Uh huh. It goes without saying that you did not begin to type before a long internal deliberation took place, examining what I’ve said with dispassionate objectivity. And we all know that rational men configure their entire identity around naval citadels.
Once again I’m forced to admit that was a rather good reply.
Oops, meant to type “sign up with…” in my previous post. But that crowd has rejected you? Guess you’ll just have to suck it up and deal with it then.
I’ve both sucked and dealt. Are you fulfilled at long last?
Not necessarily, as long as we don’t do it indefinitley.
I don’t have much of a dog in this fight, because right now I make so little I get virtually all of what I payed in taxes refunded back. I did have a coworker, however, who whined about having her paycheck gouged by a whopping twelve dollars, ten or so of that she’ll get back anyway. If anything, the ‘witholding’ is a way to save money, since if she had that ten dollars in her hands, she would have certainly splurged on a hemp thong or something by now 
Granted. But since the rule of thumb (with few exceptions) seems to be that we WILL continue to do this indefinitely, I’d love someone to point me to a credible plan for putting an end to the bleeding. I’ve not heard of one, but then I’m not always paying attention either.
CJ
Nothing is stopping me. Meaness and selfishness stops some though. I don’t believe I said "that everyone ought to be made as equally sillked, talented, and intellgient as possible ". I said that not everyone IS equally skilled, talented and intelligent (can I add lucky). There are some people in every society that we need to look after. I am quite happy that my taxes help do that.
When my husband killed himself I had a 16 mth old. I consider myself VERY fortunate that I live somewhere that allowed me to fall to pieces and be a mum and not have to hold a job at the same time. Before and since then I have added to the tax pool to allow the govt to support others.
That is why I made the point. The bible may say I should pray but I don’t. Moral obligations should tell people to help others but many won’t. I am not opposed to my democraticaly elected govt helping instead.
In an ideal world I believe your ideas (well not your ideas…but those ideas that you share) would work brilliantly but we don’t live in an ideal world.
In an un-ideal world we would have hardworking rich people and lazy poor people.
The lazy people might have uneducated, unhealthy children but a kind hearted rich person might help out.
We would have rampant crime as the poor (or lazy) preyed on the rich (hardworking). The “stupid” and “lazy” people would be roaming the streets robbing the “clever” and “hardworking”…well until they got sick and died in the gutter.
Of course the criminals would go uncaught because the kind rich people were too busy hiding to donate to the police. But if they did get caught the judges (being clever types) would be on the job to sentence them but keeping them in prison would be tricky because the prison officers all quit because the tips were lousy.
The rubbish would pile up in the streets because the the kind rich people forgot to pay the rubbishmen and the rubbish truck couldn’t get down the road because everyone forgot to pay someone to fill in the potholes.
Yadda Yadda…Yes very over the top ridiculous scenarios I know but I will stick with paying tax and using the services that tax provides.
Now that is a bloody good line. 
Still far short of the most ridiculous I’ve heard. I could match your horror scenarios with ones of my own about government abuse of authority, about partnerships between government fatcats and business tycoons, about children who fall through the cracks of welfare and education programs, about people who die while the drugs they need are mired in bureaucratic paperwork and political infighting, about billions of dollars of wasted money spent on pork to increase the chances of Congressional re-election, about homeless and hopeless people living a few blocks from the center of government power — I could make up all kinds of stories. Instead, I’ll just refer to you any daily newspaper.
Why, thank you.
I just wanted to say that this is awesome. If I were you, I might consider putting “Banished from Randdom by Binswanger” on my tombstone. It is definitely an achievement.
You know, honestly, I wish the people who say that I am condescending could engage in just a day or two of e-mail correspondence with that self-absorbed jackass. It’s like having a conversation with the Borg Queen just after she has devoured a planet and is in the mood to play with a toy.
If any of his published works are any indication, I don’t doubt it. Were you a member of the HBlist?
Oh, dear lord, no! I was just an unfortunate passerby who thought it might be a good idea to drop the gentleman a line in the early days of the Internet (when it was all still very libertarian), to share my personal interpretations of Rand’s philosophy. (As you may know, I consider myself to be an objectivist.) You would have thought I had skull-fucked his mother and puked in her eye sockets. He assaulted me for weeks with a barrage of Rand quotes, his own quotes, quotes from people I swear he made up — each accompanied by twenty paragraphs of analysis. How I replied made no difference. If I disagreed, I was an idiot. If I agreed, I was a sycophant. I was unredeemable. A blight on humanity. An obstacle to man’s noble destiny. A danger to myself and others. I finally just started deleting them until they petered out. Oy. What an experience.
You do, of course, remember that this “very libertarian” system evolved from a framework completely funded by tax dollars. Don’t you?
You know, if you ever would just cozy up to the bar without beating me over the head with a stick, we might enjoy a good conversation. I didn’t say it was a libertarain system; it was a libertarian environment. Government is so ubiquitous and its schemes so grandiose that it is nearly a metaphysical impossibility to avoid its clutches.
Ha! So I finally get to hear your Binswanger story.
Circa 1993 I asked him to settle a bet about the proper way to pronounce “Ayn.” Sure, he answered most cordially, but then came The Flood of unsolicited emails. And these weren’t newsletters, they were specific, topical, one-sided downloads of fractured philosophy laying out point and counterpoint as if I were actually still speaking with him. He finally lost my scent when I dumped CompuServe a few years later.
For all the homegrown Galts out there, it’s nice that he’s so accessible, but criminy, that guy needs a hobby.
Very funny, El Cid! 
I doubt that very much. I’ve seen too much of your sense of perfection and your persecution complex. I’ve seen too many instances of your viciously swiping at Dopers for no reason; too many instances of your cryptic nastiness; too many ridiculous hijacks.
A fairly accurate observation.