The founding fathers were slave owners

Don't each of us have prejudices and biases? Who among us is not partisan?

Sowell is but one of a number who I draw from in forming my own philosophy. I'm sure you must have a list of your own, although likely quite different from mine. Rather than post quotes of individuals, that support your or others philosophy, I prefer to know who the individuals are so that I might instead read them in context. There's very little original philosophy produced today, most often just a mixture of what has evolved from philosophers long ago, that has been often restated or reworded.

 

Indie

And again we don’t get answers?

Anyway the trick is to try and not be prejudiced or biased [FONT=&quot]when looking at something but to think it through [/FONT]you can do that by questioning your views, presenting them and seeing if they stand up to scrutiny and criticism, if you can defend them in an open and honest debate then they’re probably good ones to hold.

I have friends from both the left and right of the political spectrum I also piss off many from the left and the right. I’ve try to read widely from many quarters and they have influenced my thinking but not dominated it. I dislike ideology or dogma because it always seems to stop people questioning, it seems to stops people thinking. They become unable to answer questions or defend their ideas and so they become unable to debate in anything like an open and honest way

You can notice people who don’t question their views because they’re the ones that refuse to debate and say things like “I simply accept criticism, understanding that it is unlikely to produce any agreement by responding to it.”

In other words they have already made up their mind so no criticism will change their mind, no argument, no evidence, nothing, they ‘know’ they are right just like a creationist ‘knows’ he or she is right, it’s an irrational and prejudiced mind.

 

The questions dealt with are philosophical and there is no one answer acceptable to all. In nearly every case the same questions are asked over and over again, and the same answers, sometimes reworded prevail which does little to produce agreement.

I believe in a free market system, small governments, and individual sovereignty. You can call it prejudiced or biased and argue against it and I will remain steadfast as I recognize that the intrusion upon any of those beliefs reduces not only my freedom but everyones.

I have not said that markets should be without any controls, or that governments have no responsibilities, or that individuals should be uncontrolled in any way. There are rational laws which can be defined quite simply, and when government grows in size and power so large that it produces hundreds of thousands of pages of laws, no one or even large group of individuals, including government itself can be aware of, much less enforce those laws. Instead, it allows government the ability to control society through interpretation of some obscure law long hidden away, waiting for an opportunity to be applied. Businesses have to remain aware of the laws that can be applied to them, and often even their lawyers have difficulty interpreting them. Poorly written laws often make available means of doing things or even necessitating actions that sometimes require new laws be written in an attempt to fix problems brought about by a previous law.

What is it exactly that we are trying to accomplish?

 

what is also fucked up is that the George Washington grew cannibus for smoking and rope. look at what it has become now. imo the illegalization of smoke is "unconstitutional"

 

Please enlighten me as to what freedoms have been lost to big government.

When civil rights was a decision of the states blacks were given no freedom in the southern states.

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Then vote Libertarian.

 

Primarily, for most citizens, how to spend the money they earn.

Are blacks still being denied freedom?

 

Certainly this can't be all you've got. And who tells you where you spend your money. Nobody has ever told me where I can spend my money, except they won't let me spend it on pot, but that has more to do with state law than federal law. The fact remains that states are more controlling of individual freedom than the federal government.

Not since "BIG" government stepped in and made the states stop discriminating.

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I said the money you earned. I'm sure you can find a way to spend it on pot if you want. I have no problem reducing state government controls as well as federal government controls.

Was it not a Constitutional amendment? Of course the Federal government has taken things further which may have created some problems in trying to mandate equality in areas where equality doesn't exist naturally.

 

You still haven't said how the government controls your spending.

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By government spending. Government may print the money we use, but it is the labor of those who work that produces the value it has. The money that government spends is money that I and perhaps you and others have earned, AND payed taxes on. Those that earn money and pay no Federal taxes or state taxes still pay taxes in the end, but much less and also less visible. And those who live off government programs also pay taxes in the end, but complain little as they are not spending money they actually had to earn.

What is the motivating factor that this produces?

 

Individual literally thinks most people on welfare enjoy being on welfare.

 

Some may and others may not. I have a friend who will not begin looking for work until he can no longer receive unemployment checks. While he may not enjoy being unemployed, ha told me as long as he can get paid for not working he will take advantage of it and has been taking a long vacation as a result.

