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Jesus fucking christ dude, it's not about giving parents the opportunity to see their children be successful. It's about giving children the chance to be succes

Jesus fucking christ dude, it's not about giving parents the opportunity to see their children be successful. It's about giving children the chance to be successful.

Jabanga 9y ago
That's a great ideal to strive toward, but I don't see the case for forcing everyone to adopt that ideal.
- ikeyany 9y ago
  You know, you're welcome to live in one of the hellhole countries that don't care about promoting the general welfare. We have that "ideal" literally written in the constitution.
  - Jabanga 9y ago
    You're also welcome to not respond to me if my views bother you. I'm simply expressing my viewpoint. There is nothing in the Constitution about social welfare programs to provide equality of opportunity. It's all about the "general welfare", which had a distinctly non-redistribitive definition in the 18th century. > it was never meant they should provide for that welfare but by the exercise of the enumerated powers, so it could not have been meant they should raise money for purposes which the enumeration did not place under their action; consequently, that the specification of powers is a limitation of the purposes for which they may raise money. - Thomas Jefferson
    - ikeyany 9y ago
      It's clear you're expressing your viewpoint, just know that they seem to be in line with sociopaths. Pulling the rug out from under others is right in line with what white supremacists believe.
      - Jabanga 9y ago
        I see advocating force as more similar to the definition of sociopathic behaviour. But I also don't think arguing over which belief is more or less sociopathic is constructive.
- eastWestMath 9y ago
  Well Western society has, by and large.
ashark 9y ago
Don't bother responding. As soon as you catch a whiff of "taxation is theft" in a thread on the Internet you can be pretty sure you're communicating with someone who's solved government, coordination problems generally, and ethics from first principles (or, rather, read those who have, or been convinced in discussion with those who have read those who have). The only way to open them up to the possibility that some other conclusions might be valid would be to show them where weakly-justified axioms and non sequitur reasoning occur way back at the beginning of their understanding, which they missed the first time, and considering their (likely) psychological investment in the edifice atop those sands you're gonna have a rough time of it. You can try "but things seem to work pretty OK not doing what you're talking about" with specific examples, but they'll insist they'd work better still their way, and besides, your way is evil because (remember?) they solved ethics, et c., et c. This is a horse that's beaten endlessly online, to no purpose. You may as well go punch a stone wall for a while instead.
- antisthenes 9y ago
  That's pretty much my attitude as well. "taxation is theft" crowd of fringe libertarians are pretty up there with hardcore Scientologists, anti-vaccers, KKK members and level 5 vegans (don't eat anything that casts a shadow). Government is bad, taxes are theft, regulation is evil. Repeat ad nauseam until your opponent gives up. Best way to treat them is like the trolls they are - ignore them.
  - Jabanga 9y ago
    I don't think that's a constructive attitude to have. It's better to have a mind that is at least open enough to hear the other person out, and debate them. You've basically dehumanized a large section of the population in a manner that you would agree would be pretty offensive if done to you.
    - ashark 9y ago
      In... god, nearly[0] 20 years of reading and engaging in Internet arguments and discussions, I don't think I've ever seen a productive exchange with a certain flavor of common-on-the-Internet outspoken and confident market-focused libertarian, though it occupies an enormous number of bits (and person-hours) on the global network. The best case for these is that we discover (again, hooray) that there's more than one reasonable way of understanding individual liberty. The worst case is that some of us discover that (again, OMG can we please stop?), while it continues to elude others and they go on thinking people just don't understand their position because if they did they'd surely agree, leading them to start the whole thing over again the next time it's half-relevant anywhere they post, leaving a trail misery and mises.org links (sigh) in their wake. Let's all spend that time reading some IPE, game theory, comparative politics, and undergrad readings in political philosophy textbooks instead, shall we? It'd be far more improving. These days it seems to have replaced arguing/trolling about religion (anyone else remember the distant past of the 90s?) as the most common waste of everyone's time in Internet discussions. It'd be best if we just recognize when this kind of thread is about to start and stop posting. [0 EDIT] uh, whoops, that should be over 20 years. How time flies.

