If health care is not a right, then why the hypocratic oath?
Offline You always hear the right wing say that the free market is the best at everything.
Ok? I just heard some Fox goon ramble on about how health care would be a disaster under government control.
The crux of his argument is the same, status quo.
Screw the government, if health care were about the free market, then why is it our EMTs when they find you bleeding in a car crash don't ask you for your credit information before they treat you?
Is that the way this jackass wants it? When we see a car crash and someone is bleeding we ask their profession and income level and credit history?
FUCK YOU ASSHOLE!
I am NOT saying that government is good at anything. I AM saying that you cant bitch when you pick pocket people and they look for protection.
Doing it better in the private sector means developing a conscious, but from what I have seen, it isn't about bettering humanity, it is about bettering your bottom line.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
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Really. If it's a strawman, why not tell us under what conditions people are cut off from welfare entitlements? If someone creates a useful product or service and are successful at it, they go into a higher tax bracket. Go ahead and try to deny this. You can try to call it something else but a spade is a spade.
Also trolling is what your idol, Alan Greyson does on the floor of Congress.
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen
I wonder if EXC will ever say anything even remotely intelligent or rational regarding politics. I rather doubt it. His religion is a political one.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
It's called risk management. Some things are bound to happen no matter what. As Ragdish pointed out some people will be stupid, lazy, dishonest, etc.
I have a friend who used to bemoan using public funds for community resources like the Boy & Girls Club. He didn't understand why his tax dollars were being spent to supplement the parenting of portions of the population that weren't getting guidance at home. He also used to complain about the time his car was broken into, saying "Don't break my $100 dollar window to get to my $10 stereo." At the time he hadn't made the connection that the scumbags breaking into peoples cars are the same people who had a shitty home life as children that no one gave two shits about until they went out and did something negative.
We have a choice. We can pay higher taxes and reach out to these people and show them how to be positive members of society, or we can let them fester in the darkness of their ignorant, lazy, negligent, and sometimes just plain overwhelmed parents. On the one hand you will pay more up front in taxes, but will live amongst a secure, relatively educated, relatively healthy populace. On the other you can live with bars on your windows, armed to the teeth and always on guard as you walk down the street, paying money at the back end to pick up the pieces. Like it or not,that's reality.
Your arguments are akin to saying that in order to achieve better gas mileage we should live in a vacuum so as to do away with wind resistance. It sounds fucking fantastic, but it's never going to happen.
"Faith, Faith is an island in the setting sun,
but proof, proof is the bottom line for everyone."
Proof, Paul Simon
Nothing this hard should taste so beefy.
You're right about that. They do. But it's better than them sitting on it and allowing said wealth to accumulate in one place. That's kinda part of how we ended in our current mess. A similar thing happened before the Great Depression. When the rich are sitting on all the money there's no one to buy their products. If no one buys their products the economy tanks. Therefore some redistributing of wealth is necessary to keep money circulating.
A rising tide lifts all ships.
"Faith, Faith is an island in the setting sun,
but proof, proof is the bottom line for everyone."
Proof, Paul Simon
Nothing this hard should taste so beefy.
Not necessarily personal survival - just survival of our gene. There's a difference.
You're right that we're still largely directed by feelings of "good" and "bad".
Perhaps an accurate view of "compassion" and "unselfishness" is feeling another person's joy and pain without needing further motive to help them.
And remember, this isn't necessarily in the interest of our personal survival, (let alone personal happiness which is a different matter altogether) but has developed as the best way for the homo sapien race to survive.
When we call someone selfish, we're talking about someone who chases their own pleasures/pains at the expense of people around them. You could accurately say that they're not even being irrational and not even doing what's in their best interest as co-operation and bonding with fellow humans is important to our "human needs". What we call "selfish" is different to "rational self interest". I suspect that you are conflating the two.
Yes. It's rational for society to put this pressure on you and it's rational for you to change accordingly.
Anthropologists who study what human beings aim for, our Human Needs, the set of objectives that regulate our feelings of pleasure and pain, they involve making compassionate relationships with fellow human beings.
