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Old 04-02-2007, 02:40 AM
ShakeZula06 ShakeZula06 is offline
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Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: On the train of thought
Posts: 5,848
Default Human nature and government

Below is a post i was going to make in this thread, but doing so would hijack the Op, and I think this deserves it's own thread anyway.

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You make it sound as if government is an impediment to a more peaceful society.

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Government makes wars profitable by externalizing cost of war onto duped taxpayers(that history shows they first blind with propaganda and scaring them into thinking they need to go to war). They use money from taxpayers to attempt to restrict a person from doing such voluntary activities as taking drugs, selling drugs, or playing poker in a non-government deemed appropriate places (read: government's unhappy it didn't get it's cut). To satisfy it's own objectives, our government has (with taxpayer money again) financed the killing of other world leaders and installed leaders that will act as puppets for our government.

Doesn't sound like putting limits on actions to me. It seems to me that it gives humans unlimited actions. I certainly don't think Halliburton would have invaded Iraq, do you? Government created this action, it didn't limit or prevent against it.

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People are often irrational. They become drug addicts. They lie and steal. They cheat. They hit each other. They occasionally kill each other over jealousy, or money, or religion, or skin color, or card games, or prestige, or honor, etc.

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Yes, and these people are often through government given free reign to do what they want. Government is after all, run by people. And those people, once in government, can use the strings of government to pursue the actions you posted (e.g., regulations that are favorable to certain company's, nation building for the sole purpose of war profiteering and installing puppet dictators, legislating subjective morality).
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Government provides a framework of rules for people to live with each other. But just like sports without referees can devolve into chaos, government serves as a referee of sorts.

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This is a false dilemma. You're assuming that government is the only arbiter that can "referee". Notice that in sports, government has not decreed that referees must be used. The free market brought it referees. Notice that in disputes with labor unions and businesses, private arbitrators are used. These arbitrators have also risen to their places of power through the fact that they are best of what they do, rather then being politically connected to those with the power to appoint judges, or those with the connections to run a successful campaign for public office.
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The beauty of representative democracy with built-in checks and balances is...

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Of course, the government that has checks and balances for itself.
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... is that there is a minimum of abuse of those powers.

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I'd disagree with your usage of "minimum". I'd like to simply get rid of those powers, less anyone abuse them in the first place.
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But they are less than in...anarchy, market-driven or otherwise.

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Assertion. Bill Gate's entire net worth would only finance <15% of the Iraq War. This also assumes that wars from the investor's POV is profitable, which all of history shows that in the large, large majority of cases isn't. Regardless of human nature, a free market would select against wars and aggression because it simply isn't a good business model and is unprofitable.
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The United States is really the product of a great experiment in representative democracy written by people who distrusted central powers because they knew that absolute power would corrupt absolutely.

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And now we have central powers. Check out the commerce clause, the supremacy clause, and the fact that the federal government will not allow states to secede. The current attorney general has tried to reason that US citizens don't have a right to habeas corpus. States and individuals have very little power. This country has been turned into an oligarchy in democratic clothing. It's certainly not unpredictable that when you give anything ran by humans the power to grow relentlessly (and aid it with taxes) that it will grow and increase in power wherever it can.
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Don't like what the CIA is doing? Vote for another president. Vote for other congressmen. Run for congress yourself.

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The little "democracy" we have left in this country is mob rule. I can only stop the government from creating these atrocities if some how I can convince a large majority of people to stop buying into the system (the system is an oligarchy that has successfully appeared to most as the voice of the people, further proving Proudhon right). Convincing majorities (especially when that majority is convinced that it's security is under attack from a vague threat, like say, I don't know, terrorism) to favor individualism and liberty goes completely against mob psychology.

The system is set up not to favor the little guy and the libertarian. Politicians rarely get money to not give specialized treatment somewhere to some company to the detriment of tax payers. You can't war profiteer without wars. You can't give out no bid contracts without a war.

People in government have power. Why would they voluntarily relinquish it? You said it yourself, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Why would someone, with power, favor doing "the right thing" (whatever that may be) over doing the thing that serves his best interests?

But, while I'd love to just have a chance to convince them not to do the things the government gets away with, I shouldn't even have to. Your telling me I have to convince THEM that what they're doing to me or others with my own money that what they're doing is wrong? If what they're doing involves using my money, the burden should be on them to get my acceptance, no matter how much of a minority I am.

Who do we commonly see running for office? Power driven people from the upper class. We typically see that those who get elected frequently do not service "the people" but themselves, their special interest groups, companies they had ties to pre-election, and people/companies that line their pockets. Elected politicians have incentives, just like every other person. Government to me would only have merit if benign angels ran it, and we don't have that. Humans given power act on their nature to be greedy. In a free market this means providing a good or service to someone else good enough to have someone voluntarily pay for it. In government it means transferring wealth from one party to another.

"The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter."
-Churchill

"Democracy is nothing but the Tyranny of Majorities, the most abominable tyranny of all, for it is not based on the authority of a religion, not upon the nobility of a race, not on the merits of talents and of riches. It merely rests upon numbers and hides behind the name of the people."
-Proudhon

"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote."
-Benjamin Franklin

"97% of politicians give the other 3% a bad name."
-unknown
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