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Old 01-04-2007, 01:05 AM
Al68 Al68 is offline
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Join Date: Dec 2006
Posts: 394
Default Re: Are Depraved Indifference Laws Wrong?

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You're focusing on the specific example but missing the point. Even if gasoline tax is the only money that funds roads (which I doubt), the government collects taxes from pacifists to maintain a standing army of dubious constitutionality (but eminent practicality), funds "the arts", whatever those might be, builds enormous prisons to imprison marijuana users, and tells us that, if we cut the tag off the mattress, we're going to prison. And if those examples don't get there for you, there are 10,000 more.

The point is this: "forced samaritan" laws are nothing new philosophically. If your objection to these laws is that "we shouldn't force people to do things they don't want to do", you must also object to virtually all law, state, local, federal and international. Do you?

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No, not all of them, just some of them. I don't object to all laws that don't "force people to do things they don't want to do".

Your example of the gas tax was not one I object to, because the roads in the U.S. are fully funded by gas taxes. The road/gas tax is one that was set up before U.S. politicians started massively using their taxation authority for theft.

I don't object to laws that protect people from force and fraud. That's what government is for.

But I do object to most of the laws given as examples here, like imprisoning marijuana users. But even those laws are not the subject of this thread.

This thread was about forcing a person to be a "good samaritan", which I do object to. Just because I don't believe in involuntary servitude. And the current U.S. constitution specifically forbids it. Of course it is nothing new philosophically, few things are.

Not all laws "force people to do things they don't want to do". Historically in the U.S. laws did not do this, generally speaking (there are a few examples to the contrary, especially with local governments). Laws were intended to forbid an action, not force one. And the premise was that all government power was from the people, and people only have the right to use force against other people defensively, not offensively.
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