That’s an important point that seems to be lost on a lot of people around here. Although I wouldn’t normally put **David **in that category, he seems to have mistaken the free market with government granting special favors to certain people. A government which fosters a free market should be just as loath to help businessmen as it is to hinder them. It isn’t call “hands off” for nothing!
Cry foul all you want to guys, the tax collectors who were called “scum” above were private contractors who bid competitively for their jobs.
Equivocating about what that job was is just blowing dust. Even free-market enthusiasts will admit that governments need revenue and taxes are a way to get them. To pretend like taxes are some sort of outrageous coercion is way out there.
And in return for that bid, the government let them steal money. Again, explain how that is a free market?
Sure, and if we were talking about government contracting out in order to have a private company collect the taxes that were actually due to the government, I’d be fine with it. However, what you are describing has nothing to do with taxes. Basically, the government is putting up for bid a license to steal. It’s not a license to collect taxes, since these “tax” collectors take whatever they want.
I’ll certainly admit that taxes are necessary, but they are also obtained through coercion.
A good point, Lib! We must be careful to exempt such persons who can walk on water and raise the dead.
Well, it’s coercion for sure. Whether it’s “outrageous” or not is a matter of opinion.
But David, taxes simply aren’t part of “the market”, whether they are necessary or not. How the government goes about collecting those taxes is up to the government. But whenever you force someone to do something, like pay taxes, you aren’t operating on market principles. Doesn’t make that good or bad, per se, just different.
And yet Jesus paid taxes.
What the Gospel of Matthew didn’t say:
He’d certainly think that man was more righteous than the man who had similar money taken from him to buy guns and bombs, and pay for Halliburton’s no-bid contracts and Archer Daniels Midland’s agricultural subsidies.
Damned if I know. I’ve got theories, but needless to say, they’re unfalsifiable. 
I don’t know what free-market theorists think of the idea, but we’ve privatized certain areas of law enforcement, allowing businessmen to take people’s lives on behalf of the government. Which as a side effect takes all of their property from them, since as the saying goes, you can’t take it with you.
You think so? Neither guy actually did anything at all. Both just had the money taken, and we don’t know whether they approved or disapproved of either action. I think it’s pretty clear that Jesus was concerned with people’s intent-- didn’t he say something about committing a sin just by thinking about the sinful action?
And where did you get the idea that Halliburton no-bid contracts were on par with ADM’s agricultural subsidies. 
So it was at least as bad.
Unless anyone thinks Jesus would condemn modern democracies as fundamentally evil for the very idea that the majority can make decisions for all, including decisions about taxation, then this is a kinda silly digression anyway.
And those who do believe this, and consider themselves followers of Jesus, why haven’t you moved to someplace less evil? There are an ever-increasing number of failed states with plenty of areas to live where the taxman’s authority is nonexistent.
Yes, but that’s an induction fallacy. Competitive bidding for a contract CAN be a free market operation, just as a bovine CAN be a cow. But if you’re competing to buy slaves or to run a protection racket, that’s a rat. And no rat is ever a bovine.
When peaceful honest people are conscripted, it is an ethical abomination.
A more disingenuous dodge could scarcely be conceived. The scripture you desecrated directly contradicts your assertion that Jesus is more concerned that the poor be fed than He is with how. It is remarkable that you would cast Him as advocating that the end justifies the means. That has been the philosophy of history’s most terrible tyrants, including President Bush.
So do I. I don’t reckon Jesus cared to be sent to prison or worse. He had better things to do. He also dined with whores and forgave adultresses, but he wasn’t advocating prostitution and infidelity.
Why haven’t you bought health insurance for some poor children?
So if a merchant auctions off overdue debts to collection agencies that’s free market but if a ruler auctions off tax debts to private collectors that’s not free market.
You are doing your best to define your way to victory. It might work with some here but I don’t buy it.
Apparently, you don’t know what “ruler” means.
I pay for it. I pay a higher cost than someone less fortunate, and am glad to do it, because I know my money is going where it needs to go with efficiency.
There are. The problem is that some people are poor or otherwise disadvantaged because they make poor choices. Horses and water and all that.