You keep talking about "survival" as an aim when it's not really.
Yes, if our Needs/Aims hadn't caused us to survive then we would have been weeded out of the gene pool. It was necessary that our aims caused survival of our race (note: not necessarily personal survival) but it would be a non-sequiter to conclude that survival is our main aim.
There might be a couple out there who fits this ugly stereotype you've painted, I guess...
I'd be narrow minded to rule out social acceptance, but you'd be narrow minded to reduce it to social acceptance.
An obvious example is how no one makes it through life purely on their own effort - we need help from compassionate people.
Without genuine empathy and compassion, the human race would have had less co operation and less chance of survival.
It makes sense that a species with reasonable compassion survived.
"Social acceptance makes a difference" -> "social acceptance is all it is" is a non-sequiter.
I'm not saying that social acceptance doesn't play the part you say - the studies you quote are true to my experience also.
Does that mean that there's no compassion without the social acceptance at all?
Sometimes I get the feeling there's a bit of an "all or nothing" theme to your arguments.
So I make a sad story upset me in order to feel good about myself?
Seriously?
Another "all or nothing" argument.
Yes, human motivation for helping other people has left a lot to be desired.
That's why we have invented religions, social pressures, legal systems to force us to "do the right thing", even when we don't feel like it.
So we're more selfish than is ideal. Does that mean selfishness is our only motivation?
"All or nothing" arguments make the False Dilemna Fallacy.
Believe it or not I respect what you're doing here. It's why I keep debating you on this issue.
I'm not a fan of BS either. I'm becoming a school teacher and I want to be able to pass genuine truth on to the next generation rather than smother them in political correctness. I don't think my own upbringing was the best way to devellop a compassionate person.
That said; while rationality might be your aim, being a fallible human like the rest of us, you're not necessarily meeting this aim. Yes, we might all be influenced by the "wishy washy" political correctness of our upbringing, but that doesn't mean you don't have your own corrupting motives. I get the feeling you have a bitter distaste for talk of compassion, that you've been wound up by people accusing you of selfishness, of people using coercive methods to try and make you more "compassionate". Sure enough, your arguments are riddled with fallacies too.
In particular I see a lot of:
"All or nothing"
You give a true example of how we're not perfectly compassionate.
This is often followed by the claim that we therefore have no compassion whatsoever.
A clear non-sequiter.
False claims about our human nature
Some people don't seem to realise that the language in evolution is metaphor.
Things aren't necessarily "aiming to survive" - that just makes for a nice metaphor in commentary.
To be more realistic, living being have aims. If those aims didn't result in the survival of a race then the race wouldn't be around.
To conclude that this aim is for their race to survive (or for their personal survival) is a non-sequiter.
Infact, there are clear counter examples. There are many endangered wild cats whose survival as a species desperately requires them to raise children. They might raise one or two, but then they'll happily just spend 10 years or so lazing around with a life of leisure. Evolution didn't develop in them clear aims for survival, just "personal aims" that caused their survival to the current day.
The only way to study the aims is to study the beings themselves.
Anthrophologists, psychologists and neurologists find out what our aims are and while I'm not an expert in the entire field, here's atleast one example who sees compassion and morality as part of the package.
This is an excellent post and verbalization of the point I was trying to make. Bravo!
"Shepherd Book once said to me, 'If you can't do something smart, do something right.'" - Jayne
Personally subverting biological evolution in favor of social evolution every night I go to work!
healthcare is a good, not a right
much like food, a house, etc is a good and not a right
to make healthcare a right youd be infringing on the rights of others, youd be saying that someone has a right to someone else's time, property, etc
what our healthcare system needs is MORE capitalism, not less
whoever says or thinks the system we have now is a consequence of capitalism has probably been listening to keith olbermann or michael moore a little too much
right now about 60-65% of the healthcare spending comes from the government already, what we have isnt a free market system of medicine, its a corporatist system of medicine
alot of the problem also arises from our monetary system, prices in healthcare tend to rise faster because of the inflationary policies we have
to tackle this problem we need tax reform, regulatory reform, and monetary reform amongst other things
Free-market capitalism is not the answer to everything. For instance, unfettered capitalism allowed both IBM and Microsoft to cause economic damage through stifling of competition in an emerging sector. (Microsoft demonstrably retarded PC software growth for over a decade.)
