Re: Nanny, May I ?

Ngo Dinh Diem wrote:
<roars with laughter!> Your ridiculous pretensions of being an
intellectual are once more laid bare as sheer fantasy.

What pretentions? I any case what I do/ do not do for a living in no
way impacts what I or anyone else has to say for that matter. If X is
a 'street sweeper' I firmly believe that whatever X has to say is just
as valid as what Y has to say who might have a higher status job (from
your point of view of course). An opinion from one is just as good as
one from the next person, whatever they do.


Who said anything about your employment, if any? I was talking about your intelligence, if any! <chuckle>

You're like a little kid who can't figure out what the grown-ups are talking about, but who insists on joining the conversation anyway, then gets annoyed when told his contributions are meaningless.


To love liberty is not to embrace anarchy and Tim Daneliuk made no such
inference. Those like you, who despise liberty and wish to promote
state control, are forever suggesting that chaos is the inevitable
outcomes of too much freedom. Such a ridiculous fallacy has no place in
any debate between intelligent individuals.

Utter rot, I despise liberty?


I did not say that you were, but clearly, you *do* advocate state control of nearly every aspect of life - food, shelter, clothing, health care, etc. It should be obvious, even the slowest schoolboys, that the more state power grows the more individual liberty shrinks.


This coming from you, the archetypical
neo-colonialist who is more than happy to condone the mass murder of
others in some faraway country? Hah! What of their liberty hmm? Or
don't they deserve it because they are coloured and speak funny?


<laughter> Your delusions are of your own creation.


It is well understood that
all of civilizations require some compromise; that is, a measured
curtailment of the absolute freedom of the individual is necessary so
that large numbers may live side-by-side in harmony with one another.
Every society is so structured and everyone - except it would seem, you
- recognize that this is so. In fact, even the youngest of school
children are quickly taught the necessity of good order and made to
understand this fundamental point; but then again, rank imbecility *is*
your stock-in-trade, isn't it? Why don't you regale us once more with
your er... 'understanding' of Free Speech? <hoots of derision>


Well, why don't you? <smirk>


Tobacco
and alcohol cannot be sold to children because such an act is
(rightly) considered to be socially harmful, you cannot choose, inter
alia, which side of the road to drive on, what you can build on "your"
residential land, what you will (or will not) pay your employees, who
you can serve in "your" shop if someone comes in with legal tender.

All of which is irrelevant - and always has been. "Liberty" does [not] mean a
license to commit murder, either. So what else is new?

Of course it doesn't - that's my point. By reason of the social
contract limits are inherently placed on what we can and cannot do.


If that *was* your point, you failed miserably to make it. What you *actually* did was to object to Tim Daneliuk's condemnation of "collectivization" revealing a comical misunderstanding. Here's what he said:

Tim Daneliuk wrote:
All collectivist systems are the same: They elevate the
group interest above that of the individual. It makes
no difference whether they are socialist, communist,
progressive/liberal, or facist - they are essentially
the exact same thing accomplished by different means.
What you see here is the result of decades of Westerners
(who should know better), demanding that government
do "what's good for society".

to which you replied:

Peter Piper wrote:
What amazes me is that people such as yourself still cling to the will-
o-the-wisp of complete "liberty" when none has ever existed in the
first place. You forget that all manner of behaviour is controlled /
administered somehow by the government and always has been.

which quite clearly equates Tim's objection to "elevating the group interest above that of the individual" with some sort of anarchic state which you have chosen to call "complete liberty." That's not what Tim was getting at and you're too stupid to realize it.

Here's a clue for you: if group interest always trumps individual liberty than the state then government no longer has a reason to exist *except* to force the individual to acquiesce to group control. In other words, scratch a socialist, you'll find a fascist!

When we Americans created our government, we also undertook to protect our liberty. In order to create a nation, we volunteered to surrender a small set of specifically designated individual rights to the power of that government - but *only* those rights so designated. Our problem is that over the last 225 years and especially in the last 80, our government has slowly chipped away at our rights and added to its power. Presently, we find ourselves bedeviled by a busybody government which not only wants to seize our accumulated wealth, but claims that our very bodies no longer belong to us!


Reasonableness as an objective standard comes into play, just as our
(thankfully NOT entrenched) NZBORA implies


What you can't seem to grasp is that *someone* has to make the decision about what is "reasonable" and what is not. Each American has traditionally made that decision for himself, and *not* relied on the benevolence of rulers to maintain his well-being. That tradition is in danger.


(this way you don't get a
whole lot of hand picked cronies striking down legislation the
President finds unfavourable).


<howls of laughter> Yet another display of abject ignorance! (Your pretense of being an intellectual gets weaker with each new post you make.)

Here's a clue: the ways and means by which the US Supreme Court may "strike down" legislation, are strictly limited by Constitutional bounds; and in case it's escaped your attention (<-understatement of the day), the Supreme Court recently ruled *against* the Bush administration and declared that detainees at Guantanamo are entitled to the same rules of Habeas Corpus as US citizens would be.

You're batting .000 so far!


