This morning I was awoken by my alarm clock powered by electricity generated by the public power monopoly regulated by the US Department of Energy. I then took a shower in the clean water provided by the municipal water utility. Then, I brushed my teeth with that water, filtered to standards set by the EPA and my state. After that, I turned on the TV to one of the FCC regulated channels to see what the National Weather Service of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration determined the weather was going to be like using satellites designed, built, and launched by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. I watched this while eating my breakfast of US Department of Agriculture inspected food and taking the drugs which have been determined as safe by the Food and Drug Administration. At the appropriate time as regulated by the US Congress and kept accurate by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the US Naval Observatory, I get into my National Highway Traffic Safety Administration approved automobile and set out to work on the roads built by the local, state, and federal Departments of Transportation, possibly stopping to purchase additional fuel of a quality level determined by the Environmental Protection Agency, using legal tender issued by the Federal Reserve Bank and printed by the Federal Bureau of Engraving and Printing. On the way out the door I deposit any mail I have to be sent out via the US Postal Service and drop the kids off at the public school. I park my car on the street, paved and maintained by the Department of Transportation, and put quarters issued by the United States Mint into the parking meter. Then, after spending another day not being maimed or killed at work thanks to the workplace regulations imposed by the Department of Labor and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, I drive back to my house which has not burned down in my absence because of the state and local building codes and the fire marshal's inspection, and which has not been plundered of all its valuables thanks to the local police department. I then log onto the Internet which was developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration and post on freerepublic and fox news forums about how SOCIALISM in medicine is BAD because the government can't do anything right. Keep government out of my Medicare!
Are we better off because of these things, or are we worse off because of these things?
The fact that they exist do not inform you about this question. The holocaust existed. Slavery existed. Cannibalism existed.
To understand if something is good you need to analyze it in a theoretical manner.
Theory and History (by Hans Hoppe)
Hasn't everyone already seen this?
The whole thing operates under the assumption that somehow just because the government has shoved its hands into something that it is somehow the reason we have it...or that we enjoy the utility it provides. The possibility that perhaps those things work despite the government interfering is completely ignored. The people of this country were getting educated just fine for over 200 years. We somehow managed to invent refrigeration, the electric telegraph, the airplane, the liquid fueled rocket, the digital computer, the laser, bi-focal eyeglasses, the lightning rod and thousands of other things that directly, and indirectly, affect that narrator's day...all without the help of the ever-so-great Department of Education. We put a man on the moon for crissake. In fact, almost every single thing mentioned in that story existed in more or less the same fashion before the creation of whatever government bureau now meddles with it. And somehow whoever authors nonsense like that wants everyone to believe that without the government, all those things wouldn't be possible. Troll somewhere else.
In the USSR the government gave people bread and milk, too. Though it still didn't regulate how people must take a dump, so you may have ended up soiling your pants (no underwear -- too burgeoise) every day.
Government regulations do not exist to protect you. Government regulations exist to protect the politically favored from new competitors who can offer lower cost or higher quality goods and services to you. Compare the silliness of granting power to the power-hungry with one example of a non-government solution.
The market and the wealth it creates preceedes all of those thngs. This isn't socialism, it is simply a form of a market economy
A non-serious thread like this deserves a non-serious reply.
The keyboard is mightier than the gun.
Non parit potestas ipsius auctoritatem.
Voluntaryism Forum
Post hoc ergo propter hoc. Done. Next thread.
Yes, I am a huge Dodgers fan.
Anti-state since I learned about the Cuban Revolution and why my dad had to flee the country.
Beer, Guns and Baseball My blog
Sounds like you got your own little version of utopia going there?
Bet you're grateful that I'm forced to help pay for your version of realty?
So in response to your question ... Answer what?
We are the soldiers for righteousnessAnd we are not sent here by the politicians you drink with - L. Dube, rip
"I woke up this morning alive and well, as government agents prevented the Taliban from sneaking into my house and raping me as I slept. I drank water from my tap, assured that it would not give me AIDs because government scientists told me so. I drove to work in my car, which only functions because a government agent ensured that the engine did not explode upon leaving the assembly line, and was not blown up in a mad car chase because of the traffic signs. I had no reason to fear that the world would be struck down by an alien invasion because government funded scientific institutions say such a thing won't happen, and I left my car by walking, which was safe because the government doth decree that Newton's laws of Thermodynamics hold true. I peed in a urinal, which went down rather than up because of government belief in gravity, and I flew a plane around the world because the government-certified airline assured me that the world is round. I entered my building without being filled with bullets by a gangster because government security agencies exist to prevent that, and was able to do my job because the government intervened in the economy to herald all of us sheep into actually doing things. I ate my lunch due to governmental encouragement, happy that it existed to prevent me from forgetting to eat and starving to death. I then went home, guided by the street lights, pleased that the government invented electricity, whereupon I slept in the bed that is monitored by hundreds of bugs and cameras that prevent axe murderers from killing me in my sleep.
This thread made me lol hard.
Yeah... I also heard that Mussolini made the trains run on time. I doubt it, though.
Despite what was implied in the opening post, this actually scared the shit out of me. (Am I allowed to say that? I guess I'll found out...)
Thank god for the US Congress and the National Institute of Standards and Technology or I wouldn't know what the time was.
Basically this ignores opportunity cost. That the government provides a useful does not mean it provides the greatest possible benefit for the resources it uses up. If the state provided cars that are twice as expensive and half as good, everybody would think "without the state we wouldn't have cars, ergo a nationalized car industry is beneficial". And it would be accurate that having those cars is better than not having them. But this does not take into account that it is worse than the alternative, a free market car industry.