In the health care industry, insurance companies cause much of the problem. Although some of the problem is regulatory, much of the issue is the fact that insurance companies don't make money by writing checks. The quagmire that is our insurance billing system is tremendously broken, and not on the government regulation side. Hell, much of the government regulation is there because insurance companies were fleecing both the public and the health industry in the first place. To assume more capitalism is going to fix the problem misses the point that capitalism is part of the problem. (Not that capitalism is bad, per se. Rather, it's too easy to game the system so that the consumer is not in control of the market.)
There are many successful government programs out there. The Indian Health Service is an excellent model for a well-run healthcare system (for the most part). Furthermore, the per capita cost of healthcare is substantially less in places like Canada, and their healthcare is better in general. (Not if you have the money to get first-rate US care, of course, but for most folks who don't even have insurance in the US, it is far better.) But, looking beyond health care, look at the road system. Here we have a government-funded program that has made our economy possible.
What we need is a complete overhaul of our medical system, and elimination of health insurance (or insurance in general).
Of course, that's just how I see it. I'm not that terribly up on economics. I just see that other countries have better, cheaper healthcare that serve everyone in their country, rather than ours, which leaves tens of millions without healthcare at all.
"Yes, I seriously believe that consciousness is a product of a natural process. I find that the neuroscientists, psychologists, and philosophers who proceed from that premise are the ones who are actually making useful contributions to our understanding of the mind." - PZ Myers
well HMOs, the entity that nearly everyone is unhappy with these days, were basically mandated by the govt back in the 1970s
and its not really free-market capitalism since we give subsidies to insurance companies and alot of the cost comes through the govt run plans of medicare and medicaid, both of which are insolvent, with medicare having unpaid liabilities in the trillions
plus the monetary issue of inflation which plays a huge part
the problem is we have to much insurance, not too little
we have people using health insurance for routine maladies instead of buying it and using it in unlikely catastrophic situations like its intended, its like buying insurance for your house then using it to fix a leaky faucet and a broken hinge on a door
insurance measures risk, and since its hard to come up with an actuarial estimate on routine maladies insurance companies just charge a set premium
and its not as if there will no absolutely zero regulation, the states will do most of it, as the constitution intended, and for me the fact that this healthcare bill that we have going through right now is unconstitutional is enough of an argument for me
its a complicated subject, and probably the best thing i can do is guide you towards someone that can explain the issues and solutions 100 times better than i could, go to youtube and look up videos by a guy named Peter Schiff, the guy is a genius (and running for senator in connecticut to unseat that charlatan chris dodd)
another brilliant guy and someone we should look to for healthcare answers
dr. ron paul, congressman from texas:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSO40q0fpPg
and more, dr. rand paul, running for senate in kentucky in 2010:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hD5GywcfjNA -part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXA4dEAtumY -part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkstU1IRntw -part 3
isnt that the same nutter that wanted to get rid of the IRS? in which case, i laugh... hard...
What Would Kharn Do?
you laughed when someone wanted to get rid of the IRS?
wow, just wow
you'd think thatd be a point that is universally popular
or maybe you are worried about the revenue?
In a perfect world, capitalism would work perfectly. So would socialism. So would communism. So would anarchy.
Unfortunately, we do not live in a perfect world. People are greedy. In capitalism, the ceos would pay more money to their employees because happy employees work better and they then make more profits. But in the real world, people are fucking greedy and the ceos take more and more money and find people to work for less and less and let the quality go down because they care about their profits, not the long term health of the company or their factory line worker.
So, you have to force those people to care, otherwise we'll become truly slaves to corporations. You have to temper capitalism with socialism. That's what all the other successful countries do.
and food is a right, which is why the government gives you money for food if you can't afford it.
