# Bush gave away $30-billion the other day for AIDs research. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [June 3, 2007, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-gave-away-30-billion-the-other-day-for-aids-research/406610 "2007-06-03T21:46:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2007, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-gave-away-30-billion-the-other-day-for-aids-research/406610/141 "2007-06-06T18:41:11Z")
[QUOTE=ForumBot] Show me where I have suggested the poor should be disallowed from voting. [/QUOTE] You believe we should vote with our dollars, something the poor are lacking; that’s why we call them the poor. Perhaps I was overbroad to suggest you would deny them a vote. However, your system will make their voting power less, by virtue of their poverty. I believe in tyranny of the majority over the minority; you believe in tyranny of the rich over the poor. I have yet to see a political system that can claim to foster no tyranny at all. ---
**Author:** ![ForumBot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ee59a6/32.png) [@ForumBot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ForumBot)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2007, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-gave-away-30-billion-the-other-day-for-aids-research/406610/142 "2007-06-06T18:49:36Z")
[QUOTE=Fear Itself] However, your system will make their voting power less, [/quote] Not their political voting power, just their economic. Which is the way it should be. That is the way our current system works. The rich have influence over their environment because they can afford it. If you have one dollar and I have 100, then my personal ideology will be better fulfilled than yours. The services and products I enjoy will be more abundant while yours will decline, because the people around me will try to accomodate me to convince me to part with my dollars. Even diseases I want researched will be, because I have the funds to see my personal preferences fulfilled. You, at seeing my ability, are then given an incentive to work hard and innovate, yourself. And because wealth naturally declines if left unattended, it is continually invested and the benefits reach those at the bottom of the ladder. Overall wealth generation for a society is greatest when individual actors are left to transact peacefully and voluntarily. How do you define tyranny? You throw that word around a lot but you haven’t stated what you mean by it. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2007, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-gave-away-30-billion-the-other-day-for-aids-research/406610/143 "2007-06-06T18:52:04Z")
[QUOTE=ForumBot] Your lack of money does not entitle you to tell someone else what to do with theirs. [/QUOTE] My citizenship entitles me to participate in the political affairs of my country, whether I am rich or poor. You “opted in” the day you were born in this country; you are free to opt out by expatriating, but if you stay, we get to take some of your money, even if we have to sit on you and take it from your wallet. I reject your silly “opt in” philosphy, and a little coercion is not a bad thing. ---
**Author:** ![ForumBot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ee59a6/32.png) [@ForumBot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ForumBot)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2007, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-gave-away-30-billion-the-other-day-for-aids-research/406610/144 "2007-06-06T18:57:34Z")
[QUOTE=Fear Itself] You “opted in” the day you were born in this country, you are free to opt out by expatriating, [/quote] That is an absurd statement. A baby does not have the intellectual capacity to consent to anything. David Hume likened this argument to being dragged upon a ship in your sleep and being forced to obey the captain, with your “option to leave” consisting of walking off the edge of the ship into an ocean to your death. > [@](#): > > a little coercion is not a bad thing. If you truly believe coercion is not a bad thing, then be prepared to accept that anyone can rob and kill you for their own benefit. > [@](#): > > My citizenship entitles me to participate in the political affairs of my country, whether I am rich or poor. That has nothing whatsoever to do with your stealing another person’s assets. You seem to be convinced that taxation and government action are two separate things. This is patently false. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2007, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-gave-away-30-billion-the-other-day-for-aids-research/406610/145 "2007-06-06T19:29:14Z")
[QUOTE=ForumBot] That is an absurd statement. A baby does not have the intellectual capacity to consent to anything. [/QUOTE] Consent is not required, nor even possible, for every circumstance in life. My wife did not consent to get scleroderma. In the same way, your circumstances of birth in the US are outside of your consent. You are here; you must participate according to the will of the majority, or opt out by leaving. If that be tyranny, so be it. > [@](#): > > If you truly believe coercion is not a bad thing, then be prepared to accept that anyone can rob and kill you for their own benefit. I accept that every day. Fortunately, I have a contract with my fellow citizens so that we can reduce that likelihood. We all pay taxes, and hire a police force. We cooperate to provide for each other’s security; yours as well. We have found that tasks that are difficult for one, are borne lightly by many. If we allow freeloaders like you to benefit from the environment we create (security, health, transportation, communications), the whole system is threatened. Therefore, we agree that a little coercion is necessary. There is no perfect system, yours included. Among all the imperfect systems, I like ours better than yours. > [@](#): > > That has nothing whatsoever to do with your stealing another person’s assets. I am sorry you feel that collecting taxes is tantamount to stealing. But not so bad as to stop doing it. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![ForumBot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ee59a6/32.png) [@ForumBot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ForumBot)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2007, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-gave-away-30-billion-the-other-day-for-aids-research/406610/146 "2007-06-06T21:06:08Z")
