Quote from: DumbFruit on October 29, 2014, 03:43:37 PM

(1)

Quote from: Cameltoemcgee on October 28, 2014, 11:44:39 PM

He's saying that the same people who are doing it now will continue to do it but instead of putting tenders to government for funding, they will be directly funded by people. The argument could be made that in the absence of a violent (and inefficient) monopoly claiming responsibility for remediation of a VERY important issue, the quality of care that underprivileged get will be significantly better without them.

Yes.

Quote from: rugrats on October 28, 2014, 10:15:10 PM

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you are suggesting that in the absence of taxes - which means that the government will not be able to provide financial aid to orphans - altruistic people will suddenly emerge to adopt and take care of these orphans?
What is stopping these altrustic people from adopting these orphans right now?
Altruism does not depend on any set circumstances before it can appear.

(1)The point isn't that it's going to appear, it's that it already exists, but many people don't do anything because their wealth is being pillaged, and they expect the government to take care of it.

Another important point about Rockefeller and others like him is not only was he generous in the absence of government intervention, but that he was tremendously concerned about actually fixing the problems that led to the poverty to begin with. He favored education over handouts, for example.

When your own personal money is being spent, you are much more concerned about how that money is being spent. When the government does it, people are by-and-large disinterested in actual results. It doesn't matter, for instance, that drug rehabilitation is almost totally ineffective. We just keep dumping money into schemes that try to fix these people.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/06/AR2010080602660.html

Of course there are private business' that do the same stupid practices, but the difference is they are paid by people with their own money, not by stealing from everyone at large to pay for it. Medicaid will sometimes pay for it, Medicare will cover it if it's accepted, and just go to your local Community Mental Health organization to find out all the different schemes they have to try to "help" drug abusers and alcoholics that are total wastes of time, effort, and money in the long run.

Quote from: rugrats on October 28, 2014, 10:15:10 PM

Altruism should mean that all of the 400,000 orphans that society as a whole do not want would be adopted by families annually - now.

(1)This is a "Straw Man argument" because you're arguing a position that I didn't take. I never said that if we got rid of government all the sudden every single orphan would get adopted.

I'm not under the illusion that when people exist in anarchy that all problems disappear; The lame walk, the blind see, and healthy food is piled like mountains on every street corner.

When people are free to do as they like and to be commensurately rewarded for their efforts, then people will work for the benefit of their neighbor even if they think they are acting in their own self interest. Wonderful prosperity occurs, but it's not magic.

Quote from: rugrats on October 28, 2014, 10:15:10 PM

I may have missed your post about Rockeller, but that merely weakens your argument. Rockefeller chose to be altruistic. He didn't set specific conditions.
He didn't say "I will start to be altruistic if the government stop taxing my income".

2. It's pretty difficult to engage in counter-factuals. I don't know what Rockefeller would have said under government tyranny, but what I can guarantee is that he would not have been able to succeed to the extent that he did under the government intervention that we see today.
Because of anti-trust laws Standard Oil would have never come to be, he would never have gotten the wealth that he did, and so he couldn't possibly decide how to contribute his own money (Again, because he wouldn't have it).

Quote from: rugrats on October 28, 2014, 10:15:10 PM

If your wish comes true, if welfare spending goes down to zero, then you will see society as a whole crumble. Children will be begging and scavenging for food everywhere. Many would be used and abused by some of the more psychopathic elements of society. Single mothers, the old, the handicapped, the sick and the underfed would all suffer the same fate. People will give wide berths walking past dead bodies lying in the streets.

3. Wow, I'm so glad you wrote this. When I say that "People think armeggedon will take place if government steps aside" sometimes I think maybe I'm not giving people enough credit, but clearly that stereotype is true for at least one person.

The world is not going to end if government stops interfering in people's lives. The sun will still rise, crops will still grow, and people can still deal with eachother. There was absolutely astonishing improvement in the lives of the poor long before the "great society" projects of the 1900's.

"The thesis of his first Essay on Population, publish in 1789, was that dreams of universal affluence were vain, because there was an inevitable tendency for population to exceed the food supply. 'Population, when unchecked, in creases in geo-metrical ratio. Subsistence increases only in arithmetical ratio.' There is a fixed limit to the supply of land and the size of the crop that can be grown per acre. Malthus spells out what he sees as the fateful consequences of this disproportion:
'In the United States of America, where the means of subsistence have been more ample ... than in any of the modern states of Europe, the population has been found to double itself in twenty-five years...'" -Henry Hazlitt, The Conquest of poverty.

Of all the things you can say about the 1700's under free market capitalism, the one thing you cannot deny is that food production skyrocketed. (Despite Malthus' incorrect fearmongering nonsense.)
Malthus is literally freaking out because of how much free market capitalism helped feed everyone, including the poor.

https://mises.org/books/conquest.pdf
http://mises.org/freemarket_detail.aspx?control=74

Quote from: rugrats on October 28, 2014, 10:15:10 PM

No heroic altrustic brigade has ever emerged to take care of the weaker members of society. Sure, there have been a few exceptions to that, individuals and small charities, but those has always been the exceptions rather than the rule.

4. The beauty of capitalism is that it doesn't require people to be altruistic in order to do tremendous good for the poor. Rockefeller was a tremendous benefactor, but his company did far more for the poor then even he gave in charity.

