Rogen, this is the last time that I will ask nicely... Please take the time to properly format your replies. Once I've asked and I know someone is capable of properly formatting a reply, for them to refuse to do it, is to me, disrespectful.
As I said, this is the last time that I'm going to ask nicely. If you refuse, there will be consequences. I'm not going to cry to the mod staff but I will see to it that making a reply to me is as labor intensive as possible for you.
What part of my post did you not understand? Do you deny the many regulations that are intended to protect us, and how they influence our behavior?
You probably consider Regulations to be the same thing as laws. Capitalists do not. There is a firm distinction between what constitutes as a regulation and what constitutes a law.
Capitalism calls for laws that ban the use of fraud and force in all of society. In this sense, laws are the governments way of saying what you
cannot do - You cannot break into my house, murder me while I sleep, and rob my home on the way out the door. In short, laws ban the use of force and fraud, they passively control behavior, and the purpose of their existence is to protect individual rights.
Regulations in that same sense are government's way of saying what you
must do... You must exercise 15 mins a day, you must brush your teeth before bed, you must shower at least twice a week. In short, regulations actively control behavior, that is their only purpose, they have absolutely nothing to do with protecting individual rights.
Capitalist are fine with any "regulations" that legitimately serve to protect individual rights but we prefer to simply refer to them as laws to avoid any confusion. Now maybe the next time you see a comment about "unregulated laissez fair capitalism", you will understand precisely what is being suggested and it's not anarchy.
I think this basic misunderstanding of the difference between regulations and laws is why people think that capitalism is the same thing as anarchy, when nothing could be further from the truth.
And what, to you, is essential liberty? Huh? The right to pollute our streams, poison our food, water, and air?
Wouldn't you consider such activities to be a violation of individual rights? I would. Essential liberty is being free to do anything you wish so long as it doesn't violate the rights of others. Why is the idea of a government that protects essential liberty by being strictly limited to protecting individual rights so offensive to you? The only reason I can surmise would be that you want to reserve the right to violate individual rights.
Oh please spare me your paranoid delusions about Lenin.
This is an example of an Ad Hominem. An Ad Hominem is offered in place of an argument. If you would have gone on to argue that government does not ration our liberty, the sentence preceding your argument would not have been an Ad Hominem.
Dude, because products are so intertwined in our lives, any form of regulation of them effects how we live (in some cases, whether we live), how we act, what is allowed and dsallowed. Have you really been walking through your life like some kind of zombie that didn't realize this?
This is a Red Herring followed by an Ad Hominem. I asked in what ways government regulates your life. You did not answer that question but once again pointed out that regulations on products affect our lives. Since I did not ask whether or not government regulation of products affects our lives, your reply is a red herring... Meaning you did not offer an argument in response to the one I made, making the statement that followed (zombie) an Ad Hominem.
You seem to think that because alternative energy is not specifically mentioned, that promoting it is unconstitutional. Good luck with that.
Once again, you are not offering an argument in support of your assertion that funding alternative energy with taxpayer dollars is constitutional. I say it is not constitutional because such an expenditure cannot be found authorized in the enumerated powers.
If you honestly believe that authorization for such an expenditure can be found in the enumerated powers, then all you have to do is cite the specific power and you will have won the argument.
Before you cite the general welfare clause, realize that the semicolon separating that paragraph specifies that Congress is only authorized to "lay and collect taxes" for the purposes that come after the semicolon, all of which begin with "To..." do such and such. Those are the enumerated powers, the general welfare clause is only applicable to those powers.
You need to explain it; it's your argument.
I have explained it. If a law or "regulation" has the legitimate purpose of protecting individual rights (as opposed to simply existing to control behavior without the purpose of protecting individual rights) then we Capitalists support such laws and "regulations".
Right. When on the verge of losing an argument, paint your opponent as evil. How sad for you.
If this is true, then you have been on the verge of losing this entire time... and still are. How many times have you suggested that I'm an anti-social anarchist that wants to destroy the environment, take advantage of the poor and less fortunate, and do it all for the sake of a quick buck? Even in your post to Gipper you complain about him using bigoted blanket statements only to go on later in the paragraph to make your own bigoted blanket statements:
rich, white evangelical conservatives (and their pre-literate followers) would like nothing more than to tear that wall down and make Christianity the state religion, and create the world's largest theocracy.
Besides being an appeal to ridicule, that certainly looks like a bigoted blanket statement to me. At least Gipper now knows that you resorted to such an outburst because you were "on the verge of losing an argument".
By all means, point out which part of the constitution forbids it.
This is yet another fallacy. It's like demanding that I prove there is no God. You are the one claiming that the Constitution allows it, therefore the burden of proof is on you to prove your assertion by citing the relevant section. I do not see where any of the enumerated powers would allow for such a program.
Now if you were arguing that the states were free to implement universal health programs, I could not argue because the Constitution says that any powers not specifically designated to, or forbidden by, the federal government are reserved to the states.
You are free to elborate on your argument that serving and protecting "we, the American people", is unconstitutional. (this should be good).
First I'd like to point out that you didn't argue about the fact that the welfare state is spending us into oblivion. That being the case, it would be hard for you to make the argument that bankrupting the country is "serving and protecting we the American people" when clearly it does the opposite.
Second, this is still the same fallacy as before, you may as well be demanding that I prove God doesn't exist. I can only point out that nowhere in the enumerated powers is a provision that can be construed as allowing for the creation of the welfare state on the federal level.
Again, state level, no argument from me, but on the federal level, where the powers of the federal government are explicitly enumerated by the Constitution, it is on you to prove the welfare states constitutionality by citing the relevant power enumerated to the federal government.
I suspect that you have taken your anti-socialist agenda so far that you even deny that human beings are social animals. Why do people live in cities, dude? Is it because the cell phone reception is better? Or is there a deeper, more important reason people gather together?
It is precisely because Capitalists understand that humans are social creatures that we seek to ban the use of fraud from society and that we seek to ban the initiation of force from society. The only way that society can exist in a truly civilized manner is by having a government system that equally respects and protects the individual rights of all it's citizens.
Also worth noting here is the difference between individual and human rights. Many so called "human" rights are direct violations of individual rights. The "right" to a job, or a minimum wage, or food, or shelter, or healthcare, these things are entitlements and cannot be rights.
A right does not obligate others, an entitlement does. A "right" to healthcare, for example, would mean that in order for you to exercise your "right" someone else would be obligated to provide that healthcare - such "rights" violate the individual rights of those being forced to do the providing.
