The BEST Salad Dressing Ever

[trey4sports]

uhhh i thought this was a recipe, not philosophy class?

[Xerographica]

lemon juice on a salad is a distasteful.

Therefore...values are subjective...therefore...taxpayers should be able to give their taxes to whichever government organizations are producing "tasteful" public goods?

[acptulsa]

It's far easier to simply say that it would be unworkable than it would be to actually use economics to explain why it would be unworkable to create a market in the public sector.

Did it occur to you that people might have better things to do on Christmas Eve than rehash all the same arguments that we used to express our doubts about this plan in several other threads?

What am I saying? Of course it did. Which is why you waited until today, and started a brand new thread.

Merry Christmas, Mr. X. And just to prove I mean it, I won't negrep you.

[Xerographica]

uhhh i thought this was a recipe, not philosophy class?

Read through the responses over at the NationStates forum...The BEST Salad Dressing Ever. I create a thread and people are free to talk about whatever they like.

[MelissaWV]

Did it occur to you that people might have better things to do on Christmas Eve than rehash all the same arguments that we used to express our doubts about this plan in several other threads?

What am I saying? Of course it did. Which is why you waited until today, and started a brand new thread.

Merry Christmas, Mr. X. And just to prove I mean it, I won't negrep you.

He started it yesterday

And yeah... I don't like lemony olive oil as a dressing.

[Sola_Fide]

It's a rainy day...you need an umbrella and I'm selling umbrellas. It either is...or it isn't...worth it for you to buy an umbrella from me.

Pragmatarianism would create a market in the public sector. Each and every taxpayer would decide whether it is...or it isn't...worth it to exchange their taxes for public healthcare. You say it won't be worth it for them. Therefore, if you're correct, then taxpayers won't spend their taxes on public healthcare. This would narrow the scope of government and lower the tax rate.

My deeply held belief is really no mystery. I've already shared it with you once but evidently I need to share it with you again...



And again...



Everybody wants the most bang for their buck. Why? Because as Henry David Thoreau said, "the price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it."

So yeah...clearly you derive utility from believing that I'm sort of a not-so-in-the-closest lover of the state. But if your belief is true or accurate...then why would I have just created a Wikipedia entry for legal plunder?

I'm not a lover of the state...I'm a lover of the market. I know why and how the market works...which is why I advocate creating a market in the public sector. Given that you don't see any value in creating a market in the public sector, then clearly you've allocated all your time to understanding the moral arguments for liberty and none of your time to understanding the economic arguments for liberty.

Do you think I fail to understand the moral arguments? Do you think it requires a certain level of genius to understand the argument that taxes are theft? Do you think I fail to understand the self-ownership principle? No no no...the moral argument is easy to understand. Are the economic arguments as easy to understand? Obviously not. But I've made the effort to understand them which is why I can say with a good measure of certainty that they are far more powerful, meaningful and universal than the moral arguments.

So seriously considering allocating some of your scarce time to learning about libertarian economics. And if you're not interested in learning about economics...then...well...clearly you're in the wrong forum category.

Ughh. Your propensity for self-promotion is a huge turn off. The people that I respect most on this forum are people like Erowe1, who is a guy who shares his doctorate-level knowledge with this forum for free (and without self-promoting links to his blogs). In fact, if Erowe1 had a blog, I would read it frequently, because a) I respect his knowledge and b) he has never shamelessly promoted himself.


Anyway, you keep employing pragmatism as a method for teaching people to want smaller government. You are using pragmatism as a theory of knowledge. But pragmatism fails as a theory of knowledge because if the mark of success is the way to ascertain truth, then one cannot know the truth until after one has acted. But one of the primary purposes of knowledge is to permit a person to make an informed choice (before one has acted), and choices are always about the future, not the past. In pragmatism, one always knows too late. One cannot know, and make choices based on knoweldge, in a pragmatic framework.

So even using pragmatism as a way to teach people about smaller government will result in failure.

[Xerographica]

Did it occur to you that people might have better things to do on Christmas Eve than rehash all the same arguments that we used to express our doubts about this plan in several other threads?

Did it occur to you that I'm the guy who created the Wikipedia entry for demonstrated preference?

Merry Christmas, Mr. X. And just to prove I mean it, I won't negrep you.

LOL...my rep is red. So why would you think that I care about negrep?

What I care about is helping people understand market economics. If you think I'm failing in this area...then please specify exactly where there's room for improvement. But better yet...don't just tell me...SHOW me where you've had good success in helping people understand why market economies are far superior to non sequitur economies.

[Seraphim]

How about pragmatic behavior in the realm of non-coersed trade? Why must pragmatic behavior be inclusive of property theft (simply because it is difficult to reverse the widespread theft)?

A true pragmatic thinker would understand that alienating a subset of the population through force and coersion is not pragmatic at all - it is self-defeating.

A truely pragmatic solution would be to implement solutions in a peaceful way and those who are entrenched in their Statist views can 1) open their eyes and see where the real wealth is being created or 2) remain ignorant by their own accord and set in their ways.

Theft (tax) is not pragmatic, nor is cattering to the ignorance of those who support it.

Lead and they will follow. If they do not follow, it is their fault.

[Xerographica]

Ughh. Your propensity for self-promotion is a huge turn off. The people that I respect most on this forum are people like Erowe1, who is a guy who shares his doctorate-level knowledge with this forum for free (and without self-promoting links to his blogs). In fact, if Erowe1 had a blog, I would read it frequently, because a) I respect his knowledge and b) he has never shamelessly promoted himself.

You say he has valuable knowledge...but then you say that he doesn't have a blog. Does he not understand that blogs help disseminate knowledge?

If he truly has shared valuable knowledge with you...then why haven't you shared any economic concepts in this thread?

Anyway, you keep employing pragmatism as a method for teaching people to want smaller government. You are using pragmatism as a theory of knowledge. But pragmatism fails as a theory of knowledge because if the mark of success is the way to ascertain truth, then one cannot know the truth until after one has acted. But one of the primary purposes of knowledge is to permit a person to make an informed choice (before one has acted), and choices are always about the future, not the past. In pragmatism, one always knows too late. One cannot know, and make choices based on knoweldge, in a pragmatic framework.

So even using pragmatism as a way to teach people about smaller government will result in failure.

Yeah, this is actually the relevant Wikipedia entry...tax choice. Tax choice = pragmatarianism ≈ pragmatism.

If you want to learn about pragmatic ethics vs deontological ethics...then let me shamelessly promote myself by again directing you to my blog...Deontological Ethics vs Pragmatic Ethics.

[Xerographica]

How about pragmatic behavior in the realm of non-coersed trade? Why must pragmatic behavior be inclusive of property theft (simply because it is difficult to reverse the widespread theft)?

Just like a liberal...you're not thinking things through. If I stop paying taxes...the people who subject me to violence aren't going to do it for free. They're going to do it because they are paid to do it. Who pays them? Obviously the government...but more specifically...government planners. They are the ones who determine how much funding each government organization receives.

Everything we know about economics tells us that government planners cannot possibly know the true values of millions and millions of people. If they could...then all the socialist experiments would have been successful. Given that they all failed miserably...we know that there's a disparity between how planners distribute public funds and how the market would distribute public funds.

What I'm advocating is that we allow taxpayers to choose which government organizations they give their taxes to. This would create a market in the public sector.

So if you want to guess that the distribution of public funds would be exactly the same...if you want to guess that taxpayers would give the same amount of funds to the government organizations that engage in violent activity...then...you're indicating two things..

1. that you believe that socialism is a perfectly viable concept
2. that a stateless society would be just as violent as a state society