5. In the free market there may be less dollars dumped into programs to help the poor, but what is put into charities would be far more effective per dollar, and would certainly out-do our current ineffectual schemes by a wide margin.

Quote from: rugrats on October 28, 2014, 10:15:10 PM

It aspired to be something greater, something more noble.

6. It was founded in defiance of tyranny. Read the declaration of Independence.

Quote from: Thomas Jefferson

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,

Quote from: rugrats on October 28, 2014, 10:15:10 PM

Do me a favor. This weekend, make a trip to a local orphanage or centers for single mothers or the handicapped. Spend a few hours there. I swear, your whole perspective will change.

7. I have spent decades with people whose profession it is to work with these people and I can tell you my perspective has only strengthened over time.
I have tremendous sympathy. There are so many people in this world that have gotten beaten into the dirt by circumstances completely out of their control, and often have nowhere to turn.
The question isn't about whether or not these people exist, or whether or not these people need assistance, the question is about "How do we best help these people so that our time, money, and effort isn't wasted?"
8. The government has proven time and time again that there are only two things that it is good at;
1.) Wasting your time, money, and effort.
2.) Sending young men off to kill or put in cages other men, women, and children; Innocent and guilty alike.

Edit: Woops, had the quotes all mixed up.

(1) I'm confused. We seem to be running in circles.
When exactly will these mythical altruistic people emerge? By your own words, they won't suddenly emerge if we abolish taxation. I've also clearly addressed that altruism and altruistic people do not set conditions before helping people. Yet you're going back to the same argument - altruism is absent because " they expect the government to take care of it."

Why? That's not altruism, which is the central core of your argument. Nevertheless, I'll bite, once again.

When former President Bush enacted his massive tax cuts in 2001 (effectively the largest since the Hoover days), the federal government lost about $6.6 trillion in revenue over an 11-year period. By your logic, shouldn't these extra income also resulted in an explosion of charitable contributions during the time? It didn't though. Despite being flushed with cash, there were no significant increase in charitable contributions from individuals and corporations over the last decade.

You know where the money went? Stock market and monetary instruments speculations, including subprime mortgage bundles which ultimately led to the worst American economic crisis in 80 years. And yet, self-professed paleolibertarians keep on insisting that if we abolish taxes and cripple the government, people will magically start being altruistic. I've asked this question before, even to Justin Amash. No one has been able to give a proper answer beyond rhetorics and quoting Hayek, Rothbard, Rockwell, Mises or Bastiat.

2. I'm confused again. Are you for or against anti-trust laws? And how does it relate to Rockefeller's altruism? Let's make it more current though. Look at Bill Gates. As of now, he is the biggest philanthropist in the history world. In a few decades, his Foundation's continued activity will also elevate him above Rockefeller, after inflation adjustment. I doubt there have been many Americans, if at all, who have paid more taxes than Gates. But like Rockefeller, he plans to give out all of his wealth to charity. That's altruism. And fyi, he works alongside governments of various nations - now.

3. Are you now? You say this as if a significant form of anarchist government has ever existed; as if there have been occasions in history where fully functional anarchist geo states or communities exist; as if humans are not communal, social creatures that will naturally create a form of government. From the dawn of time, some form of government have always existed. This is an undeniable fact. From patriarchy and other forms of social hierarchy-based leadership, to tribalism, feudalism, warlords, aristocracy, monarcy (hereditary and later, divinely inspired), theocracy, democracy, republicanism, oligarchy, sultanate, caliphate, parliamentary monarchy, communism, socialism, Maoism - I could go on.

After trials and errors stretching several millennia, democracy, regardless of its form, has proven to be the most stable, productive and compassionate form of government. And we're supposed to throw all this away based on some theory and philosophy that has never been able to withstand scrutiny, never mind produce empirical evidence to substantiate its assertions?

4. You're bringing capitalism into this now. Huh. Regardless, whatever do you mean by "The beauty of capitalism is that it doesn't require people to be altruistic in order to do tremendous good for the poor."? Don't you still require your "altruistic people" to help the weaker members of society?

5. And how do you know this? This is just speculation. Who will fund and managed these charities? More of your phantom altruistic people?
We exist in a free market economy right now. What's stopping the emergence of such charities right now?

6. You pick a single word and a single line from one of the most powerful documents ever written and you have the temerity to ask me to read it? Did you read the link/s I gave you earlier?

7. If you have heard a grown man crying because he can't feed his hungry child, then you wouldn't be so cavalier about cutting off aid to them.
If you have spent time with orphans, you would be filled with fear at the thought of them left unprotected, uneducated and unfed, and you wouldn't be so eager to stop money going to orphanages.
If you have spent time with an old woman left on the streets by her children, then you wouldn't begrudge the money spent giving them shelter and feeding, and you wouldn't be callously insisting we should stop paying taxes.
There is absolutely no justification at all to stop aiding people in need. None.

8. The government is you, me and other people like us. They are not some alien beings or members Alex Jones' ruling 20 families. Fix the government, from outside or inside. Don't let organizations like {url=http://www.alec.org/]ALEC [/url] write bills for your Congressmen. Pressure your Congressmen to repeal acts like Citizens United which allows companies to secretly fund political campaigns. Despise the war? Make it known, like the Flower Generation. They achieved results, despite the almost universal ridicule they received.

9. Don't mind me asking - what is your age?