"Shepherd Book once said to me, 'If you can't do something smart, do something right.'" - Jayne
Personally subverting biological evolution in favor of social evolution every night I go to work!
there is a total lack of understanding of what capitalism is and how it works
and how the government intrudes on the markets and sets up all sorts of moral hazards, malinvestment, and other stuff that becomes part of the conventional wisdom that its all the fault of free-market capitalism
civics textbook platitudes that bear little resemblance to reality are of little help here
the only thing i can say is that the ONLY people who say the current crisis coming are the people that subscribe to austrian economics (that is real free-market capitalism)
i make the broad analogy with quantum mechanics on this point, much like quantum mechanics you may not understand the principles but the accuracy of the predictions made by those principles are beyond dispute, leaving you with little doubt that something about it must be true
edit: as an aside, i find it fascinating that people would allow the government to do things that we find reprehensible if done by individuals
Every one here understands how it works... its not difficult
We tend to pride ourselves on having a modicum of intelligence here!
Are you FOR or AGAINST a government helping its country out of a recession?
FOR; You get to live in society
AGAINST; You get to rot in a cave
Simple as that
Err... and besides, what would these "Things" be?
What Would Kharn Do?
apparently people dont understand how it works, else we wouldnt be having these issues
and how exactly is the govt helping us out of this recession?
society happens through the peaceful interactions of people, not through the govt
"things"- the govt steals our property, either through the income tax or eminent domain or the like, it infringes on our civil liberties, our economic liberties, it explicitly directs our lives and wallets for us (the moral principle behind the draft is no different than the part of this new healthcare bill that MANDATES we buy coverage)
if a private individual did any of these things they would be in jail, but we act as if its ok when the govt does it
people always say that the govt will do this or that without realizing that the govt has no money, it doesnt produce anything, it only gets something by taking it from someone else
I dunno... how is YOUR government helping you out of your recession? Mine seems to be doing it just fine
Only because... the government says so! and enforces it...
Im betting it would be alot more common if the government didnt have a word in it
Somebody buy this man an airline ticket to canada, or england... or... anywhere out of the US... he needs to see the world
What Would Kharn Do?
brilliant
you made some fanastic points, im glad you get your news from.... the daily show, absolutely fantastic
i get the feeling you have no idea what i'm even talking about and are just trying to say some witty shit to cover up your complete ignorance on the subject matter
you didnt address a single point i made, only either asked me the very same question i asked you or came up with some ridiculous non sequitur
Sadly, the Daily Show is the most credible news source I've seen coming from the US. It far exceeds Fox and CNN combined. I recall CNN reporting 60,000 casualties when there was 5,000. I recall them saying Columbia travelled 18 times the speed of light and too many geographic errors to count. And they're the good one. Fox spreads jesus and stupidity as fast and hard as a plague. lol. Others aren't much better, or are even worse.
You should read some of the previous topics before jumping to conclusions about what we know. I recommend:
http://www.rationalresponders.com/forum/18234
http://www.rationalresponders.com/forum/yellow_number_five/libertarian_corner_and_other_politics/6050
http://www.rationalresponders.com/forum/yellow_number_five/libertarian_corner_and_other_politics/8594
http://www.rationalresponders.com/forum/17033
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
You're making the same claims as EXC, in a similar mannerism... maybe you can better explain your position to the rest of the class (since he cant/wont)
I promise to banter with you properly from now on...
What Would Kharn Do?
I agree with you on income tax. It's basically stealing someone's work.
The problem I have is what is rational basis by which people should be able to own land and other natural resources? No one worked to produce it. It's basically like income tax, someone with a gun decided they owned it and they should be able to force others off. If you put up a 'no trespassing' sign on your land, how is this not an infringement on others rights? I now have no liberty to use or enjoy this land for my benefit and enjoyment.
And if you believe in the principle of whoever owned the land first should have rights to it, then shouldn't the native Americans be able to go to court and reclaim all the land that was once their tribes'?
The problem is we have limited natural resources, so there is a continual competition for them leading to conflicts and wars. We allow people to own land, take advantage of it's limited availability, make profits from this and then buy up more land. This will naturally lead to monopolies and people making money from land rather than delivering a useful product or service and hiring workers. Wealth without work, isn't this 'immoral'?
