| | (First of all, I extend my apologies for not responding sooner. As interesting as this discussion is, certain events in my Real Life have priority, and I didn't have a large enough chunk of time to sit down and compose a decent post until now.)
Re the health care numbers discussion. You have numbers; I have numbers. You say your numbers are more important; I could say mine are. But, to be honest, I don't think either of our numbers are going to change each others' minds (which I'll expand more on in a moment)... and, those of you who /were/ arguing that the numbers demonstrate that American-style health care funding has better results than Canadian-style, and /therefor/ non-government-funded health care is better than government-funded health care, have accepted my larger point - that saving lives is a higher priority than castrating government power.
Let's try something... imagine, just for a moment, that I were to present some numbers that, by any reasonable standard, demonstrated that Canadian health care is definitively better than American in some major respect. Now, ask yourself, given such numbers, would you change your mind, and accept that government-funded health care is a good idea? If so, then you have already accepted my more important point, that lives are more important than politics, and there's no real need for me to debate the particular numbers.
However, if, on the other paw, you would /not/ change your mind, even given such numbers, then, again, there is no real need for me to debate the numbers with you. Any civilized debate requires certain rules and standards; one of these is a certain degree of reciprocality, being as willing to accept that you, yourself, might be wrong, as your debating opponent is willing to make a similar admission. If you are not willing to allow yourself to be persuaded to change your mind, then, in the spirit of the Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma's tit-for-tat, I feel no obligation to pay attention to your attempts to persuade me.
(That is not to say that I'm not willing to be persuaded, in general; I try to keep my beliefs but lightly, allowing them to drift in whatever direction the winds of evidence blow them. But I don't go trying to proselytize atheism in Christian forums, or bother listening to Christian attempts to proselytize to me.)
Re Posts #32 & 36:
> If you were an Objectivist, you would recognize that
> standard.
In my readings of Objectivism, I have found a surprising number of commentators who equate it to a personality cult focussed on Rand. I, however, am trying to extend the benefit of the doubt to believers of this philosophy. However, if Objectivism is /not/ simply Randism, then that means it is possible that Rand herself was incorrect about some of the logical consequences of Objectivism's basic axioms, and so, at least to me, it's worth examining those conclusions - such as that government should always always always be reduced to the maximum extent possible - in light of both those original axioms, as well as the evidence of the world at large, to make sure that the standards promoted by Objectivists /are/ truly rational.
For example, using the IoP site as a basis, the ethical standard is given as man's life. It also suggests that a useful technique for assisting one's life is encouraging the use of reason, by having a political system that maximizes rights, by reducing the power of that government to the defense of that right, by eliminating taxation. Thus, Objectivism's opposition to taxation is a subgoal of a subgoal of a subgoal of a subgoal, while preserving lives is the goal which that sub-sub-sub-sub-goal tries to attain... this implying, at least to me, that, as I describe above, to Objectivists, saving lives is more important than eliminating taxes. Health care is a rather direct way of saving lives, and thus seems to be, at least potentially, an area where the larger goal of saving lives could be able to override the smaller sub-goal of eliminating involuntary taxation.
> In 1775 there were no constitutional republics. So at
> that time you could just as easily have argued only
> governments run by monarchies are successful at
> defending itself from invaders. If we used your
> rationale, we'd still be ruled by kings. Ancient Greece
> would have never developed ideas of democracy and and of
> republics, since before then there was no precedence for
> such a thing. You're basically arguing from tradition
> rather than from morality.
Your argument is rather a strawman. There /have been/ societies on Earth that did not include involuntary taxation - I'm sure you can think of at least a few, if you tried. They simply didn't last when facing those societies which did.
> That you are willing to sacrifice liberty for some vague
> or unspecified standard doesn't make you a libertarian at
> all.
Perhaps you haven't been reading my posts very closely - I was very clear in my first post in this thread what the standard I'm proposing is, and I've been trying to expand on what I meant by it since then, in particular in this post.
If you really do believe I'm a troll, then I refer you to one of the best techniques found online for dealing with suspected trolls: don't feed them. If you honestly think that this thread is all so that I can rub my hands together while cackling with glee, muttering "And /now/ they've fallen into my /trap/! Mwahahaha!", then one of the best things you can do... is to ignore this thread, stop reading to it, and stop posting to it. Doing so will save you a lot of time and aggravation, allowing you that much more time to concentrate on activities you enjoy more.
Re Post #34:
> It's good to see you have a sense of humor.
I've been on the internet since before the September That Never Ended, and on pre-internet fora before then; I'd like to think that I've seen most of the best and the worst, so that I can keep my smile on in present-day online debates. :)
> Yes, but your "counter" fails by being "unacceptable"
> (counter-arguments fail by 4 main reasons, one of which
> is acceptability).
Do you have a reference handy describing these '4 main reasons'?
> The reason it's unacceptable as a counter-arugment is
> that you get to view those events with the benefits of
> posterity, whereas actual utilitarian social
> planners/social engineers don't ever view what they
> do like that.
Um. Once again, I'm not sure that we're using anything like the same definitions for 'utilitarianism', and we seem to be talking past each other in another "door-wall discussion" here. Maybe we should try coming up with some other word, even if we have to make one up, for what you believe is my utilitarianism, and then you could describe some of what you think is necessarily part of utilitarianism, and then I could try responding about whether or not I think flumphism is, is isn't, what you're describing?
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