On Jan 25, 1:30*pm, Bret wrote:
On Jan 25, 1:26*pm, SLAVE of THE STATE wrote:





On Jan 24, 10:41*pm, Bret wrote:

On Jan 24, 10:37*pm, "Tom Kunich" cyclintom@yahoo. com wrote:

"Bret" wrote in message

...

I never mentioned my beliefs on this subject. How about the fire
department? Are they evil too?

Ahh yes, the old saw that if something bad is bad than anything else is
equally bad.

I didn't say anything was bad. You made an absolute statement that
state funded altruism is evil. Tell me why the fire department doesn't
fit that statement. Or are you not committed to the absolute truth of
your statement?

Imagine that. *People are so altruistic, they must be coerced into
being altruistic.

If people were altruistic, they'd do those things without a state.
There is no "kind and gentle" way to take people's property and
basically threaten them with death if they insist on defending it.

The state is wholly unnecessary to perform these altruistic acts if
people are indeed altruistic and value these things. *What it amounts
to is a ruler class denoting value to all others. *The word for that
is tyranny.

What the statist -- the petty tyrant -- cannot stand is the idea that
not everyone agrees with him/her.

It is basic obfuscation of simple language. *You've been had. *You
have (intentionally?) confused/conflated means and ends.

Tyranny is altruism
Coercion is defense
Destruction is creation
Stealing is giving
Violence is kindness

"War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength."
*--- George Orwell, "1984"
I hate to put words in your mouth, but I take from this and your many
previous postings on the subject that you consider all taxation to be
evil. A necessary evil? You never say what we should do instead.

To put it in a sentence, if "we" must have government, then that
government must be (and stay that way) chained by severe restraints on
what it may do. This doctrinal position is sourced from certain facts
of human nature.

In principle, that was exactly the type of general (federal)
government that was formed -- a "constrained via enumerated powers"
entity. That written constitution has not been amended in a way that
allows the general government to do the breadth of things it does
today. No honest debater could say such a thing. Thus the current US
government is not legitimate /on its own terms/. (Leaving aside the
more general question if a given government is legitimate even if it
did obey its own laws.)

I'm a philosophical dumbass but the one thing I took away from the
stupid humanities elective in engineering school is that philosophy is
the study of questions that have no one perfect answer. You and Tom
are so certain you have that answer, but you both sidestep the fire
department question.

If you are saying I believe there is "perfection" to be had in the
rules of conduct of a given society (and duty-based requirements in an
authoritarian societal structure), then you are indeed putting words
in my mouth. I know of no such grand unifying social theory.

I think you do not understand the weakness of your "fire department
question."