Government should collect revenue from natural resource usage and not taxing work and efficiency. We want to protect the environment and make the most efficient use of the land. Private land ownership rights won't get us there. This can only be done by taxing or banning polluting and inefficient use of the land. In some cases eminent domain must be used to force this.
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen
private property rights is the best way to protect the environment
think of it this way:
dumping garbage on someone else's lawn is illegal, pollution is just another form of garbage
taxing pollution is absolving the govt from the responsibility of protecting peoples property rights, and actually fails to do any justice, its like taxing thieves in order to get them to stop stealing, if something is wrong it should be treated as such
companies shouldnt be able to privatize the gains they make from pollution and socialize the costs
if the parties cant come to some sort of contract then they can assess damages and the like in the court system
if we had more of a respect for private property we would have long ago had smokestacks that fed back into chemical cisterns to trap pollution and the like
plus you gotta be consistent, if you believe people have the right to keep what they earn (just another form of property) then they should have the right to keep the land they buy and use it as they see fit as long as it doesnt infringe on anothers rights
i think to start its important to realize that for free-market capitalism to function properly you have to have some basic stuff:
-interest rates set by the market based on savings
-sound money (not fiat money)
-and a respect for contracts
once the govt starts to mess around with these it creates all sorts of moral hazards, creates the malinvestment, the bubbles and the eventual busts
I am reading your sig line atomic and wondering what exactly do you think is so terrible about the Barack Obama quote?
"Shepherd Book once said to me, 'If you can't do something smart, do something right.'" - Jayne
Personally subverting biological evolution in favor of social evolution every night I go to work!
the constitution as a charter of negative liberties?
well firstly, it makes no sense, wtf is a negative liberty
secondly anyone who thinks the constitution, one of the best documents ever thought up by humans, which enshrines in it the principles of individual liberty, is somehow a bad thing doesnt deserve to be taken seriously imo
is it perfect? nope, no human contrivance ever will be, but its pretty damn good, and has a built in mechanism to change and update it if we find certain things especially wise
But we want to stop pollution before it starts. This can only be done if using land is viewed as a privilege for which people must get permission to perform any activity.
We do 'tax' thieves with fines and other punishments to make them pay.
The problem is companies can leave the country with their profits and declare bankruptcy before the problem is discovered. Then taxpayers have to clean up toxic messes. There should be tight restrictions and fees paid for all use of natural resources.
Because of private property of land, people get the idea they can do whatever they please on their land.
Who "earned" land or natural resource in the first place? And you believe that land that was confiscated from an owner is wrong, then we must return all of America to the native American tribes right? You gotta be consistent. Why do the white man's rights outweigh the red man's?
Why isn't a 'no trespassing' sign a restriction on my liberty? Why shouldn't you have to pay for the privilege of private land?
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen
i dont get into arguments about how land was acquired hundreds of years ago, that gets us no where
you do pay for the privledge of private land, you buy it or its given to you (bequeathed in a will for example), and your question about how a "no trespassing sign" infinges on your liberty could equally apply to someones house, isnt that infringing on your liberty as well (extreme anology to prove the point)?
we dont tax thieves, we put them in jail, to call that a tax is stretching the word to basically mean any sort of punishment, and is semantics
if you embraced property rights pollution would stop before it started, companies would either have to come to some sort of agreement contractually or they would put safeguards in place when they built the factory or whatever in order to not have to deal with the consequences of polluting someone else's property
a cap and trade system or carbon tax, doesnt do any sort of justice, economically isnt feasible, and doesnt even lower pollution really, its basically legalizing pollution, to go along with my theft analogy, its like a thief buying a burglary permit and if he wants to burgle more he has to buy "theft credits" from other thieves that have excess, its ridiculous
who do you trust more to take care of their property better, the folks that own it or the govt? i know my answer
if you want to advocate for liberty, you must advocate for it as a whole (liberty is an indivisible whole) and not piecemeal, if you want to say that people have a right to keep what they earn you also have to grant them to have the right to do with as they please with what they buy, as long as it doesnt infringe on the rights of others (and thats why people wouldnt just "do as they please" with their property because surely massively polluting it, which im sure is what your referring to, wouldnt just stay on their property, it would surely effect others)
How convenient. If some had their property taken 20 years ago through eminent domain they can get it back. But an Indian tribe can't get it back from 200 years.
