Paradise Lost **potential mini spoiler if you intend to read Atlas Shrugged**

[pjclarke]

Which part of 'voluntary' is giving you the problem? Hold the name-calling pls, or I'll stop playing.

[SpontaneousOrder]

Which part of 'voluntary' is giving you the problem? Hold the name-calling pls, or I'll stop playing.

So... (this is a question - not a straw man)... you think that there is more compassion to be seen in receiving aid that was obtained forcefully than there is in receiving aid that was given out of the goodness of one's heart?

[pjclarke]

So... (this is a question - not a straw man)... you think that there is more compassion to be seen in receiving aid that was obtained forcefully than there is in receiving aid that was given out of the goodness of one's heart?

I reject your premise. Taxation levied by a democratically elected (and removable) Government is not obtaining aid by force. And giving just 'out of the goodness of one's heart' is distinctly un-Randian.
A society which has chosen to provide for those unable to work through a mandatory levy is more compassionate than one which has not, in my view.

Let's think this through ...

According to Rand, Charity is moral as long as it does not involve self-sacrifice, the donor has decided the recipient is worthy and the giving will increase the donor's happiness in some way.

Also according to Rand, those unable to work must rely on the voluntary charity of others.

Let us posit a man born with disabilities so severe he can not work, or an elderly man with Alzheimers, or an authoress in her seventies who has lung cancer and can no longer write. There may well be nobody who can afford to help, thinks them worthy and believes helping them is in the donor's interest.

And so they go to the wall. Hardly compassionate.

Strike one for Monbiot.

[SpontaneousOrder]

I reject your premise. Taxation levied by a democratically elected (and removable) Government is not obtaining aid by force. And giving just 'out of the goodness of one's heart' is distinctly un-Randian.
A society which has chosen to provide for those unable to work through a mandatory levy is more compassionate than one which has not, in my view.

Ok...before we go on -

So are you saying that it is voluntary then?

[pjclarke]

Ok...before we go on -

So are you saying that it is voluntary then?

Once again, I decline to follow you down the garden path, and reject the false binary. Taxes clearly are not voluntary, a better word would be consensual. As a democrat I consent to obeying laws and paying taxes, even when I don't agree with every last one of them. So in reality the aid comes from a continuum of people, some happy to contribute; others who regard it as extracting money with menaces.

[SpontaneousOrder]

Once again, I decline to follow you down the garden path, and reject the false binary. Taxes clearly are not voluntary, a better word would be consensual. As a democrat I consent to obeying laws and paying taxes, even when I don't agree with every last one of them. So in reality the aid comes from a continuum of people, some happy to contribute; others who regard it as extracting money with menaces.

And by 'menaces' you presumably mean threats of force?

[ZARDOZ]

What does that prove I don't pretend to be an expert by any means but Governments in the UK and the States both encouraged their inhabitants to buy property as an investment which stimulated the housing market, creating jobs etc etc. It was in the Governments' interests at the time for the banks to offer 100% or even 100%+ mortgages and that's what happened - credit was offered to people who really couldn't afford it if there was any movement at all in interest rates. Interest rates changed and then all of a sudden there was vast amounts of toxic debt which couldn't be covered

The assertion was the crash was caused by the banks being forced to make loans to the poor. There may have been some legislation in the US to that effect in the mid 90s BUT the MAIN cause of the crash was allowing the banks to operate without the proper reserves and gamble on products such as Credit Default Swaps from the late 90s, which many didn't really understand, becoming heavily Over Leveraged in the process. The banks could not do this before the de-regulation (repeal of Glass–Steagall Act lobbied for by the banks). This is a good explaination:

Understanding the Financial Crisis very good explanation HD - YouTube

The other things you mention would not have led to a crash without repeal of the Glass–Steagall Act as the amplification would have been small.

[pjclarke]

Yes, yes SO we all know that you believe taxation is a violation of the non-aggression principle. Others disagree, seeing it as part of a social contract.

Seems to be a Randroid trait: take a principle to its absurd extreme to force a black/white answer. Thus taxation is theft, in the Randian lexicon altrusim is not really altrusim unless it involves self-immolation, and unless you send enough food to the starving to induce malnutrition in yourself and treat everyone in the world as if they were a family member then you must agree with the narrow Randian self-centred definition of charity

I generally have better 'philosophical' arguments with my teenage son.

[SpontaneousOrder]

The assertion was the crash was caused by the banks being forced to make loans to the poor. There may have been some legislation in the US to that effect in the mid 90s BUT the MAIN cause of the crash was allowing the banks to operate without the proper reserves and gamble on products such as Credit Default Swaps from the late 90s, which many didn't really understand, becoming heavily Over Leveraged in the process. The banks could not do this before the de-regulation (repeal of Glass–Steagall Act lobbied for by the banks). This is a good explaination:

Understanding the Financial Crisis very good explanation HD - YouTube

The other things you mention would not have led to a crash without repeal of the Glass–Steagall Act as the amplification would have been small.

Even if that were true, it's the socialising of the losses that's the problem. You do dumb stuff - you fail. That is capitalism. When business fail for doing dumb stuff, then people try their hardest not to do dumb stuff.
All state regulation bundled with state protectionism does is to encourage people to try as much dumb stuff as they can legally get away with.

It's akin to suggesting that if a mother doesn't set rules to force her live-in grown up son to clean his room, he'll end up living in squalor.
What's far more likely to cause him to make a mess is the fact that mum cleans up his room for him when he does.

[SpontaneousOrder]

Yes, yes SO we all know that you believe taxation is a violation of the non-aggression principle. Others disagree, seeing it as part of a social contract.

Seems to be a Randroid trait: take a principle to its absurd extreme to force a black/white answer. Thus taxation is theft, in the Randian lexicon altrusim is not really altrusim unless it involves self-immolation, and unless you send enough food to the starving to induce malnutrition in yourself and treat everyone in the world as if they were a family member then you must agree with the narrow Randian self-centred definition of charity

I generally have better philosophical arguments with my teenage son.

All I'm doing is asking you what you mean by 'menaces'? it's a pretty abstract word, so it would be useful for you to outline exactly what you mean by 'menaces'.

What I do or don't believe, nor what 'randroids' do or don't believe has anything to do with what you mean by 'menaces', does it?