Alternative Medicine

P.S. I would be more supportive of seatbelt laws if government officials wore theirs; but when I see a-holes like NJ governor John Corzine not wearing his, I just wished his insurance would have denied coverage for failure of a condition precedent.

You really should read the entire speech made by Samuel Adams. Taking quotes out of context because you can’t figure out how to respond to GE just makes you look very silly.

American won the Revolutionary War. We are free from the British. It’s time that you moved on.

May 30th, 2007 at 3:05 pm
Andy, the British have been gone for a long long time now. The war is over.”

That Sam Adams quote is just as valid today as it was back then. The people who value wealth over liberty that he’s talking about remind me of the arrogant yuppies of today who think that “they’ve got theirs” so everything is OK and bury their heads in the sand over all of the problems that we’ve got.

“If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.” Samuel Adams

Samuel Adams

May 30th, 2007 at 7:45 am
1. ‘Government schools’ = No. Public education does not have to be ‘government schools.’ Adam Smith was for public education. I am for universal charter schools and an open market in education; education to be controlled at the state leve, but with each child having guaranteed access to any of the public non-government charter schools.”

Education should not be controlled by the state at any level. Also, when you give tax payer money to “private” or “charter” schools there are always going to be strings attached, even if it is not apparent right away. The government should be kept completely out of education.

“2. Seat belt laws are not a great infringement on liberty. Having them is like having a law against setting your nuts on fire. That law would be pointless, but the fact is that we have a financial and highway infrastructure and the market’s ‘solution’ to the problem would be higher insurance rates for everyone else. I live in reality, not in conspiracyland. The extreme minor infringement on ‘liberty’ is worth the extra few hundred bucks I’m saved.”

Saying that seat belt laws are not a great infringement on liberty is just your OPINION. I’d say that if not wearing a seat belt can be used by a cop as an excuse to pull people over and extort money out of them that it IS an infringement on liberty.

I prefer to wear a seat belt myself, because I think that one is generally safer if they wear one, but there are some instances where seat belts have actually caused people to die (they are probably the exception and not the rule, but this is besides the point). It should be up to each individuals as to whether or not they wear a seat belt.

It seems to me that there is little to no evidence that seat belt laws have lowered car insurance rates. Also, as I’ve said before the free market would have a solution for this if it were really a problem and if the government would get out of it. The REALITY is that this is just a scheme for the cops to be able to have another excuse to pull people over and write them out tickets and to hopefully (from their stand point) find more charges on which they can nail people.

“3. Minimum wage: If the minimum wage is $0.01 an hour, is it even relevent? Markets, not governments, should determine wages. But a minimum wage, set at a floor below which no sane or reasonable (i.e. non-mentally disabled) person would work at is not an ‘infringement’ on ‘liberty’ in my opinion. Furthermore, my ‘support’ for the existence of a minimum wage (not its increase, etc.) is more about political reality. There are 1000 issues more important. Which brings us to…”

There shouldn’t be any minimum wage. The minimum wage does not accomplish its stated objective and is nothing more than a “feel good” solution that some politicians use to sucker people into voting for them.

“4. Affirmative Action: I am not in favor of government racial preference. The only thing I have come out against is the LP making this a flagship issue, which in the eyes of many blacks, paints us as racists. There are much, much bigger issues. Furthermore, I do think it appropriate for private companies to practice ‘affirmative action’ in the name of diversity – voluntarily. And yes, I do support the Civil Rights Act, although it could probably be repealed today with no ill consequences.”

I don’t think that the Libertarian Party has made getting rid of Affirmative Action into a flagship issue. Maybe it has in Michigan, but that’s only because there was a big controversy about it in Michigan in the last few years, but in the rest of the country for the LP it has been more of a side issue.

“As for ‘balls’ – I have the ‘balls’ to make money; the most libertarian act of all.”

A lot of people make money, in fact, just about everyone makes some money. However, just because somebody makes money – even if they make a lot of money – it doesn’t automatically mean that they are a libertarian. In fact, a lot of people who make a lot of money are NOT libertarians, and some of them are actually anti-libertarian.

Also, a lot of people who make a lot of money are too busy making money and too busy enjoying their money to even care about fighting for liberty.

Don’t get me wrong, I think that making money can be a great thing, I’m just pointing out that it is a fallacy to automatically assume that making a lot of money makes one a libertarian.

2. Seat belt laws are not a great infringement on liberty. Having them is like having a law against setting your nuts on fire. That law would be pointless, but the fact is that we have a financial and highway infrastructure and the market’s “solution” to the problem would be higher insurance rates for everyone else. I live in reality, not in conspiracyland. The extreme minor infringement on “liberty” is worth the extra few hundred bucks I’m saved.

3. Minimum wage: If the minimum wage is $0.01 an hour, is it even relevent? Markets, not governments, should determine wages. But a minimum wage, set at a floor below which no sane or reasonable (i.e. non-mentally disabled) person would work at is not an “infringement” on “liberty” in my opinion. Furthermore, my “support” for the existence of a minimum wage (not its increase, etc.) is more about political reality. There are 1000 issues more important. Which brings us to…

4. Affirmative Action: I am not in favor of government racial preference. The only thing I have come out against is the LP making this a flagship issue, which in the eyes of many blacks, paints us as racists. There are much, much bigger issues. Furthermore, I do think it appropriate for private companies to practice “affirmative action” in the name of diversity – voluntarily. And yes, I do support the Civil Rights Act, although it could probably be repealed today with no ill consequences.

As for “balls” – I have the “balls” to make money; the most libertarian act of all.

If taxation is theft, then don’t ask the government to settle your disputes in a court of law. Don’t call the police when your sister is getting raped. Don’t use the government roads. Don’t buy anything shipped on those same roads. Don’t use the internet; a government invention. And don’t ask the government to protect your intellectual property or protect your precious borders.