But the same problems exist today. If you own land, basically you can make a profit by taking advantage of it's limited availability. Then you can use the profits to buy up even more. Basically you can get wealthy without work or investment risk. You can't make more like you can commodity like software, health care, etc... So humanity is continually trapped in conflict and war over our limited natural resources.
America was a place for people that couldn't make it in Europe because of all the land monopolies there. Now, America has become the same.
It took work to build the house. So taking it or taxing it would be stealing someone's work. A disincentive to work. If you tax someone's land, they must use it in an efficient manner. Plus you can build more houses, but you can't make more land.
The point is you we should want to make people pay for behaviors we want to discourage(i.e. stealing, pollution, inefficient land use) and reward behaviors we want(work, investment, job creation). Both the liberals and the conservatives don't see things this way. They are only concerned about making up so called 'rights' that impose on the liberties of others. So we are locked in continually conflict and problems never get resolved.
I think there should be a strait tax based on the amount of carbon and the amount of damage this does. The money should be spent on solutions and compensation for the damage. If I hit your car, I pay for the damages no more no less. If I'm wreck-less in how I drive I loose this privilege. Same principle for natural resource usage(like the air).
The people that own it are usually driven only by maximizing profit. They often don't care about it's wildlife or anything else.
You're advocating for positive right, meaning you grant someone something at the expense of others. The leftists here call health care a 'right', so do we grant this right even though it imposes restrictions on others. They want to grant a 'right' at the expense of making someone else a slave.
Do we grant land ownership, mining, fishing and polluting rights that impose burdens and restrictions on others? What is the difference with right wing 'rights' and left wing 'rights'? It's both just people getting something for nothing at the expense of others. Isn't that what you railed against?
Private land/natural resource usage infringes on the rights of others and creates inequalities of opportunity. It becomes unavailable for my usage and it is not a commodity that can be produced in greater quantity to meet the demand like man-made products and services. If I can't use your car, I can always buy another. If you own a piece of land that I can't use, there is no other option, it is unique.
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen
It means it defines the limits of individual liberty. By defining what an individual is entitled to, it defines what others are not entitled to infringe on.
"Faith, Faith is an island in the setting sun,
but proof, proof is the bottom line for everyone."
Proof, Paul Simon
Nothing this hard should taste so beefy.
And this is why you fail in this discussion. btw, google "negative liberty".
Negative liberty is not a bad thing.
You need to study more about politics before trying to have an opinion. Just because the word "negative" is in the phrase, does not make it a bad thing.
"Shepherd Book once said to me, 'If you can't do something smart, do something right.'" - Jayne
Personally subverting biological evolution in favor of social evolution every night I go to work!
isnt that the point?
didnt say it was a bad thing, said it didnt make any sense
you can post all you want about definitions and philosophical debates but imo thats all semantics
and its clear from the context of what obama was saying that he wasnt looking at the constitution as the fantastic document that it is, claiming that it tells the govt what it cant do to you but not what it should or can do, which was entirely the point when it was written, as obama should well know since he claims to be some sort of constitutional scholar
and which isnt even entirely true since the constitution lays out the specific powers for the federal govt and says that any powers not delegated to it are retained by the states or the people
“The Constitution reflected the fundamental flaw of this country that continues to this day” -BO
What the hell are you talking about? You actually denounced the real definition of the term? Between this, your lack of spelling, your lack of punctuation and your lack of capitalization you discredit yourself. Come on, man! You are making free market proponents look like a bunch of ADHD-suffering 14-year-olds. Please don't be one of those addled internet libertarians that makes the rest of us look really bad.
The distinction between negative and positive liberties isn't just semantics. Negative liberties are the only ones that most libertarians support. A positive liberity isn't really a right or liberty, it is a demand that other provide for you. A negative liberty is a restriction on others actions when those actions infringe on your rights. Ie: I have a right to free speach which just means that you aren't allowed to stop me from speaking my mind. It is a negative liberty in that it prevents you from infringing on my right but doesn't demand that you aid or provide for me in any way.
