Which reply was that?

13ball,

You're usually so astute so it's strange you're not getting this:

The Sun will only exist in its current state for another 5 billion years, roughly. Then, no more life on Earth.

Therefore,

Refugees and other huddled masses should lay down and die.

Post #3

I was thinking about this while in the car. This is the Eric Cartman position that poor people live in clusters, etc. Like I said in another post, show your work.

Post #13, but I was vague.

Meh, I'll weigh in on my thoughts later. Too damn lazy.

For now, Cartman would make a terrific Border Patrol agent.

We are not in a post-scarcity fantasy land. That's all that can be deduced from the comment.

As soon as you introduce government, it ceases to be the free market, and government begins picking winners and losers. It sounds sensible, until you start to investigate which areas government a better solution, then you realize it isn't.

Government doesn't need to be introduced, it's been here.

Winners and losers? Sounds like you suppose life is one big contest for everything?

What advanced society successfully exists without government? Impossible.

What advancement in society has ever existed because of government?

Aside from the fact that large companies function because of government protection, the contribution of either direct government action or funding of research is essential in almost all technological improvement since WWII.

That may well not count as an advance in society, but the government has also supported poets, philosophers and mathematicians.

I couldn't disagree more.

This is a decent point. AARPANET for example. You can see the contrast between the initial government funding, and what the free market actually does. Investors pony up dough all the time, so initial government funding isn't necessary.

https://mises.org/library/government...de-it-glorious

The internet (and many protocols and services that function within/because of the internet), national parks service, national highway system, public education, great amounts of medical research, public universities, universal health care in many countries. The list goes on and on, those are just the biggest highlights I could think of off the top of my head.

Socrates was not. And, Homer was not sponsored by government, neither was Diogenes, the cynic (one of my favs). Some of the greats off the top of my head.

People write songs all the time w/o government. And all song lyrics are poetic.

Highways, for example, are built by construction companies rather than actual government employees. The government merely budgets highways. Companies respond to the commands. The government is making these roads a mess. We'd have packages delivered to us via drone by now if it weren't for government. Instead it's UPS, which isn't as good for the environment.

Education is loltastic in this country, and without parks, people would find substitutes, like museums. Parks hold-down the potential of the population. People can't build homes and cities where there are national parks.

There are other threads for health care, so I won't dwell on it here.

The best evidence of what is necessary is what actually happened. And the internet is just one of countless examples. You'll not find an industry in science or technology where if the government didn't do the basic research or pay for it to be done or was the primary customer for it, it at least heavily subsidized the training of the people who did it.

Private investors just don't care about 20 years from now. They barely care about two years from now. That's a fundamental problem without government.

Even if you go back to the days when the government was tiny compared to now, The railroads were sorta financed by industry, but they never happen if the government doesn't steal the land and give it to them and kill every native American, union worker or Chinese person who stands in the way.

This is the first time I encountered the "Who will kill the native Americans in order to build the railroads?" paradox having this discussion. The question goes towards who's land it actually is, and what is just, and you're illustrating how woefully inadequate government actually is in delivering justice.

And, the FED chairman does?

In a free market, if it's not our land, we do not build railroads. In a government, all the land is first claimed by government, so all corporations have to do is lobby the government for land claims in their favor. If it is not the hell your land, you should kindly get the **** off it, which essentially applies to government as well which should get the **** off my lawn, apartment complex, whatever. I'll figure-out security, and which projects are worth investing in, or not.

This is just nonsense. Your argument is that these systems are imperfect and in some hypothetical society without government all these systems would be so much better. But no society without government has all those things, imperfect as they may be. Not even close. And private companies compete with USPS, why aren't they delivering stuff by drone by now? Both compete side-by-side in the educational system as well and it provides options for all members of the public.

That's changing the argument. It was about how "improvement" comes about. Your later arguments go to show it doesn't come about without government.

Not the FED chair in particular, but government does much more so than private industry. The government makes long term investments like building and funding schools, laboratories and huge infrastructure projects which private industry rarely would.

Imo it's no one's land. It never was and it never will be. The closest approximation to what is right in regards to who gets to use what land in what ways is a messy partial agreement somehow arrived at involving as many of the interested parties as possible. Ideologically, the treatment of all land as the commons seems much more apparently fair than private ownership. I think in some cases concessions should be made for respecting private ownership of land because it sometimes is a significant benefit.

What inadequate justice was woefully delivered? What about when it's not justice, but "law and order" calling itself that?