> [@](#): > > Consent is not required, nor even possible, for every circumstance in life. The theft of a person’s labor is very much an act of violence. Any action you, a thinking individual with the choice to not commit that action, will take to damage another person, _must_ be met with that person’s consent. If not, then you open up a whole can of worms that means I can kill you for no reason whatsoever and be completely morally justified. > [@](#): > > My wife did not consent to get scleroderma. In the same way, your circumstances of birth in the US are outside of your consent. Your wife’s disease is not a thinking entity with the capacity for choice. That is completely different. I find your readiness to violate fellow humans’ rights disgusting. [QUOTE=Fear Itself] I accept that every day. Fortunately, I have a contract with my fellow citizens so that we can reduce that likelihood. We all pay taxes, and hire a police force. We cooperate to provide for each other’s security; yours as well. We have found that tasks that are difficult for one, are borne lightly by many. If we allow freeloaders like you to benefit from the environment we create (security, health, transportation, communications), the whole system is threatened. Therefore, we agree that a little coercion is necessary. There is no perfect system, yours included. Among all the imperfect systems, I like ours better than yours. [/quote] Allow me to rephrase. If you are willing to accept people can be coerced for your benefit, you have to be willing to accept it is _morally justifiable_ for someone to kill you for their benefit. If you’re willing to believe that, then I find that despicable and consider you a threat to my livelihood. ---
**Author:** ![ForumBot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ee59a6/32.png) [@ForumBot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ForumBot)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2007, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-gave-away-30-billion-the-other-day-for-aids-research/406610/147 "2007-06-06T21:13:12Z")
Added: Should slavery be equally defended if the majority of the citizenry vote it to be legal? Absolutely not, because basic human rights are inviolable and inalienable, and the ends do not justify the means. For this same reason, “a little coercion” is not in any way justifiable. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2007, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-gave-away-30-billion-the-other-day-for-aids-research/406610/148 "2007-06-06T21:26:44Z")
[QUOTE=ForumBot] If you are willing to accept people can be coerced for your benefit, you have to be willing to accept it is _morally justifiable_ for someone to kill you for their benefit. If you’re willing to believe that, then I find that despicable and consider you a threat to my livelihood. [/QUOTE] So every aspect of Libertopia is morally justifiable? Social Darwinism is not morally justifiable. I don’t not require every aspect of my politics to be morally justifiable. Only more so than yours. ---
**Author:** ![ForumBot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ee59a6/32.png) [@ForumBot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ForumBot)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2007, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-gave-away-30-billion-the-other-day-for-aids-research/406610/149 "2007-06-06T21:29:55Z")
[QUOTE=Fear Itself] So every aspect of Libertopia is morally justifiable? [/quote] Ideally, yes. > [@](#): > > Social Darwinism is not morally justifiable. Name concrete examples. > [@](#): > > I don’t not require every aspect of my politics to be morally justifiable. I do. I want to repeat that I find your readiness to violate human rights disgusting. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2007, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-gave-away-30-billion-the-other-day-for-aids-research/406610/150 "2007-06-06T21:30:45Z")
[QUOTE=ForumBot] I do. [/QUOTE] Then you are deluded. ---
**Author:** ![ForumBot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ee59a6/32.png) [@ForumBot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ForumBot)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2007, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-gave-away-30-billion-the-other-day-for-aids-research/406610/151 "2007-06-06T21:31:28Z")
And you are a monster. I think we’re done. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2007, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-gave-away-30-billion-the-other-day-for-aids-research/406610/152 "2007-06-06T21:33:32Z")
[QUOTE=ForumBot] And you are a monster. I think we’re done. [/QUOTE] So long as you pay your taxes. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2007, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-gave-away-30-billion-the-other-day-for-aids-research/406610/153 "2007-06-06T21:56:20Z")
[QUOTE=ForumBot] Prevention of conscription, whether from the poor or the rich, is tyranny? Would you prefer communism, where everyone is equally poor? [/QUOTE] Compared to your system ? Yes. Not because Communism is anything but evil, but because your system is even worse. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2007, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-gave-away-30-billion-the-other-day-for-aids-research/406610/154 "2007-06-06T22:06:57Z")
[QUOTE=ForumBot] Allow me to rephrase. If you are willing to accept people can be coerced for your benefit, you have to be willing to accept it is _morally justifiable_ for someone to kill you for their benefit. If you’re willing to believe that, then I find that despicable and consider you a threat to my livelihood. [/QUOTE] Sure someone can kill me for their benefit in a morally justified way. If I attack them with a knife, for example. ---
**Author:** ![ForumBot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ee59a6/32.png) [@ForumBot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ForumBot)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2007, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-gave-away-30-billion-the-other-day-for-aids-research/406610/155 "2007-06-06T22:19:23Z")
[QUOTE=jsgoddess] Sure someone can kill me for their benefit in a morally justified way. If I attack them with a knife, for example. [/QUOTE] Point taken, but my argument is individuals should be allowed to live free of government if they choose, _if they are peaceful_. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2007, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-gave-away-30-billion-the-other-day-for-aids-research/406610/156 "2007-06-06T22:20:54Z")
[QUOTE=ForumBot] And you are a monster. I think we’re done. [/QUOTE] Hmm… who is more of a monster… someone who thinks that people should pay their taxes, or someone who proclaims the morality Social Darwinism? ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2007, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-gave-away-30-billion-the-other-day-for-aids-research/406610/157 "2007-06-06T22:21:11Z")
