Are taxes justified to support a war? YB says no.

[dldelancey]

I was going with the baby falling example that was given. It's a good analogy and applies equally well to adults.

With the one exception: Parents are personally responsible for their babies, while adults are personally responsible for themselves.

Wait... On second thought... you are right. For it does apply to many adults because they're just grown babies who expect others (or government) to be responsible for the consequences of their actions, and then blame them when they are not.

I don't understand why you insist that appropriate responsibility placement is equivalent to "angrily blaming others."

Because that's all that left once personal responsibility is denied. That's only my view derived from my own personal life experience. You are perfectly free to disagree if your experience is different.

If, using a prior example, I have parked my car legally, and someone driving a dump truck drops a load of gravel (or whatever it was that was mentioned) onto my car because of some negligence on his part, it is entirely appropriate to place legal, financial, moral, and ethical responsibility on that driver.

That example is unrealistic because it adds artificial innocence of "legally parked" when real world common sense tells you that you don't park, even "legally", in a heavy equipment construction zone. (I've worked in construction for 35 years.)

That artificial innocence has to be added so as not to see the TWO matching ingredients of an "accident":

The unawareness of ~both~ parties involved.

When ~one~ party is aware... there is no possibility of an "accident". Because of their awareness, they are free to act by making allowances for the unawareness of others so as not to become the collateral damage of the unawareness of others.

True, this is the description of an ideal, but an ideal is not invalid just because it is not fully achieved. On the contrary, it is all the more worthy of our aspirations.

I find exploring the facets of this topic to be enjoyable with the understanding that agreement is never the goal.

Greg

Who said anything about a heavy equipment construction zone? Dump trucks full of gravel quite often travel outside of construction zones. One was on my lane very recently. Had it dumped it's load on my car that was most certainly legally parked in my own driveway, my real world common sense would have held the dump truck driver responsible. My feelings nor the driver's would have had anything to do with it. If you're tossing out legality in its entirety in addition to accepting personal responsibility for every accident or misfortune that has ever and will ever befall you then you are both irrational and uninsurable. But you seem like a happy guy, so there's that. {shrug} I look forward to future discussions with you. Just not this one.

[Brant Gaede]

Good luck with that.

--Brant

[moralist]

I was going with the baby falling example that was given. It's a good analogy and applies equally well to adults.

With the one exception: Parents are personally responsible for their babies, while adults are personally responsible for themselves.

Wait... On second thought... you are right. For it does apply to many adults because they're just grown babies who expect others (or government) to be responsible for the consequences of their actions, and then blame them when they are not.

I don't understand why you insist that appropriate responsibility placement is equivalent to "angrily blaming others."

Because that's all that left once personal responsibility is denied. That's only my view derived from my own personal life experience. You are perfectly free to disagree if your experience is different.

If, using a prior example, I have parked my car legally, and someone driving a dump truck drops a load of gravel (or whatever it was that was mentioned) onto my car because of some negligence on his part, it is entirely appropriate to place legal, financial, moral, and ethical responsibility on that driver.

That example is unrealistic because it adds artificial innocence of "legally parked" when real world common sense tells you that you don't park, even "legally", in a heavy equipment construction zone. (I've worked in construction for 35 years.)

That artificial innocence has to be added so as not to see the TWO matching ingredients of an "accident":

The unawareness of ~both~ parties involved.

When ~one~ party is aware... there is no possibility of an "accident". Because of their awareness, they are free to act by making allowances for the unawareness of others so as not to become the collateral damage of the unawareness of others.

True, this is the description of an ideal, but an ideal is not invalid just because it is not fully achieved. On the contrary, it is all the more worthy of our aspirations.

I find exploring the facets of this topic to be enjoyable with the understanding that agreement is never the goal.

Greg

Who said anything about a heavy equipment construction zone? Dump trucks full of gravel quite often travel outside of construction zones.

Of course they do... I'm simply noting that you're still trying to put artificial innocence into your situation. In the real world, it's impossible to pop the gate and hydraulically raise the bed while driving down the road with your hands on the steering wheel and while shifting gears.

So given the contrived nature of the example, you can hold onto your premise that "accidents" have absolutely nothing to do with you, and there is no possible way you could have ever known, and you had absolutely no choice but to be where you were forced to be with no alternative choice, and were forced to be there at that exact time you were there, and that the other person is completely and totally 100% to blame and your own part in what happened is absolutely zero.

There you have it. The perfect storm of "accidents" It's the Holy Grail... and it's all yours.

If you're tossing out legality in its entirety in addition to accepting personal responsibility for every accident or misfortune that has ever and will ever befall you then you are both irrational and uninsurable.

I'm not tossing out legality at all... just not relying on it for protection.

Ok. So to recap:

In your view, you rely on the government legal system and insurance corporations to protect you from the world around you.

And in my view, the finest protection is being aware of the world around me.