"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."
British General Charles Napier while in India
jesus, didnt know i had offended the grammar police
this is after all only an internet message board
i dont distinguish between the 2, i think it just is semantics, to me a liberty is a liberty, you cant do it than it isnt a liberty, restricting someones actions in certain ways isnt removing any liberty of theirs, more than likely its preventing them from committing a crime
you said it yourself, "A positive liberty isn't really a right or liberty"
then why the hell are we even discussing this
and btw, if you want to call someone on their grammar, make sure your own is perfect else you just look like a uppity prick
pwned.
Seriously, consider taking some political science courses so you can have a better concept of political terminology, as well as how political systems work and interact.
"Shepherd Book once said to me, 'If you can't do something smart, do something right.'" - Jayne
Personally subverting biological evolution in favor of social evolution every night I go to work!
yeah totally pwned
by the people who want to debate what type of liberty a "negative liberty" is after admitting its not even a liberty at all
fantastic
i think ill stay away from whatever type of political courses youve been taking, seems they come with a mandatory drop in IQ
fact is barack obama doesnt really like our constitution or think that its an exceptional document, in fact he thinks its fundamentally flawed
classic big govt rhetoric, i just wish the people who dont believe folks have the right to keep what they earn would just say so instead of trying to rationalize it, make it fit within the confines of the constitution, or taking the moral high ground, as if being "charitable" with other peoples money is a praiseworth goal
note: wouldnt let me edit the 1st reply or delete the post after it
yeah totally pwned
by the people who want to debate what type of liberty a "negative liberty" is or a "positive liberty" is after admitting that one isnt even a liberty at all, if "negative liberty" is liberty and "positive liberty" isnt than why the distinction?
fantastic
i think ill stay away from whatever type of political courses youve been taking, seems they come with a mandatory drop in IQ
fact is barack obama doesnt really like our constitution or think that its an exceptional document, in fact he thinks its fundamentally flawed
classic big govt rhetoric, i just wish the people who dont believe folks have the right to keep what they earn would just say so instead of trying to rationalize it, make it fit within the confines of the constitution, or taking the moral high ground, as if being "charitable" with other peoples money is a praiseworth goal
Sixteen Amendment, bitch.
I don't even like the income tax, but I can't deny that it is within the bounds of the Constitution. You know, what with the Amendment that declares it to be Constitutional.
Protecting negative liberties is the basis of most libertarian thought. It is a kind of liberty. It is (in my opinion) the best kind of liberty. A big list of "Thou shalt not" rules for the government to follow is a great thing to have. In practice the government violates those rules. But that is just them ignoring the negative rights clearly outlined in the Bill of Rights.
I also think that Obama doesn't repect the Constitution. But he is factually correct in stating that it outlines negative liberties. A document can not give you rights. It can only declare that the government lacks the authority to infringe upon your already existing rights. Demanding that the government not take actions that infringe on your rights IS outlining negative liberties.
"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."
British General Charles Napier while in India
the 16th amendment is unconstitutional, they had no right to give it to themselves
article 1 section 9: "No capitation, or other direct tax, shall be laid, unless in proportion to the census or enumeration herein before directed to be taken."
the 16th amendment directly contradicts this power which they were clearly prohibited from having, also contradicts the idea of people having a right to their own property (and the income tax is especially insidious when you consider how the govt views it, they basically view it as an expenditure, generously allowing us to keep a portion of what we earn and it gets even worse when you learn the history of the income tax)
my point is there arent "kinds" of liberty, as you said yourself a positive liberty isnt even really a liberty, so why the fuss, may make for an interesting philosophical debate but totally unnecessary imo
thats my whole point
obama clearly doesnt think very highly of the constitution, nor does any politician really (except congressman paul), its a joke
as for the healthcare bill (which has to do with the topic), it clearly isnt constitutional for a variety of reasons (for example: the equal protection clause [i think thats what they call it])