Betruger wrote:Maybe let them starve. Give only the children some means, the objective being that they can make it on their own once major if the parents don't recover in time to provide for them.
"My" solution I've already given. The source of all these stupid problems is cultural. Encourage runaway big govt and you'll get it quick. Then all the regulation and encroachment can't be taken away because it means decreasing security and increasing liberty, IOW it encourages liberty and personal responsibility which includes freedom to behave irresponsibly. Govt growth is a one way street.
I will agree to this... Take away the government's ABILITY to pay for homeless women and children, and the problem will over time, correct itself. It will correct itself through the ruthless cruelty of nature and evolution. THIS society will not stand for it, and will impoverish us all (if it is able) to prevent it from happening, therefore I don't think your solution is viable.
Betruger wrote:
I disagree that this is a "Natural right." It's as unnatural as it can be for people to consume concentrated plant toxins to screw around with their endocrinal systems. Accepting your belief would give people access to every drug in the pharmacy.
Why wouldn't they have access to whatever they wish to do whatever they please with their own body?
Because what they do with their own body has a negative effect on other people. In the case of abortion, they pretend it's not a person, so they justify that. In the case of drugs, they refuse to accept any responsibility for getting someone else hooked. In the case of diseases spread by promiscuity, they say it's the disease's fault, not theirs.
And so on. The libertarian philosophy is one of intentionally shirking responsibility, or in fact, denying that people HAVE any responsibility to anyone but themselves. It is the philosophy of petulant CHILDREN.
Betruger wrote:
Again if you have to clamp down your population because it's incapable of not looking both ways before crossing streets, nor responsibly using guns, nicotine, caffeine, alcohol, cannabis, heroine, and so on, you've got other problems in the first place.
It is axiomatic that we have other problems in the first place, but what is incomprehensible is how we should be better off by adding a whole NEW host of problems?
Betruger wrote:
And the above quoted argument isn't even self-consistent. That could be natural (as in "my belief") yet unrestricted pharmacy access illegal. Like here and now.
How can you advocate people using any drugs they want while banning them from the drugs in the pharmacy? Seriously, doesn't loritab or oxycontin fit in the "I can do whatever I want!" category in your universe?
Betruger wrote:
Come again? You need to explain this notion more clearly. You are saying that people behaving irresponsibly is the fault of the government? What happened to the notion that people are responsible for themselves? I am saying they need to be sterilized because they made ME pay for their fun, and I don't want to do it twice.
That was directly in-line with the thread, I shouldn't have to repeat it. WizWom argues sterilization rather than letting those who're proven reproductively "out of control" to sap govt resources, when that resource redistribution's decided by govt policy, and funded by tax money. Both come from The People, thru their vote. If policy was correct in the first place, tax money wouldn't be levied unfairly and those "irresponsible parties" wouldn't get any govt help.
As a friend of mine is fond of saying, "If ifs and buts were candies and nuts we would all have a merry Christmas! " We are discussing what to do about the reality that is, not how we wished it were different. The reason the taxes are levied unfairly is because this country has lost it's historical perspective on the purpose and principle of taxation. Nowadays people are convinced the government should prevent the poor from starving and dying of exposure. It makes no difference that we never should have done this to begin with, we have been doing it for a long time and most people want to insist that it continues.
Betruger wrote:
If a water line breaks, you stop flow upstream and fix the leak. You don't leave the feed open and hire contractors and consultants to build some Rube Goldberg "solution" that doesn't even fix the leak. "What you propose" is wasteful and inhumane.
If government were only so simple as plumbing. You see, there IS NO OFF VALVE! If you think what I propose is wasteful and inhumane, wait till you see what's coming!
Betruger wrote:
The "Nazi" argument is always thrown out when people want to malign the ideas of their opponents. It's a cheap trick ad-hominem, and is fine for a flame war, but really pointless if people are trying to discuss something rationally.
The Nazis in particular don't matter and the Godwin argument is a cop-out when the debate actually does center on inhumane practices that are in fact similar to the crap Nazis came up with.
Sterilizing people with mental retardation has been the norm in the United states for most if not all of last century. Do you consider this to be a Nazi-like practice, or should we let them breed?
Buck v. Bell, 274 U.S. 200 (1927), was the United States Supreme Court ruling that upheld a statute instituting compulsory sterilization of the unfit, including the mentally retarded, "for the protection and health of the state."
Holmes concluded his argument by declaring that "Three generations of imbeciles are enough".[5] The sole dissenter in the court, Justice Pierce Butler, declined to write a minority opinion.
That's Justice of the Supreme Court, Oliver Wendell Holmes.
Yeah, the idea has an "ick" factor to it, but REAL societies have to deal with REAL problems, like disposing of dead bodies, containing the spread of diseases, and feeding and housing the feeble minded, etc.
Betruger wrote:
The manner in which the system has been perverted since the mid 1800s is responsible for enabling government payments to deadbeats to behave irresponsibly. There was a time when ONLY taxpayers voted. Now that deadbeats can vote too, they form a self reinforcing constituency for politicians eager for their votes.
Red Herring. Vote in big govt and you favor a culture of big govt. That's no better than "deadbeats".
I'm very much against "big government" but we disagree on what the legitimate limits for government should be. I regard protecting the people from those among them who spread poison and disease to be a legitimate role of government. You do not.
Betruger wrote:
The more I do this, the more your arguments sound almost exactly like socialists I knew in Europe (not just some pejorative use of the word here, I mean actual card carrying, influential Socialists in the family). Almost any excuse is good to grow govt to make others behave like you want them to.
Actually, my thinking is that by implementing this idea, government will shrink. It is currently at it's gargantuan size as a result of administering these sorts of welfare programs. Were people discouraged to participate in a program that was onerous and required sacrifice on their part, these programs would attrite into nothing. They would go away.
Why are you advocating Ideas which keep this enormous bureaucracy in power? Why are you in favor of big government?
Do you need that shoe in a size 12?