The key point is that I have no objection to paying higher health care costs so that those that are less able to pay can afford reasonable care. The hospital charges me a little bit more, somebody else a little bit less who wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford it. Everybody gets paid and everybody gets the care they need.
To me this is very different from directly taxing me and creating a socialized health care system administered by a bloated and incompetant bureacracy that will waste the money, reduce the level of care and limit my choices, reducing freedom. That way we all lose.
All rights are property rights. A violation of rights is simply the taking away of another’s property. The most fundamental rights have to do with the most fundamental properties, the mind and the body that contains it.
I have two kidneys. I only need one. Do you think the government has the right to tax me by taking one of my kidneys and giving it to somebody else who needs it?
Bullshit. I’m defending my assertions.
Your beleif does not impress me. It was not long ago that people beleived black people were subhuman and that it was just and proper to hold them as slaves. You accuse me of a faith-based rationale, but in reality that’s all that your offering, and, like most faith-based rationales it’s as irrational and disprovable as intelligent design.
On the contrary, your plans would actually prevent me from doing so. You would tax me and use my money wastefully, depriving of me dollars that I can use efficiently. I pick and choose what I give to and where I volunteer. If you taxed me I would have less time and money to offer than I do now. Until you care to take the effort to find out where I give and I’d advise you to come off your high horse as I’ll wager I provide a lot more than you do.
:dubious:
There are a number of unsupported assumptions here. I don’t think that a “bloated and incopetent bureacracy” is a feature of government run health plans in general. In fact our private enterprise health care system spends 31% of the total percapita medical expense on administration while Canada’s government plan spends only 16.7% for the same thing.
However, it does seem that the mantra “socialized medecine” has a strong effect even though many nations have socialized medecine and their national health condition is no worse than ours and in some cases better as shown by such things as infant mortality numbers.
The post to which I was responding referred to the “tax collectors of Jesus’ time” or words to that effect, and I took them at face value.
All debts are collectable through coercion. Just try not paying you utility bill.
Taxes are what the government charges each citizen for the goods and services that the government provides. You may argue that you don’t want many of the services but that’s specious. We survive in societies that must meet the needs for goods and services for all, not just for you.
Whether you agree with the Roman system or not, or think that it was honest or not, putting the collection of taxes up for bids was a free market exercise. The publicans were independent contractors who provided a service to the Roman government in exchange for money.
I also think the Roman publican system was bad but it was used for all sorts of government activities and seemed to work reasonably well. Rome lasted a long time and I don’t recall a lot of revolutions by Roman citizens against their lot. Of course the average Roman didn’t have the same expectations as we do.
Certainly a novel definition of the nature of human rights. Hume? Locke? Burke? Scylla? Really, sez who?
Mercy, what a wretched analogy! We’re talking about insurance plans here, how the hell do you take 5% of a kidney and disperse it over 300 million citizens?
With more assertions. Looks like turtles all the way down, from here.
Sure! I even said so, couple posts back. I hold certain truths to be self-evident, as do you. What of it?
Two unproveable assumptions, one long sentence. It is an article of faith amongst some, and seemingly shared by you, that any government enterprise must, by some metaphysical force, be doomed to inefficiency. If that is not an unproveable dogma, its getting pretty darn close.
In terms of inherent inefficiency, a for profit insurance enterprise has one built right in, its the profit motive. Some of the money is siphoned off to pay investors, however modest that sum may be, it is still lost in terms of effect. And, of course, a for profit enterprise is built to maximize that “inefficiency”, by any means they can get away with. Even if a government system has some inherent deficiency (being comprised of humans, a pretty safe bet…), there is no built in mechanism for maximizing that deficiency.
Pure ad hominem. My abundant character flaws have no bearing whatever on the argument.
How about shiny happy people? Can they still hold hands if they’ve been drafted?
Hey, guess what, everyone, I’ve desecrated a scripture!!
I didn’t think I had it in me. 
Sounds to me that by dining and forgiving, he was advocating dining and forgiveness. JMHO, YMMV, LBJ, IRT, USA, LSD.