A legitimate government is a voluntary association of citizens. There certainly have been other kinds, Nazis and Communists and Imperial Japanese and so on. But the governments of the modern western democracies – Europe, modern Japan, Australia, and the Americas – are based on legitimate majority rule.
No conceivable system of human organization can operate under total 100% consent and consensus. We’re too individual for that! If every single citizen had a personal veto against any collective activity…we wouldn’t even be living in caves! (Because someone, sure as God made apples, would say, “Nuh uh! I’m against that!”)
So, yeah: there are laws that I don’t agree with. I never “voluntarily consented” to the Income Tax. But I do “voluntarily consent” to the legitimacy of the Constitution and the system of government based upon it. And, believe me, I vote!
Now, can you tell us exactly how people using antibiotics incorrectly creates or promotes the drug-resistant tuberculosis? Because it was news to my wife, who is a physician. She told me the way drug-resistant tuberculosis strains are created is through people who are diagnosed with normal tuberculosis, are assigned a course of treatment, and quit it in the middle.
Tell that to Branch Davidians. Or Randy Weaver and his family.
No? My relationship between me and my auto insurance company operates under total 100% consent and consensus. You see, I have this insurance contract where it says what the company is obligated to do and what I am obligated to do. And we both signed it.
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We’re too individual for that! If every single citizen had a personal veto against any collective activity…we wouldn’t even be living in caves!
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Let’s pick a “collective activity”. Let’s say Social Security. After all, that’s the collective activity of collective activities, consuming a huge percentage of the federal budget. Now explain - why can a “single citizen” NOT opt out? Do not pay it, do not collect the benefits. And don’t tell me “but what happens if you’re old and destitute” - he OPTED OUT. He can handle it on his own. That’s what opt out means.
And does your wife, who is a physician, think that quitting a course of antibiotic treatment in the middle is the way you’re supposed to do it? Because if not, then that would be people using antibiotics incorrectly. Which, as your wife who is a physician pointed out is the way drug-resistant tuberculosis strains are created.
You are aware that tuberculosis drugs are not antibiotics, right?
Oh and I guess the government should make it illegal to quit the drug treatment in the middle, right? After all, according to “Mapache” millions are going to die because of it. Oh, I know - let’s put all those undergoing treatment under government supervision in order to make sure they finish taking their drugs. Concentrate them in one place, if you will. Like a summer camp. Or some other kind.
No, because it’s a direct and obvious consequence of libertarianism that the country either collapses into a failed state or turns into some new version of feudalism. The Lords command, the serfs obey, and if the serfs get uppity that’s when the machine guns come in handy. Libertarians of course always seem to think that they’ll get to be one of the lords and not the serfs.
Completely unbelievable. What, did they wear “terrorist” on their forehead?
You wouldn’t be an “adult” without the government; you’d be a slave or dead or a hermit hiding from the rest of the barbarians. Or one of the people doing the enslaving or killing. Freedom and civilization exist only because of government.
Which is true, you are “too stupid”; any human is. Despite libertarian arrogance, no individual can match the ability of a huge organization. You can’t do the FDA’s job all on your own; and in a society without something like the FDA you’re better off when sick or injured staying home and hoping to get well without help than you are playing Russian Roulette with what passes for “medicine”.
No. They started shooting, or stabbing people. And passerby shot them.
… because you say so.
Finally. There you go. Government needs to exist because everyone is stupid. Thanks for finally revealing this great statist principle. Usually people like you try to hide this under all kinds of rhetoric.
No, because it’s obvious. Both obvious as a result, and obvious as the actual goal that most libertarians want despite their babbling about “freedom”.
No, don’t buy it. Or to quote you, “… because you say so”
No, because it’s really obvious. Again. :rolleyes: Because societies where government is weak or nonexistent are always dysfunctional hellholes.
:rolleyes: Don’t be ridiculous. I’'m pointing out that individual people are not superhuman demigods who can do the job of tens of thousands of people all on their own, which is what you are insisting they can do.
That’s what I’ve been arguing the whole time. The modern world is far too complex and esoteric for the kind of granular, selfish freedom your espousing. People can be smart when it comes to what they’re good at singularly, but for a nation with far too many ideals and disagreements to work, a government must operate on a set of basic human rights which must not be violated, then lay down a system for coping with these in the most efficient way possible, protecting the most people as possible from mistakes or misdeeds their neighbors (and even themselves, sometimes) might make directly or indirectly harming you and yours.
Fine. Don’t. I was there. I saw the news reports that described it.
Obvious to you. Because you say so.
No. Individual people aren’t. But if the FDA put out bulletins on what drugs they consider bad and which good, and the FDA had the reputation for consistency and quality in such reports, people would buy them and follow them. Do you have to be a superhuman demigod to do that?
You should ask your wife, who is a physician, about this. Antibiotic means that it kills biological organisms such as Tuberculosis, which is a strain of mycobacteria.
The main antibiotics used to treat TB are:
Ethambutol (commonly abbreviated EMB or simply E) is a bacteriostatic antimycobacterial drug.
Isoniazid kills the tuberculosis by inhibiting the mycolic acid coat of the bacteria.
Pyrazinamide is largely bacteriostatic, but can be bacteriocidal on actively replicating tuberculosis bacteria.
Perhaps ask your wife, who is a physician, what antibiotic means.
I did. She said that no, those are not antibiotics. They are anti-TB drugs.
And as I said before, since “Mapache” was claiming that government intervention would somehow fix the TB situation - exactly how do you propose the government stop this? Legislate taking the drugs for the full 6 months +? Put people under government supervision while they are taking those drugs? You know - arrest them, and force them to take the drugs? Because otherwise there will always be people who stop taking them and there goes your drug-resistant TB.
Yes, I say so. And parroting “because you say so” over and over isn’t a valid argument against anything I say, or good conversation for that matter.
And I flat out don’t believe any such thing. It sounds much more plausible that you are just defining anyone brown who gets shot as a terrorist and using that as “evidence” of the effectiveness of random guys with guns against terrorism. And ignoring the fact that the terrorists themselves are random guys with guns.
The FDA which just happens to be part of the government you don’t like. And no, people probably wouldn’t buy FDA recommended products because the market would be flooded with garbage and useful medicines driven out of business; cheap garbage is by nature much cheaper to make. Or they’d just be told by their boss to buy the junk that his brother is selling, or lose their jobs.