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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JohnM who wrote (6561)	12/10/2005 8:35:50 PM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 542154

So it has to be collectively provided, i. e., public education. Boy, did you pick a bad example... <gggggg>

To: JohnM who wrote (6561)	12/12/2005 12:53:28 AM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 542154

Assuming, for the moment, we are talking only about legitimate governments, then let's look at the provision of education to the citizenry. It's not something that can be accomplished individually. You and I cannot, together or separately, provide the basis for an educated citizenry. I'm not sure that is true, and I'm definitely not so sure that our government does a good job, but for the sake of argument I'll accept your point of the moment. If it is true than it falls under the category mentioned when I said " It may be a practical necessity." and possibly even under the category covered by "For practical reasons I actually support the process, at least to a certain extent." Providing education for its citizens, however badly and unequally it's done, strikes me as a good that governments provide. If that's true, is it not also true that collecting the taxes to provide that education is a good, and that the act of doing so is a moral act... Can you jump into those paragraphs and help me understand what you mean when you say you don't think "government has a moral right to take money"? Lets say I see someone starving.. I don't have extra food or spare cash, but you do and I have a gun. I either don't bother to try to convince you to give out of the goodness of your heart, or if I do than you don't go along with the idea. I than force you to give at gunpoint and save the starving persons life. Saving their life considered in isolation is good. Taking your money at going point is not and it isn't a moral act. In this case I would be proforming an immoral act for a good purpose. But it wouldn't make the act itself moral. Even if it did make it moral it would still be theft or extortion, just as killing is self defense is still homicide (justifiable homicide and not illegal, but still homicide) I don't have a moral right to take your money by force. It might be possible that for practical reasons I would do so anyway. I might be selfish and immoral, or maybe I might be trying to save someone else when you aren't willing to lift a finger. Similarly government might take our money for good purposes or for bad purposes, but even if it is for good purposes they still don't have a moral right to our money. Even without the moral right I might support it anyway because the end result in certain cases would be better than if the government doesn't take the money. But because I think that the taking is an unjust act I would set the bar higher in order for it to be justified. I would also be for lower taxes for purely practical reasons even if I did think the government had any right to take as much of our money as it wants to. Tim