> [@ForumBot](#): > > A baby does not have the intellectual capacity to consent to anything. Irrelevant, because a baby isn’t going to have political autonomy in **any** political system, whether sane or libertarian. An adult, however, **does** have the intellectual capacity to consent. And by choosing, after you attain legal adulthood, to remain in a nation where emigration is legal and unrestricted, you have essentially opted in to that nation’s system of government. > [@ForumBot](#): > > I find your readiness to violate fellow humans’ rights disgusting. I find the artificial pseudo-moral outrage of many libertarians such as yourself amusing. Don’t get me wrong: I like and respect several of the libertarians around here, and I think that libertarian viewpoints often provide very good counterweights to over-intrusive government. But the shocked, shocked! hyperbole from libertarian absolutists feigning horror that anybody could be unethical enough to disagree with the shiningly evident truth of their political morality is something I no longer consider worthy of much beyond a PALATR response. In real life as opposed to libertarian la-la land, human beings are social animals as well as possessors of individual will. We have always lived in societies that recognized individual responsibilities as well as individual rights. All societies in human history have imposed their morality and laws upon their native members without the formality of a legal “opt-in” process. Moreover, they have all involved some form of coerced redistribution of property—from hunter-gatherer societies where food is shared with the elderly and sick, to early urban civilizations where the king gathered taxes and built temples and roads, to modern mixed-economy welfare states. Human societies are designed to coerce a certain amount of property-sharing and labor-sharing. It’s a fundamental part of the nature of human beings as social animals. And then the libertarian absolutists come along and expect us to be all appalled that our legal systems exact mandatory contributions from individuals to society, in addition to recognizing certain individual rights that are protected from social constraint. :dubious: Taxes? Bureaucratic control over public property? Oh, the horror, the horror! The outrage upon human rights! Theft! Tyranny! [gasp] [stagger] [swoon] :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: All those melodramatic political performance artists can kiss my realist ass. If you want to convince me that libertarianism is truly a viable political system, you’re not going to do it by claiming that the fundamental principle of mandatory cooperation which helps form the basis of all human society is somehow morally illegitimate. ---
**Author:** ![ForumBot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ee59a6/32.png) [@ForumBot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ForumBot)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2007, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-gave-away-30-billion-the-other-day-for-aids-research/406610/158 "2007-06-06T22:29:18Z")
[QUOTE=Kimstu] Irrelevant, because a baby isn’t going to have political autonomy in **any** political system, whether sane or libertarian. An adult, however, **does** have the intellectual capacity to consent. And by choosing, after you attain legal adulthood, to remain in a nation where emigration is legal and unrestricted, you have essentially opted in to that nation’s system of government. [/quote] See my response to this argument earlier in the thread. I don’t wish to cover it a fourth time. > [@](#): > > In real life as opposed to libertarian la-la land, human beings are social animals as well as possessors of individual will. We have always lived in societies that recognized individual responsibilities as well as \ Logical fallacy of appeal to tradition. > [@](#): > > :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: All those melodramatic political performance artists can kiss my realist ass. If you want to convince me that libertarianism is truly a viable political system, you’re not going to do it by claiming that the fundamental principle of mandatory cooperation which helps form the basis of all human society is somehow morally illegitimate. Then you understand my argument and we disagree. What more needs to be said between us? ---
**Author:** ![ForumBot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ee59a6/32.png) [@ForumBot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ForumBot)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2007, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-gave-away-30-billion-the-other-day-for-aids-research/406610/159 "2007-06-06T22:36:57Z")
Re: the claims that I am a social darwinist: I am not. Social darwinism calls for the elimination of the weak at the hands of the strong. I advocate a system in which the strong _voluntarily_ help the weak. The ones that don’t are assholes of the highest order and deserve as much scorn as can be heaped upon them, but not death. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2007, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-gave-away-30-billion-the-other-day-for-aids-research/406610/160 "2007-06-06T22:42:36Z")
Look, if every single human society since the dawn of time has been a totalitarian nightmare society run by monsters, then perhaps the word “monster” doesn’t mean what you think it means. Human beings are human beings, not what we wish they were. The trouble is that every single human being is born totally helpless and dependent, and must be cared for and taught by older human beings. No human being choses to be born, none of us choses our parents, our parents are no more wise or enlightened than anyone else. If our parents believe incorrect things, they are likely to teach it to us, and we’re pretty likely to believe them. Sure, sometimes people figure out that what their parents taught them was incorrect, but usually not. And so people have believed in Zeus, or that watermelons fell faster than apples, or that foreigners are inferior, and suchlike, since the dawn of humanity. None of us figures out things for ourselves, at most we are capable of figuring out a few things and telling other people. So we are dependent on other people from the moment we are born to the second we die. Libertopia would only be possible in a society where human beings sprang forth fully formed as educated adults, in a time and place of their own chosing. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-gave-away-30-billion-the-other-day-for-aids-research/406610.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-gave-away-30-billion-the-other-day-for-aids-research/406610.md?page=9)