May 29th, 2007 at 10:38 am
I don’t like playing the ‘who’s a libertarian/Libertarian’ game.”

Except when you are attacking somebody, like Ron Paul for instance.

“If acknowledging that government has some constitutional duties that needed to be funded make’s one not a libertarian, then I’m not a libertarian.”

I wouldn’t say that this automatically means that one is not a libertarian. I think that one can be an anarchist or a hardcore minarchist (as in a strict Constitutionalist) and be considered a libertarian.

“The FraudTax is a ridiculous, anti-growth, pro-government bureaucracy FANTASY that would require a constitutional amendment.”

I agree with you here that the FAIRTAX sucks.

“The Steve Forbes Flat Tax is pro-growth, less bureaucratic, and constitutional.”

I don’t like the Flat Tax either, but at least it wouldn’t be as much of a hassle as implementing the FAIRTAX would be, and it would also be easier to avoid than the FAIRTAX, so it would probably be preferable to the FAIRTAX.

I don’t think that either the current income tax, the FAIRTAX, or the Flat Tax are necessary. They are all theft from an anarchist position and from a minarchist position none of them are needed to fulfill the constitutional functions of government.

I remember when I first joined the Libertarian Party back in 1996 one of the things that made me want to join was when Harry Browne brought up the point that if the government actually obeyed the Constititon, there’d be no need for an income tax.

“I have found that most Libertarians and libertarians understand economics about as well as Democrats and socialists; i.e. not at all.”

I have found that libertarians as a group, are – generally speaking – the most well informed people around, on all issues, especially economics.

May 29th, 2007 at 2:04 am
Andy – My views are very similar to those of Smith, Ricardo, Mill; and later, Friedman and Hayek. Friedman and Hayek existed in the libertarian age, but still preferred to be called liberals because there was/is a difference. My perspective differs from libertarian dogma on monetary policy and taxation.”

I’d say that those are two pretty big issues, and these are not the only areas where you do not agree with Libertarians. You’ve come out in favor of government schools, seat belt laws, minimum wage, and Affirmative Action, to name just a few things.

“If Libertarians can support the FraudTax, why not the income tax? Why is the belief that a low, flat-rate income tax is the best way to fund necessary government functions (because it is the least fdetrimental to growth in my estimation) so much less “libertarian” than the adovacy of a growth-killing sales tax?”

I HATE the so called FAIRTAX myself as I think that it’s a scam. I also hate the income tax. I do not support switching from the income tax to the FAIRTAX because I believe that the FAIRTAX could be just as bad – if not worse – than the income tax and I also believe that all of the talk about the FAIRTAX leads people away from the real problems, and those are the spending and the monetary system, and the very notion that the government “needs the revenue” in the first place. Libertarians who support the FAIRTAX are misguided at best in my opinion.

The FAIRTAX and the income tax are both wrong, and there are two ways of looking at why they are wrong.

#1) Taxation is theft and whether or not the theft occurs when somebody recieves a pay check or when they purchase something it does not erase the fact that it is theft.

#2) Even if one believes that a minimal, constitutionally restrained government is necessary to protect people against forms of violence, theft, and destruction of property, it still does not justify the income tax or the FAIRTAX because neither are needed to fulfill the constitutional role of our government.

“Would it be unacceptable for someone to believe that Congress has a constitutional authority to control the money supply? They do. But yet it is certainly more libertarian for that power to be one step removed from the whims of Congress.”

The Constitution says that “No state shall accept anything but gold and silver coin as a payment for debts.” The colonies expiermented with fiat currency before the Constitution was written and it was a disaster. The big bankers who control the Federal Reserve are NOT friends of freedom, in fact, they are enemies of freedom.

“I don’t really care if I have your approval or not, but I am tired of fighting with you. We agree on virtually every issue but the two above,”

You actually started the fighting with me. When I first saw your posts I tried responding in a civil manner, but you were not civil and you are in fact not civil very often.

You viciously attacked Ron Paul for months and went to great – even ridiculous – lengths to discredit and smear him, nevermind the fact that Ron Paul is without question the most pro-liberty person in the federal government and has done more for liberty than you have, and is in fact more libertarian than you are.

“and I don’t think belief in conspiracy theories is requesite for libertarianness.”

I never said that a belief in “conspiracy theories” is a requesite for being a libertarian. Of course, everyone does believe in some “conspiracy theories,” it’s just that some people tend to believe only in the ones the government puts out. This alone does not necessarily mean that one is not a libertarian, however, at some point if a person believes in what the government says they would be disqualified from being libertarians because if they believed everything the government says they’d support Social Security, the War on Drugs, and every thing else the government does.

I don’t disqualify people as libertarians based on whether or not they believe that they government carried out 9/11 or whether or not the government was involved in the JFK assassination, or other things like this, however, I’m not wild about people who claim to be libertarians deriding those who are skeptical about what the government says and research issues and seek the truth. I also don’t care for libertarians who deride tax protestors, ID protestors, war protestors, militia members, and other people who go to extremes to resist government. Just because they don’t have the balls to do any of these things is no reason to deride those who do. There are different ways to fight the government and there is no one silver bullet.

If acknowledging that government has some constitutional duties that needed to be funded make’s one not a libertarian, then I’m not a libertarian.

The FraudTax is a ridiculous, anti-growth, pro-government bureaucracy FANTASY that would require a constitutional amendment.

The Steve Forbes Flat Tax is pro-growth, less bureaucratic, and constitutional.

I have found that most Libertarians and libertarians understand economics about as well as Democrats and socialists; i.e. not at all.

Most Libertarians do not support the sales tax.