Often the misconceived notion of "liberty" is peddled by those who
want to take advantage of some other (more often than not less
powerful) individual or individuals, citing "freedom of action" as an
excuse for utterly unconscionable conduct. As soon as the tables are
turned they kick up a fuss, which is rather ironic to say the least.

<chuckles> Aha! Here we come to the thrust of your sermon: you think
that Liberty, like Capitalism, is merely a disguise which enables the
industrious and the talented to "keep down" the lazy and the inept, or
as you put it, "to take advantage of some other types." It's the same
old story: the failed rationale of Communism. It never was valid and no
matter how you dress it up, it will *never* possess any validity!

Why you bang on about my being a Communist I have no idea,


Gee, could it be because you routinely post quotations lifted directly from Communist literature? Could it be because you always choose state control over the freedom of the individual? Could it be because in the very post to which I'm responding, you again assert Communist ideals? Pick one!


then again
I would not expect more from someone who rarely ventures outside the
simplistic black and white world of absolutes.


Yes, you *are* on record as misunderstanding what you read here, this thread being just the latest example!


I think that in order
for there to be a true democracy, everyone needs an equal footing to
being with


LOL! That is Communist rhetoric to the letter! What were you just saying?

The fact is that there is no such thing as human equality and no government or social policy can alter that reality. All historical attempts to do so have ended in utter failure and have revealed that true folly of socialist government is that it requires a fascist to run it! We designed our government to ensure equality under the law - nothing more.


- this is why the underprivileged need and have a right to
help in order for them to help themselves (teach a man to fish) and
society as a whole benefits.


The term "underprivileged" is a misnomer and is so commonly mis-used that it has ceased to have any real meaning. These so called underprivileged have the same opportunities as every other citizen, as well as the same rights and responsibilities.


"Liberty" has always been and will always be constrained, it is just a
matter of extent and reasonableness.

You misunderstand. (<-understatement of the month!) In America, we
*created* a government and endowed it with a specific set of powers so
that it could protect our liberties. We are supposed to "constrain" our
government, not the other way 'round. We created it to serve our needs,
and if it should cease to do that, then we feel we have a legitimate
reason to change it.


I think those who struck in the 1920's and 30's might disagree
somewhat with your notion that your government somehow "protected"
their "liberties' by cracking down on every form of protest with
nightsticks and brutality (all recounted in clear terms by Zinn in a
People's History), pity your government doesn't care about the
liberties of others too!


Howard Zinn? <hoots of derision> Didn't you just pretend you *weren't* a Communist? You soak up Zinn and *dare* to suggest that my world view is colored by absolutes??? Sheesh! You're either retarded or dishonest - or both!

And "cracking down" on labor organizers? In case it's escaped your attention (<-understatement of the day, part 2), the Labor movement in the US *succeeded* in organizing; in fact they were so successful that their efforts resulted in a hidden tax on all American consumers amounting to over 1 trillion dollars since 1950. Thankfully, the power of organized labor is receding. Again, we see you favoring the collective over the individual - but you're "not" a Communist, you're a "market socialist." And I'm a petunia!


Schools don't deserve money?

State funded schooling means state controlled curriculum. What happens
when such a system begins to inculcate a set of values in its students
which their parents find abhorrent? Who do children belong to, their
parents or the state? These fundamental questions were answered long
ago - in the US Constitution - and we maintain that we never gave the
state the authority to raise our children for us.


Answer! Answer!


Neither for the health system?

*What* health system? In America, each citizen is supposed to provide
himself with his own health care, as he sees fit and can afford, just as
he provide himself with the fundamentals of life such as food, shelter
and clothing. We have traditionally *rejected* the nanny-state
mentality which proposes that we are not responsible for ourselves, that
we are like children and must be provided for by the state.


A strong public health system is a pre-requisite for any civilised
society.


Bull***! We've had a civilized society for 225 years *without* a public health system.


To have such a thing is not "nannyish" at all, just sensible.


Once again, you're phony intellectualism crashes and burns. "Sensible" is no more a legal definition that "nannyish." What we are speaking of here is that individual Americans have the right to order their own lives without interference from their government - because we set it up like that. Again, you've entirely missed this point and blessed us with yet another of you idiotic, meandering screeds about socialism versus capitalism and Good versus Evil.


Everyone has the right to healthcare whatever their earnings,


That's *not* a right! Learn your definitions!


the same
standard of care ought to be given to the pauper and the prince. Any
other stance goes against the hippocratic oath and the role of the
medical profession in general.


<yawn> You're wandering away from the point. Not every doctor is equally skilled, nor every hospital equally equipped and the rich will always be able to buy better care than the poor, just as they buy better quality food shelter and clothing. These are rights, they are privileges, and wealth always generates more privileges than poverty. If you want to consider rights, then consider that the poor have the same opportunities as everyone else to acquire wealth. Our system guarantees equality of opportunity, not equality of results!


I take it
next time you get sick and your health insurance won't fork out you
will only be too willing to mortgage your house to pay for whatever
treatment you will require without so much as a whimper of protest?

