Tell that to the gay community who can’t have rights because they aren’t the majority.
I view an unhampered productive market to be quite an incentive.
‘Your plan is a good plan, I like it, but I think there’s enough money to both cut taxes significantly and still fund the military and give contributions to Israel.’
Sustaining Israel on our foreign aid is like giving a weekly allowance to a 40 year old virgin living in the basement. Its time to kick the virgin out of the basement and tell him to get his own place.
Not all Palestinians are extremists and not all Jews are moderates. Anyways its not the US’s place to dictate what happens.
No, and the prisoners need to always have a means of changing out guards. And the guards need to be few in number. And it’s not a false analysis because the state is the guard. The people are like prisoners (sort of) but ideally we would be able to vote our guards out and change them whenever we felt it necessary.
I don’t want a no state. I want a diet state. Why can’t we have a small state? And as far as Israel goes, they’re being pressed into conceding territory that is rightfully theirs because the US is turning its back on Israel. And it’s not right. I hate Obama for it.
The gay community is getting their rights, albeit slowly. However, my position has always been that the government shouldn’t be in people’s lives except to the extent that it has to be. So I’m totally in favor of gay rights or whatever.
You might be right. I still think maintaining Israel is a better way. And yeah, we give a lot of money to Israel, but I think we should.
No, but the Palestinian position is basically that the land is theirs. And that’s all anyone needs to know.
yes, if the people could keep the government off their backs. government would not be an evil to them. but the idea of granting a monopoly of violence to someone and asking them not to misuse it is ridiculous. You are trying to win the argument by semantics. the government is not a guard. a guard would actually guard. governments are thieves. Do you believe that we need some minimal presence of thieves to protect our property from thieves?
a diet state is better than a bloated state. but compared to no state. it looks like a bloated state.
Perhaps you can tell me what territory is rightly owned by any state on earth(let alone israel). I have never come across any.
The government is a thief. However, I’m willing to pay my taxes if I like what it’s being spent on. I despise welfare programs. But I am pro military. So I don’t mind my money being spent on the military. I should be able to vote out the people in charge of the military if I want. And yes, we need to have some kind of guard against thieves. See, the problem here, is you don’t like the military. So you see them as thieves. I don’t.
Define “rightly owned”? I think of ownership as “if you find it, put your name on it and can protect it, it’s yours.” If we eliminate the ridiculous government spending on social entitlement programs, taxes can come WAY down. And if we reinstitute some kind of sound money, governments will have a hard time inflating the currency to serve their myriad needs and whims. I mean, how high would the income tax need to be if it only funded the military? I’m thinking a ten percent flat tax would be acceptable. At that point, I’d stop complaining. They’d also need to get rid of capital gains taxes and property taxes and consumption taxes and death taxes. I just want a diet state.
perhaps the problem is that you feel that people who feel the government are thieves should be forced by the government to pay for the military that you are happy to pay for.
see my prior post on Meth Ind. The US government found stuff and put its name on it. did it really?.. oh my.
I have read the link you sent me. I agree with what it says. I say “we” as the members of the US. I consider myself a member of that group. And as such I see myself and you as a part of that group. I am, however, my own person, I am at once separate from and a part of the US citizenry. So if you see yourself as separate from the US group, then I can understand why you would resent being placed in that group.
If you don’t feel the military is necessary, perhaps you shouldn’t live in a country that uses your tax dollars to pay the military for protection? I’m not saying this to be mean, I’m just saying if I want my tax money to go to the military and you don’t, then obviously, you are being forced to pay for something you don’t want and as such, you shouldn’t tolerate that kind of treatment.
We came here on a boat, founded some colonies, rebelled from our original owners, started a new nation, bought a lot of the land from the French and then we expanded westward…the land the US is currently inhabiting is owned by the US. Right?
I just want to see regulation in the market place done away with, taxation lowered to acceptable levels, a flat tax instituted, government spending significantly reduced, welfare, social security, medicare, medicaid, affirmative action and the Federal Reserve abolished. But I still want there to be a government and a military.
You see yourself as something totally separate from the United States?
thanks for telling us what you want and ignoring what is right and what is wrong.
i live in england… but it changes nothing in the argument. you were equivocating on your use of the word US. you started off describing individuals coming to north american continent and homesteading property. and leapt from that to a US state/fedeferal government that owns territory.
What’s right to you might be wrong to me. Right and wrong need an enforcer, otherwise they are just opinions.
It does change the argument because you ARE in fact separate from the group known as the United States. We are all individuals but also a part of a group. Being an individual and being part of a group aren’t mutually exclusive.
Justice requires an arbitrator. Justice doesn’t exist in a vaccuum. Someone has to interpret it.
Did I? You’re saying that the actions of the people of the United States are separate from the United States itself yes? Well, that doesn’t make sense. Because while we are individuals, we are also a part of the group. So those individuals who landed on Plymouth Rock were individuals, but also a part of a group now known as the United States. Their actions and my current existence are intertwined.
you believe in the justice of arbitrators. ok. i get it , you dont believe in justice. you believe in moral relativism etc.
sophistry. you fail to address the substantive points. im saying that only people can perform ‘actions’ . the United States does not perform ‘actions’. to say the the united states acts is to confuse a colloquilism, or a manner of speaking, with the literal meaning.
You really think someone claiming they did something is the same as evidence? You think this was justification to invade a country and ruin lives and kill people? If this is your line of thinking, I see no reason to continue conversing with you. It appears you are just a sick neo-con uninterested in real discourse.
I just don’t believe in some Platonic form of justice. Because someone has to interpret right and wrong. You see…you might think killing me is a good idea. Because you hate me or something. But I don’t like that idea. Because I don’t want to die. So now, we either fight and see who wins or we turn to a third party to determine if you should have grounds to kill me. So even something like murder is not so black or white. What I’m basically saying about Hitler is that I think the United States was correct in fighting him. And since I’m part of the whole of the United States, my opinion counts only for a little. But if enough people agree with me and are willing to stand by and enforce my opinion, then I am right. Unless more people think what you think, in which case, I am wrong. Assuming you can enforce your decision.
Individuals perform actions in the name of the United States. In that sense, the individual is like a hand of the state. But I am responsible for the actions of that individual and the state because I am a part of the same group he is.
I think his claiming he did it combined with the information collected by the CIA is enough to convince me that he was responsible. And that’s all I need to know. Now, you may not trust the information collected, or you may think that war is never acceptable, or whatever. And you are perfectly entitled to that opinion, and I respect you for having it. But it doesn’t change the fact that I support the United States’ actions in Afghanistan, Iraq, and in WW2. So to me, all those wars were just. To you, they are something else. Which is fine. I just don’t agree with you.