> Anglo-American ideology. In general, all you've done is present the
> most extreme version of the facile ideas being talking about ("taxes
> stolen at gunpoint"), ...
I'd say I presented a fairly mild version of the right libertarian hypothesis. People I know would state if quite a bit more strongly.
The facile ideas I referred to were the notions on the other side, that a good way to discharge your (undoubted by me) obligation to help your fellow man is to just pay your taxes, and that she has "a right to an income". Granted there are good arguments for both, but neither should be blithely assumed.
To take my argument further, perhaps too far for this list:
How do you define rights? Perhaps "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness"?
Macau's old red light district was Rua de Felicida, Happiness Street. My happiness requires that I get laid from time to time. Is that a service the government should provide, perhaps with a new class of civil servant, comfort women? No. Should it coerce women via the law or reward them, perhaps via tax breaks, for contributing to happiness in that way? No, again.
Or is it enough that government does not interfere as I pursue happiness, and entirely my problem to deal with that need? Exactly!
Similarly, various people need "a decent income", "reasonable housing" and so on. How are those needs different from mine? Alternatives exist; there are jobs and housing available. Why is this necessarily a collective problem? If it is, why is the state -- rather than the family, union, neighborhood, commune or whatever -- the right collective entity to deal with it?
Granted, the state needs to be involved, ensuring that firetrap housing is fixed, no-one is kept out of a job on the basis of colour or gender, unions are not crushed, et cetera. But why should it be primarily responsible for providing an income or housing?
-- Sandy Harris, Quanzhou, Fujian, China