The next time I get sick I will provide for myself without bothering my
neighbors, just as I do when I'm hungry, thirsty or feel the need to get
in out of the rain. I am not a child and my neighbors are not my guardians.

As for no public funding for schools that would only further concretise
class divisions which would result in more inequality, when those
children break into your house you would undoubtedly be the first to
bemoan the droves of uneducated youth causing havoc on the streets!!
Such abject stupidity deserves no further comment than this: there are
no classes in America - and we *like* it that way!


No classes! I take it you were busy chattering away to yourself under
your rock when Katrina hit? Did you not see the masses of poor blacks
and hispanics belonging to the underclass who could not afford to flee
like the whites?


Yes I did, and as you will discover, should you ever open your eyes, that there are similar pockets of poverty in every large city in the world. However, the poor in New Orleans are among the wealthiest 'poor' in the world. A recent Heritage Foundation study discovered some significant statistics about being poor in America. An *average* American family that meets the federal definition of income below the poverty line owns a car, (and 31% of poor households own *two* cars!), an air conditioner, a refrigerator, a stove, a clothes washer and dryer, a microwave oven, 2 color TVs and has a cable or satellite TV subscription, a VCR or DVD player, and a stereo system. One-third of these 'poor' households have both cell and land-line telephones The Foundation also reported that poor families *are* able to obtain medical care, though not as much as wealthier families. Most families below the federal poverty line live in homes in good repair which are not overcrowded. They are not hungry, and generally have sufficient funds to meet their family's essential needs. In other words, they aren't wealthy, but they aren't suffering.

This study also discovered that if work in each family were raised to 2,000 hours per year, which is the equivalent of one
adult working 40 hours per week, that nearly 75 percent of poor children would be lifted out of official poverty. If poor mothers married the fathers of their children, nearly three quarters of the nation's impoverished youth would immediately be lifted out of poverty. A quarter of legal immigrants and fifty to sixty percent of illegals are high-school dropouts. By contrast, only nine percent of non-immigrant Americans lack a high school degree. As long as the present steady flow of poverty-prone illegal immigrants continues, efforts to reduce the total number of poor in the U.S. will be far exceedingly difficult. Their conclusions were that any realistic program aimed at reducing poverty must increase employment and foster marriage among native born Americans and end illegal immigration, *not* increase federal handouts


That was a truly horiffic sight which really did
deconstruct the myth of "The American Dream" in one foul swoop if
there ever was one. In every country there are classes, sure titles
may have gone but they are there nonetheless, those plutocrats and
oligarchs whose progeny invariably join the ranks of the nudge-nudge
wink-wink, you-scratch-my-back-and-I'll-scratch-yours cabal who like
to pretend they got where they are through merit. I am sure in your
town there is the not-so-nice neighbourhood sans white picket fences?
Populated by those who have nothing, and never will if people like
yourself have your way.


Once again, you trip over your vast ignorance while displaying a distorted view of America infused with your own hatred and envy. Conclusions based on no more data than images you may have once seen on television are equally worthy of ridicule.

What you fail to realize is that the "poor people" in New Orleans are not all the same "poor people" who were living there 30 years ago. You see, upward mobility (aka:The American Dream) still works as advertised and is still the standard that the entire world aspires to match.

Despite leftist rhetoric like yours, which wails endlessly about alleged economic inequality in the USA, a recent study by the U.S. Treasury Department found upward economic mobility to be the norm rather than the exception. After tracking the changes in
income levels on 96,700 income-tax returns from 1996-2005 for individuals over the age of 25, the study found that 58 percent of Americans who were in the poorest income group in 1996 had, by 2005, advanced to a higher income group. Almost 25 percent had moved into a middle or upper-middle income group, and more than five percent had actually made the leap to the highest
income group. The study also shows that almost 50 percent of those in the second-lowest income group advanced at least to a middle-income group, while only 17 percent dropped to a lower group. In other words, since 1996, more than half of Americans in the lowest income levels have experienced upward economic mobility. In fact, the group that experienced the *greatest* growth in income was the lowest fifth, whose income grew by 90 percent! By contrast, those in the highest fifth had their incomes grow by only ten percent.

All this is generally well-understood by economists, though you won't find the mainstream media talking about it - it doesn't suit there 'crisis' agenda.

Another report, by Pew Charitable Trusts, studied income mobility between generations and looked at racial factors. This study, which tracked 2,367 people since 1968, including 730 African-Americans, showed that while two thirds of Americans are upwardly mobile, many African-Americans actually dropped from middle class to poor. This drop closely coincides
with the federal War on Poverty. In other words, the government's 'solution' for poor black Americans only exacerbated their problems!. Again, this sort of thing is well understood by economists, and those with no political ax to grind. The free market allows all Americans to pursue and achieve the American dream, and it is government programs that have proven to be the greatest barriers to equal opportunity! Again, we are guaranteed the freedom to act to improve our lot, we are not guaranteed of success - and that is how it should be.


--
"Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all." - Frederic Bastiat
.

Loading