And I'm not comparing unemployment to welfare. I also am aware of a business who has difficulty keeping a full workforce as most of it's employees are on welfare and only work until they earn the maximum allowed that will not reduce their welfare payments. And they earn above the minimum wage but refuse to work full time.

 

Indie

As I said you have a closed and prejudiced mind, the answers will always remain the same because you dogmatically refuse to give any other answers. When you say “no one answer acceptable to all” you mean no other answer acceptable to you. When you say “I will remain steadfast” you mean you will refuse to accept any other viewpoint.

I mean a criticism is presented of your ideas and your answer doesn’t address the issue, the criticism is repeated and once more you repeat the answer that doesn’t address the issue. It is an answer but it doesn’t answer the criticism – or questions are asked and you just ignore them or refuse to answer - basically you are just refusing to debate, because I suspect you know the flaws in your ideas would quickly become apparent if you did.

The whole history of political thought and Philosophy has been about debate between differing ideas in that way the ideas are tested, you refuse to test your ideas and you should be asking yourself why?

Yes, yes we’ve heard it all before but – I’ve asked questions that in the main you’ve refused to answer, I’ve presented criticism of your ideas that you’ve refused to address, you are incapable of defending your ideas so you refuse to debate.

So why are you here?

If it is just to sell some rather dodgy and irrational ideas you are little different than a spammer trying to sell fake Viagra or Nigerian banking schemes.

Please take down the poster of Ayn Rand get out of your bedroom, go and find a girlfriend, experience something of life and come back when you have a set of ideas that are thought through and you can defend.

 

So you just don't want to pay your fair share of running the country.

Taxes paid for the Interstate Hwy. System, most of which I have never used. I've never been to most of the federal parks that taxes pay for, and, I'm not allowed to sleep in the White House, that my taxes pay for.

Most people on welfare worked and paid taxes at one time, too. As I stated before, welfare is, in effect, an insurance policy for all of us, you included.

The people who bitch the most about taxes and big government are usually the ones who yell at the feds when they need help, like the Gulf states are doing right now.

Social programs were created because states, local governments and charities were ineffective during the great depression. If your theories were valid, welfare wouldn't have been necessary in the beginning.

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My wife would probably not care for me to find a girlfriend. My ideas have been defended quite well by others who you do not agree with, so what purpose would there be in my restating what has already been stated? Milton Friedman, Adam Smith, Friedrich Hayek, and many others have had a strong influence upon my beliefs, and you likely disagree with them, and therefore would do the same were I to restate them.
Who might be the ones who had the greatest influence upon you? That would provide me a better source of understanding your views, and perhaps even influencing mine, by reading their works in context.

While I accept government to be a necessity, it can work like a cancerous growth to the point it becomes fatal if allowed to spread uncontrolled.

I value each individual differently, because the effect each one has on my life is different. A grocer, or department store owner makes available my needs and is valued above a drug dealer, drunkard, and even a jeweler or chiropractor who I may never have need of. Those who provide our needs tend to profit from their efforts, some much greater than I and others less. If my efforts don't produce the wages I feel necessary to live the way I wish, should government subsidize me, or punish others in order to make me more equal to some predetermined standard?
The U.S. government was not created to be a socialist or national democracy form of government. As government has grown larger and more involved it has created immense debts, and liabilities which no one gives any attention to, putting them off as though they are unimportant, and can be handled in the future. At some point in the future it will have to be recognized that they can not be handled. Most of the world today is living on borrowed money or some form of welfare. Nothing government does or can do will eliminate those who are wealthy, except by some form of violence, which will in the end only produce a different set of persons who will make up the wealthy. Which country has created a society of equals? Great Britain?

 

Indie

If you can’t defend the ideas you have then why do you have them?

I mean I don’t know about you but I’d feel a bit silly and pathetic if I had to say that I didn’t know why I believe in something but that I once read a couple of books and if you read them they might tell you why I think as I do.

I couldn’t point out one or even a few things that have had an influence on the way I think they are many and various and not all are out of books but come from people I’ve known or from the things I’ve experienced.

The thing is that I’ve try to think ideas through asked questions of them put them to the test of debate changed or adapted them if they couldn’t stand.

You seem to have done none of that and worse you don’t seem willing to do it either.

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And then oh dear the rest of your post is yet another string of sad slogans….

 

I was on welfare, and let me tell you I wasnt happy about it.