Jesus fucking christ dude, it's not about giving parents the opportunity to see their children be successful. It's about giving children the chance to be successful.

Jabanga 9y ago

That's a great ideal to strive toward, but I don't see the case for forcing everyone to adopt that ideal.

ikeyany 9y ago
You know, you're welcome to live in one of the hellhole countries that don't care about promoting the general welfare. We have that "ideal" literally written in the constitution.
- Jabanga 9y ago
  You're also welcome to not respond to me if my views bother you. I'm simply expressing my viewpoint. There is nothing in the Constitution about social welfare programs to provide equality of opportunity. It's all about the "general welfare", which had a distinctly non-redistribitive definition in the 18th century. > it was never meant they should provide for that welfare but by the exercise of the enumerated powers, so it could not have been meant they should raise money for purposes which the enumeration did not place under their action; consequently, that the specification of powers is a limitation of the purposes for which they may raise money. - Thomas Jefferson
  - ikeyany 9y ago
    It's clear you're expressing your viewpoint, just know that they seem to be in line with sociopaths. Pulling the rug out from under others is right in line with what white supremacists believe.
    - Jabanga 9y ago
      I see advocating force as more similar to the definition of sociopathic behaviour. But I also don't think arguing over which belief is more or less sociopathic is constructive.
eastWestMath 9y ago
Well Western society has, by and large.

ashark 9y ago

Don't bother responding. As soon as you catch a whiff of "taxation is theft" in a thread on the Internet you can be pretty sure you're communicating with someone who's solved government, coordination problems generally, and ethics from first principles (or, rather, read those who have, or been convinced in discussion with those who have read those who have). The only way to open them up to the possibility that some other conclusions might be valid would be to show them where weakly-justified axioms and non sequitur reasoning occur way back at the beginning of their understanding, which they missed the first time, and considering their (likely) psychological investment in the edifice atop those sands you're gonna have a rough time of it. You can try "but things seem to work pretty OK not doing what you're talking about" with specific examples, but they'll insist they'd work better still their way, and besides, your way is evil because (remember?) they solved ethics, et c., et c. This is a horse that's beaten endlessly online, to no purpose. You may as well go punch a stone wall for a while instead.

antisthenes 9y ago
That's pretty much my attitude as well. "taxation is theft" crowd of fringe libertarians are pretty up there with hardcore Scientologists, anti-vaccers, KKK members and level 5 vegans (don't eat anything that casts a shadow). Government is bad, taxes are theft, regulation is evil. Repeat ad nauseam until your opponent gives up. Best way to treat them is like the trolls they are - ignore them.
- Jabanga 9y ago
  I don't think that's a constructive attitude to have. It's better to have a mind that is at least open enough to hear the other person out, and debate them. You've basically dehumanized a large section of the population in a manner that you would agree would be pretty offensive if done to you.
  - ashark 9y ago
    In... god, nearly[0] 20 years of reading and engaging in Internet arguments and discussions, I don't think I've ever seen a productive exchange with a certain flavor of common-on-the-Internet outspoken and confident market-focused libertarian, though it occupies an enormous number of bits (and person-hours) on the global network. The best case for these is that we discover (again, hooray) that there's more than one reasonable way of understanding individual liberty. The worst case is that some of us discover that (again, OMG can we please stop?), while it continues to elude others and they go on thinking people just don't understand their position because if they did they'd surely agree, leading them to start the whole thing over again the next time it's half-relevant anywhere they post, leaving a trail misery and mises.org links (sigh) in their wake. Let's all spend that time reading some IPE, game theory, comparative politics, and undergrad readings in political philosophy textbooks instead, shall we? It'd be far more improving. These days it seems to have replaced arguing/trolling about religion (anyone else remember the distant past of the 90s?) as the most common waste of everyone's time in Internet discussions. It'd be best if we just recognize when this kind of thread is about to start and stop posting. [0 EDIT] uh, whoops, that should be over 20 years. How time flies.