(June 24, 2013 at 6:41 pm)Rhythm Wrote: Your objections seem to center around a "what if two interests compete" scenario....which is puzzling, given that competition is the very thing which is supposed to confer benefits or advantages to a "free market" -anything-....in any case. If two interests compete, I say -excellent!-, that's my thought experiment, I encourage competition. Why not invoke a third party as a "free market" arbitrator? In fact, this is precisely what I am doing when i argue for free market law or courts. I still don't understand why law is not a commodity, if food is. Help me see that?
Libertarians seem to draw a lot of arbitrary lines and then present them as if they were self-evident axioms. To the skeptic, they seem to have a lot of "this-but-not-that" and "here-but-not-there" rules on the "proper" role of government.
For example:
A government should pay so that I may have:
1. ...a police officer to stop a burgler from invading my home
2. ...a standing army to stop an army from invading my town
3. ...but NOT a doctor to stop a virus from invading my body
And I ask them similar why-not questions that used to drive me nuts when I was a believer. Why not have people pay for their own protection? If I'm a poor person with less to lose from a robbery, why should I pay to protect a rich person's mansion? Seems like I'm subsidizing what the rich guy wants. I also have less to lose from an army invading my town than a rich man has. I can go to ground and personally protect and hide my limited assets. Why should my taxes pay to have an army that protects my country when the rich have far more to lose.
It seems to me that a lot of "this-but-not-that" rules are slanted to favor the rich over the poor or middle class. These biased interests are hidden behind arbitrary assertions of axioms disingenuously presented as self-evident.
Atheist Forums Hall of Shame:
"The trinity can be equated to having your cake and eating it too."
... -Lucent, trying to defend the Trinity concept
"(Yahweh's) actions are good because (Yahweh) is the ultimate standard of goodness. That’s not begging the question"
... -Statler Waldorf, Christian apologist
"The trinity can be equated to having your cake and eating it too."
... -Lucent, trying to defend the Trinity concept
"(Yahweh's) actions are good because (Yahweh) is the ultimate standard of goodness. That’s not begging the question"
... -Statler Waldorf, Christian apologist
