Don't do it! Mobile home (manufactured home) all the way! You do not need to go into debt for housing.Originally Posted by 2young2vote
Don't do it! Mobile home (manufactured home) all the way! You do not need to go into debt for housing.
Dear Slimedia: We hate you utterly. Your days are numbered.
Cordially, Every Ron Paul Supporter on Earth.
Thats true, there are many "services" that you or I are not benefiting from but there certainly are services we are. We "get" something from the taxes we pay. Even if its less effective and more costly then it could be provided otherwise. Heck we even get things from the taxes we don't pay. We all are indebt to our foreign borrowers. At some point those debts become real. Now whether we choose to pay for them is another thread.
Like the Child Tax Credit, or mortgage interest deduction? I get neither, thanks.
You don't need housing either. You could sleep on a bench somewhere. Debt for housing is probably one of the more justifyible debt one could take on.
Wealth is created when capital is concentrated to create something of worth to a society. This worth is judged by the society by if they buy the product. While you have the state concentrating capital and producing something, you do not have society ever actually placing a value on it through the marketplace. A like example that comes to mind is if the government builds a factory that produces widgets but no one wants to buy them. There is no wealth creation by the state because it cannot sense or respond to what the society deems valuable.
There's all kinds of value in things "created" by the state. They just don't come to market in the normal sense as a widget. But communites and buinsess do place "values" on things not brought to the market by the private sector all the time.
Two people having an informed and free interaction is superior. Both individuals are going the naturally act in their own self interest. It is this self interest that increases efficiency, sets the potential for wealth to be created, and puts a value on the item or service being traded. This value is key on determining if wealth is created.
Even the most honest and competent bureaucrat will always lack the element of self interest in a transaction. This is why government is always inefficient at best and cannot create wealth.
How are they placing value outside of the marketplace? How is the value measured? How do you know wealth is created and it is not just a distortion of the wealth originally extracted to begin with?
Last edited by Adrock; 01-04-2013 at 10:14 AM.
To me, it isn't really a moral failing to accept aid from the government, given that the whole idea around the welfare system (and even student loans to some extent) is to break both your legs in the form of taxes, inflation, etc. and then hand you crutches. I think the only caveat is that you have an understanding of your plight and work to change it. I myself receive some federal student loans, and my mom is currently receiving unemployment. I don't see any point in starving yourself just to live by principle. There are so many things that contribute to our poverty today that are really out of our control as of now.
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less."
"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."
"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master - - that's all."
―Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass, Chapter 6
Actually, jbauer is absolutely right, HB. The state does do things which benefit us. I benefit from the state's fascist electricity production and distribution system. You almost certainly do too. Electricity is a good, beneficial thing. The state happens to provide it.
jbauer is not drawing any pro-state conclusion from this, and neither am I. We are just stating what is clearly true. It is relevant to this discussion because we are thinking about whether it is OK for libertarians to accept state money handouts, use state services, and receive other benefits from the state. If we are going to seriously ask ourselves this question, we should take into consideration the extreme pervasiveness of state benefits, in all corners of life, and thus the fact that refusing to accept any almost amounts to a mandate for suicide.
- It is a truth
- It is not useless
- It is not a half-truth
If we are discussing whether it is morally reprehensible to get something from the state (and we are), then it is relevant that, in fact, everyone is doing this morally reprehensible thing. It is highly significant/insightful/useful to note the universality of the act, and go from there. Let me note it again:
We cannot avoid accepting benefits from the state. Or at minimum it would be very difficult and impractical. The state has wrapped its tangly tentacles into all kinds of basic and indispensable functions of modern life. Water, electricity, food -- these are fundamental goods which one cannot obtain in any reasonably convenient fashion if one is keeping to a principled stand of not accepting state benefits.
If we were discussing whether the state is terrific or not, sure, then it would be important to note that obviously the state smashes stuff and destroys our lives about a quadrillion times more than it benefits us. Very true. But that's not what this thread was discussing.
Would anyone here say that walking on the state-funded sidewalk is immoral? If so, why? If not, and if you simultaneously think that receiving welfare payments from the state is immoral, what is the philosophical difference in the two acts which makes one moral and the other immoral?
Did anyone read Walter Block's thoughts on the matter? I find them clear and logical.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/block/block175.html
Dear Slimedia: We hate you utterly. Your days are numbered.
Cordially, Every Ron Paul Supporter on Earth.
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