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"If physical force is to be barred from social relationships, men need an institution charged with the task of protecting their rights under an objective code of rules.
This is the task of a governmentof a proper governmentits basic task, its only moral justification and the reason why men do need a government.
A government is the means of placing the retaliatory use of physical force under objective controli.e., under objectively defined laws.
The source of the governments authority is the consent of the governed. This means that the government is not the ruler, but the servant or agent of the citizens; it means that the government as such has no rights except the rights delegated to it by the citizens for a specific purpose.
The only proper purpose of a government is to protect mans rights, which means: to protect him from physical violence. A proper government is only a policeman, acting as an agent of mans self-defense, and, as such, may resort to force only against those who start the use of force. The only proper functions of a government are: the police, to protect you from criminals; the army, to protect you from foreign invaders; and the courts, to protect your property and contracts from breach or fraud by others, to settle disputes by rational rules, according to objective law. But a government that initiates the employment of force against men who had forced no one, the employment of armed compulsion against disarmed victims, is a nightmare infernal machine designed to annihilate morality: such a government reverses its only moral purpose and switches from the role of protector to the role of mans deadliest enemy, from the role of policeman to the role of a criminal vested with the right to the wielding of violence against victims deprived of the right of self-defense. Such a government substitutes for morality the following rule of social conduct: you may do whatever you please to your neighbor, provided your gang is bigger than his"--Ayn Rand
Read her biographies.My proper form of government would be what works for the vast majority of people. That changes just as the world does.Let me guess ... your proper form of government would resemble a Socialist dictatorship. And you say Rand was a "nutter?"
Study up on Rand and you'll find out that she really was a nut. It's her life, and it's documented. She never got over her self-centered childhood, her obsession with heroes from the movies, or what the Communists did to her father's businesses. Between that and her inability to make friends as a child, because she was so focused on herself, she became who she was and then tried to call her worldview the only moral one. Nutter.
Reference?
It's the same as the Founders of this Nation. I'm okay with that...Rand was a nutter, who died living on Social Security and using Medicare. And the Proper role of government is whatever we damn well say it is.
The Nazis and the Stalinists said the same thing. Curios that you share similar beliefs.
Read her biographies.My proper form of government would be what works for the vast majority of people. That changes just as the world does.
Study up on Rand and you'll find out that she really was a nut. It's her life, and it's documented. She never got over her self-centered childhood, her obsession with heroes from the movies, or what the Communists did to her father's businesses. Between that and her inability to make friends as a child, because she was so focused on herself, she became who she was and then tried to call her worldview the only moral one. Nutter.
Reference?
It's the same as the Founders of this Nation. I'm okay with that...Rand was a nutter, who died living on Social Security and using Medicare. And the Proper role of government is whatever we damn well say it is.
The Nazis and the Stalinists said the same thing. Curios that you share similar beliefs.
Libertarian ideas are theorotically not that bad, but the people that support it often support the idea of no government, but instead businesses will become a new kind of government which I think is worse.
She aborted her only potential child. Should we ask them?Read her biographies.Reference?
I have. Any claims made by third parties are pure speculation, not fact. That's all you've got. You're just passing on ad hominems by other Ayn Rand haters. Libturds hate everything they don't understand.
What would you prefer then, anarchy, or forming a new government every few decades?Libertarian ideas are theorotically not that bad, but the people that support it often support the idea of no government, but instead businesses will become a new kind of government which I think is worse.
The term "limited government" is an oxymoron. Once it comes into existence, all governments will grow until they consume all of society. That's the record of all government, including ours.
She aborted her only potential child. Should we ask them?Read her biographies.
I have. Any claims made by third parties are pure speculation, not fact. That's all you've got. You're just passing on ad hominems by other Ayn Rand haters. Libturds hate everything they don't understand.
It's the same as the Founders of this Nation. I'm okay with that...The Nazis and the Stalinists said the same thing. Curios that you share similar beliefs.
They said no such thing, moron. Read the Declaration of Independence. Does it say government can do whatever it wants?
The Declaration? That's history, literally. The Constitution is still alive and well however. It says the government can do what it says, and we get to say what that is. Is that what you meant?It's the same as the Founders of this Nation. I'm okay with that...The Nazis and the Stalinists said the same thing. Curios that you share similar beliefs.
They said no such thing, moron. Read the Declaration of Independence. Does it say government can do whatever it wants?
The proper role of government is one that does a good job at making us a great power with high living standards.
What would you prefer then, anarchy, or forming a new government every few decades?Libertarian ideas are theorotically not that bad, but the people that support it often support the idea of no government, but instead businesses will become a new kind of government which I think is worse.
The term "limited government" is an oxymoron. Once it comes into existence, all governments will grow until they consume all of society. That's the record of all government, including ours.
Both are very bad for Capitalism BTW. The first one it can't even exist in.
The Errors of Classical Liberalism
As widespread as the classical liberal view is regarding the necessity of the institution of a state as the provider of law and order, several rather elementary economic and moral arguments show this view to be entirely misguided.
