Quoting ARLO J BENSINGER JR <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> [Platt]
> No. The state like everyone else knows that food is the product of work.
>
> [Arlo]
> Wrong. If a prisoner refuses to work, but desires to eat, the state must (and
> does) feed him.
Why "must" I and my neighbors feed a criminal who refuses to work for his food?
> [Platt]
> I guess you don't see the irony in saying wealth is a low value compare to
> life
> yet see forced redistribution of wealth as necessary for life. You can run
> from
> the issue of taxation, but you can't hide.
>
> [Arlo]
> Who's "hiding" from the issue of taxation? Taxation to construct social
> infrastructure is a great thing, one which enables freedom. Every time our
> armed forces secure our protection, or I drift on a rowboat fishing on a
> public
> lake, or I see a "poor" person receive necessary medical treatment, I am
> grateful for it.
You do not see that the power to tax is the power to destroy.
> [Platt]
> It was the tipping point in the American Revolution and the constant reminder
> of
> the state's power over its citizens, threatening their inalienable right to
> life and liberty, as our Declaration, which you denigrate, so truly states.
>
> [Arlo]
> Denigrate the Declaration??? My god, Platt, how low you stoop!
>
> The American Revolution was about taxation without representation, not about
> taxation alone. If you are now switching the argument to declare that taxation
> is a violation of liberty, then let's drop all taxation and fund the military
> through private donations and charity. Let's abolish pubic libraries and
> replace them with B&Ns. Let's make our public lands and roads waterways toll
> access only. Let's privatize the police, fire and emergency services.
>
> "Denigrate the Declaration"... you take the cake.
You don't seem to understand the list in the Declaration of grievances the
revolutionaries had against the government of England which emanates from the
same
power as the power to tax. That you seem blind to the connection is really
surprising to me. For you the government can do no wrong.
> However, here's an interesting moral problem. Let's say you are faced with a
> gunman who demands you wallet. If you do not give it to him, he threatens to
> shoot the guy standing next to you. Since you wallet is "your liberty", and
> this is more valuable than "life", I assume for you the moral thing to do
> would
> be to let him shoot the person next to you and take your precious pocketful of
> liberty home?
Do you think for a moment the gunman would not shoot the guy and also take my
wallet? Where do you dream up these ridiculous hypotheticals.
> What underlies all this is your need to place the value of a human being on
> their wealth. A poor person is "not valuable" (by virtue of his wallet), and
> so
> if he dies no harm done. We measure who lives and who dies by who has money
> and
> who does not. Sick.
What's sick is your notion that someone's life, rich or poor, grants you the
power to steal from me.
> Taxation enables freedom, and national healthcare demonstrates that human life
> is not measured by one's wallet... despite what the neocon capistrocracy may
> want everyone to believe ("But here in New York it seemed as if when you're
> poor you're just poor. And that means you're nobody. Really nobody. And if
> you're rich you're really somebody" (LILA) That sums up your position
> entirely.)
To sum up your postion, producers can be forced at the point of gun to provide
for the "needs" of takers. Now that's sick.
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