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Pfizer Macht Frei!
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The Federalist Papers, No. 15:
Except as to the rule of appointment, the United States have an indefinite discretion to make requisitions for men and money; but they have no authority to raise either by regulations extending to the individual citizens of America.
It is human nature to, having intervened, attempt to carry away at least sufficient plunder to pay for the intervention. It is human nature. Any theory which fails to take that into account is akin to a theory about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. It may be a pretty enough theory. But it will never be proven in practice.
No, you said:
Yes, I think the government should be small and constrained only to its Constitutional duties. There is nothing stopping private U.S. citizens from helping others around the world if they so choose. And if we didn't have to pay for these endless military interventions, private U.S. citizens would have more money in their pockets to help foreigners if they so choose.
But, if I were to try and put myself into a foreign interventionist's shoes, my biggest problem is with the word "help" from your sentence above. The majority of Latin Americans seem to like living under a socialist government. Daniel Ortega is still president of Nicaragua for ex. If the country of Venezuela had an election and overwhelmingly voted to allow the U.S. government to implement a market economy down there, that would be one thing. But if only, say, 30% of the people in Venezuela wanted that and 70% voted against it (which I suspect would happen), then imho it would be incredibly wrong to force our philosophy and structures onto their country. Who are we to say what is best for them and their culture?
And of course there would never be an election in Venezuela (or any country) to determine whether or not the people of that country would want our help. We would just force it on the majority even if the majority didn't want it.
Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.
Robert Heinlein
Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler
Groucho Marx
I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.
Linus, from the Peanuts comic
You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith
Alexis de Torqueville
Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it
A Zero Hedge comment
I'm not sure why you're saying "no" since what you quote exactly corresponds to what I wrote in my last post.
Libertarians (as opposed to, for instance communists).Who are we to say what is best for them and their culture?
We would just force it on the majority even if the majority didn't want it.
The opinion of the majority is of no consequence whatsoever.
This is again, shocking as you may find it, the liberal position.
To which of the above incoherent and/or illiberal arguments won't I listen?
The one that says, it's their country and sooner or later you have to leave it to them to make it work.
You can shove broccoli down a child's throat. You can. But if the child hates broccoli and hates you for forcing the broccoli on him, how are you going to prevent him from doing the bulimia trick and throwing the broccoli up on your shoes?
Are you going to super glue his lips together? Has your loving, righteous, oh-so-correct liberal arrogance done more harm than good yet?
Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.
Robert Heinlein
Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler
Groucho Marx
I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.
Linus, from the Peanuts comic
You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith
Alexis de Torqueville
Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it
A Zero Hedge comment
I answered that in this thread before you asked it. I was subtle, but you'll have to make do--in my liberal compassion for you, I detected a wee bit of a reading comprehension challenge and this will be a good way to force you to exercise that muscle and make it stronger.
Why do you ask? Are you incapable of debating the merits of a thing with someone without knowing what box to stuff them into and what kind of label to stick on it?
In fact, you have all night to try to pick my arguments apart. Good night and good luck!
As you mentioned, we covered this in the discussion in which I demonstrated that there is no liberal argument against intervention.
...i.e. the one in which you had to invoke the alleged collective ownership of the land by the people to sustain your argument.
Which is why I advised @charrob that it would be a waste of time to try to convince you, and why I am not going to restart that debate now.
To everybody else: you might find the debate at R3V's link interesting.
Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.
Robert Heinlein
Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler
Groucho Marx
I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.
Linus, from the Peanuts comic
You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith
Alexis de Torqueville
Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it
A Zero Hedge comment
You just proved @Swordsmyth right.
How great a percent of purse-snatcher nabbers do you think go into the purse they just recovered from a thief and steal the funds to pay for the cup of coffee they had to drop to stop the thief? I'd say it is more likely that an individual who will require payment for intervening will not intervene unless they are contracted for the intervention.
1776 > 1984
The FAILURE of the United States Government to operate and maintain an Honest Money System , which frees the ordinary man from the clutches of the money manipulators, is the single largest contributing factor to the World's current Economic Crisis.
The Elimination of Privacy is the Architecture of Genocide
Belief, Money, and Violence are the three ways all people are controlled
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