Among political economists and political philosophers it is one of the most widely accepted proposition that every "monopoly" is "bad" from the viewpoint of consumers. Here, monopoly is understood as an exclusive privilege granted to a single producer of a commodity or service, or as the absence of "free entry" into a particular line of production. For example, only one agency, A, may produce a given good or service, X. Such monopoly is "bad" for consumers because, shielded from potential new entrants into a given area of production, the price of the product will be higher and its quality lower than under competitive conditions. Accordingly, it should be expected that state-provided law and order will be excessively expensive and of particularly low quality.
However, this is only the mildest of errors. Government is not just like any other monopoly such as a milk or a car monopoly that produces low quality products at high prices. Government is unique among all other agencies in that it produces not only goods but also bads. Indeed, it must produce bads in order to produce anything that might be considered a good.
As noted, the government is the ultimate judge in every case of conflict, including conflicts involving itself. Consequently, instead of merely preventing and resolving conflict, a monopolist of ultimate decision-making will also provoke conflict in order to settle it to his own advantage. That is, if one can only appeal to government for justice, justice will be perverted in the favor of government, constitutions and supreme courts notwithstanding. Indeed, these are government constitutions and courts, and whatever limitations on government action they may find is invariably decided by agents of the very same institution under consideration. Predictably, the definition of property and protection will be altered continually and the range of jurisdiction expanded to the government's advantage. The idea of eternal and immutable law that must be discovered will disappear and be replaced by the idea of law as legislation — as flexible state-made law.
Even worse, the state is a monopolist of taxation, and while those who receive the taxes — the government employees — regard taxes as something good, those who must pay the taxes regard the payment as something bad, as an act of expropriation. As a tax-funded life-and-property protection agency, then, the very institution of government is nothing less than a contradiction in terms. It is an expropriating property protector, "producing" ever more taxes and ever less protection. Even if a government limited its activities exclusively to the protection of the property of its citizens, as classical liberals have proposed, the further question of how much security to produce would arise. Motivated, as everyone is, by self-interest and the disutility of labor but equipped with the unique power to tax, a government agent's goal will invariably be to maximize expenditures on protection, and almost all of a nation's wealth can conceivably be consumed by the cost of protection, and at the same time to minimize the production of protection. The more money one can spend and the less one must work to produce, the better off one will be.
In sum, the incentive structure inherent in the institution of government is not a recipe for the protection of life and property, but instead a recipe for maltreatment, oppression, and exploitation. This is what the history of states illustrates. It is first and foremost the history of countless millions of ruined human lives.
It's the same as the Founders of this Nation. I'm okay with that...
They said no such thing, moron. Read the Declaration of Independence. Does it say government can do whatever it wants?
It says "of the people, by the people, and for the people."
I'm pretty sure they didn't mean dead people.
The role of government evolves along with the people.
If it doesn't it dies.
You can talk about what things ought to be and what is right ... but different people have different ideas. Right now, you are a minority.
Nice try... but the DOI is the law. The first one ever passed in the present "United States of America". And it's just as binding now, as any other law in this country. Except for a few parts that have been explicitly changed by subsequently-passed laws... and there aren't many of those.The Declaration? That's history, literally.It's the same as the Founders of this Nation. I'm okay with that...
They said no such thing, moron. Read the Declaration of Independence. Does it say government can do whatever it wants?
That's right.The Constitution is still alive and well however. It says the government can do what it says,
Nonsense. THE CONSTITUTION gets to say what it is. That's why it's written down on paper - so we can stop, go back, and check what it says about something.and we get to say what that is.
The Declaration? That's history, literally. The Constitution is still alive and well however. It says the government can do what it says, and we get to say what that is. Is that what you meant?It's the same as the Founders of this Nation. I'm okay with that...
They said no such thing, moron. Read the Declaration of Independence. Does it say government can do whatever it wants?
The Constitution is still alive and well however. It says the government can do what it says, and we get to say what that is.
As the far left has demonstrated time and time again on this board the role of the government is to control every aspect of your life from cradle to grave.
They said no such thing, moron. Read the Declaration of Independence. Does it say government can do whatever it wants?
It says "of the people, by the people, and for the people."
I'm pretty sure they didn't mean dead people.
The role of government evolves along with the people.
If it doesn't it dies.
You can talk about what things ought to be and what is right ... but different people have different ideas. Right now, you are a minority.
Hmmmm . . . no, actually the Declaration of Independence doesn't say that. The scumbag tyrant Abraham Lincoln said it.
Just one more example of a libturd proving that he doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about.
Note that the guy who opposes limited government quotes a tyrant to support his position.
The role of government "evolves" only because of socialist scumbags like you continually trying to subvert it. The Founding Fathers never intended it to "evolve" into the empire of subjects that you obviously favor.
You're right that different people have different ideas. Some people have right ideas, and other people have wrong ideas. Your ideas are wrong, no matter how popular you think they may be.
