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  • Posted by CircuitGuy 10 years, 8 months ago
    Yes! I agree completely, EXCEPT for the part at the end where you correlate tax policy with growth. I reject that. We're in a major expansion, not thanks to any politicians, and the article is taking about the Depression.

    I strongly support the first thee-fourths of the article.
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  • Posted by $ Maphesdus 10 years, 8 months ago
    "The guiding principle that binds a free society together is not morality, it's laws that prevent the initiation of force, fraud, and coercion."
    ---
    Hypothetical scenario: an abusive mother leaves her newborn child locked in a crib and refuses to feed him or let him out. As a result, the child slowly begins to starve to death. The mother has not initiated any force against the child, yet she is clearly violating the child's rights as a human being. But saving the child would require someone to initiate force against either the mother or her property by breaking into the house to rescue the starving infant.

    How do we deal with this scenario if all laws are based entirely on preventing or punishing the initiation of force, and nothing else?

    Also, I think I should point out that the Founding Fathers never mentioned the Non-Aggression Principle. In fact, I don't think the NAP was even fully developed as a philosophical concept until the 20th century. Trying to retroactively apply it to the 18th century is essentially rewriting history.

    It is also untrue to say that man is the only animal which must think and make choices in order to survive. In actuality, all animals are capable of thought, and must make choices in order to survive. Mankind is capable of a much higher level of cogitative reasoning and abstract thinking, to be sure, but that does not mean other animals do not think. They do think, just on a lower level.

    The claim that poor people were buying cell phones during the presidency of Ronald Reagan also seems incredibly dubious to me. I always thought cell phones had been considered a luxury item during the '80s, available only to high-salary business professionals, and didn't start to become affordable to the masses until the '90s.

    And then this sentence is slightly confusing:
    "Reaganomics lowered the tax rates on individuals and companies that punished success [...]"

    I had to re-read that several times to understand what you were trying to say, because the way you worded it there made it sound like you're saying it was the companies that punished success, and not the taxes. And if we're talking about taxes, I think it's important to specify what kind of tax you're referring to. Remember, we've got income tax, sales tax, and capital gains tax, among others. It's important to specify.
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    • Posted by 10 years, 8 months ago
      "Hypothetical scenario: an abusive mother leaves her newborn child locked in a crib and refuses to feed him or let him out. As a result, the child slowly begins to starve to death. The mother has not initiated any force against the child..."
      Are you kidding me? Any court in the land would find a mother that starves her baby to death guilty of murder or attempted murder if she fails!
      "It is also untrue to say that man is the only animal which must think and make choices in order to survive."
      Show me an animal that has to chose which career he wants to pursue to make a living; or decide where to go on vacation; or even what to have for dinner. Animals don't make complex choices -- they don't have to.
      You say, "I had to read the following several times to uunderstand it, 'Reaganomics lowered the tax rates on individuals and companies that punished success'."
      I'm sorry you didn't understand taxes are punitive, and that's not an apology. I can only guess how long it will take you to understand that!
      You need to do a lot more studying of Objectivism.
      PN



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