hate this phrase, but) IT IS FOR OUR CHILDREN! And for any that wonder, no, I personally do not use any.

Whoa their necktie, legalizing and having the federal government nationalize production are two very different things. If prohibition was repealed, bayer, eli lilly, and all the big pharma would likely go back to producing drugs, and since ALL illegal drugs are off-patent, generics would bring the cost of all formerly illegal substances to between 1/100th and 1/10th there current cost. However, if FedGov took things over, as with all socialist boondoggles there would be no rational way for the fedgov to set prices. Set them too high and you would spawn the very problem you are trying to avoid, black markets. Set them lower than the market would (which would already be insanely low by today's standards) and the government would likely have to subsize their production. Think about it, if free-market competition would drive the price of heroin to 5 dollars per gram, production costs and overhead would probably amount to say $4.50 per gram. If the government charged $3 per gram, to avoid subsidizing heroin's production (which would be retarded), it would have to produce it for far cheaper than freely competing firms, HIGHLY unlikely. Similar problem if you allowed private production but imposed onerous 'sin' taxes. You would get black markets and smuggling from high-tax to low-tax jurisdictions (think smuggling cigarettes from indian reservations to NYC).
just some thoughts,

atek3

 

[ksnecktieman]

I was not very clear. The fed involvement I intended was for quality control. Large pharmaceutical company manufacture was my intent, but with the risk of liability in our society it might be impossible to find a major company to market it.

If the feds would contract a major company to make it and give it away it would save the taxpayer billions in not having to support the war on drugs.

It would save lives because there would be no gang wars over drug markets.

It would reduce crime, because "little Johnny" would not have to steal to support a (500$ per week?) habit. The only way a juvenile can support a habit like that is selling drugs or stealing.

 

[Sean Smith]

Since you're big on logical fallacies, let's discuss reductio ad absurdum, special pleading, inconsistency, straw man, meaningless question and non sequitur. (Rarely have I seen so many crammed between a capital letter and a period. )

Tamara,

Never before in human endeavor has so much analysis been applied to so little effect to something that was meant to be silly in the first place.

 

[sch40]

Although I support ending this wasteful "war on drugs," this thread has brought up a new question in my mind. Harkening back to the early 1930's, what would the FedGov do with all their newfound millions of dollars per annum? Start trying to reduce the debt? or maybe feed it into the Dept of Justice's BATFE (again)?

yikes!

--just a thought. I suppose if the Gub'ment gets smart/ethical enough to disband the DEA they might actually do something smart/ethical with the surplus (like give it back from whom they stole it)

take care all,
sch40

 

[Cactus]

And I'd rather be fed peeled grapes by sugar-plum fairies than go to work every morning, but I don't see that happening anytime soon, either.

Yeah, Sean, probably not soon. But I bet it'll happen before a Libertarian gets elected President!