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ontheway
Joined: 24 Aug 2005
Location: Somewhere under the rainbow...
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 Posted: Mon Feb 15, 2010 6:34 am Post subject: |
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| visitorq wrote: |
| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
| bacasper wrote: |
| gay in korea wrote: |
| I think the evidence that humans need laws and rules etc is overwhelming. Drunk driving, speeding... Licenses are a good thing. |
 The vast majority of drunk drivers and speeders have been licensed. I'm missing your point here.
I don't know about you, but I don't need a law to tell me that driving drunk is stupid and dangerous. |
Interesting theory on the purpose of law. I was under the impression that laws exist to protect the majority from the scofflaws, thus expanding the liberty of the majority. |
You miss the point (as usual). Proscriptive laws tells you what is forbidden. These are very basic things, like not killing, raping, stealing, or defrauding others. Under a libertarian-style constitution, this is then basically summed up as not infringing upon the liberties of others.
When you are required to have a license to do something, that is the government telling you what you must do. This infringes on your liberty, even though you haven't infringed on others. If you are driving drunk and kill someone, then you must pay the consequences (manslaughter or whatever) and likely go to prison. Perhaps you could be forbidden from driving from then on as you've shown yourself to be a danger to others. Yet having a license will not have prevented you from killing that person in the first place. Forcing everybody, who have done no wrong, to have a license is an infringement on their personal liberty. People have a right to do whatever they want (ie. drive a car, sell liquor etc.) as long as it doesn't infringe on the liberty of others, and shouldn't require government approval.
Incidentally, government issued driver's licenses are just a way for the gov't to have everyone carry ID. ID cards = government control. It has nothing whatsoever to do with your benevolent government looking out for your safety. |
The driver's license began as a way to raise money for the state. The first licenses were issued with no test of any kind. Pay the tax, get a license. Renewals raised more money - no test required. Many drivers who held these original licenses were able to drive for their whole lives - 60, 70, 80 years - by renewing their original license, without ever taking any driving test.
Government pretends to help the people, but its true purpose is to raise money for itself and its own special interests.
Our modern government is organized greed and corruption on a grand scale. |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Mon Feb 15, 2010 6:47 am Post subject: |
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When each citizen submits himself to the authority of law he does not thereby decrease his independence or freedom, but rather increases it. By recognizing that he is a part of a larger body which is banded together for a common purpose, he becomes more than an individual, he rises to a new dignity of citizenship. Instead of finding himself restricted and confined by rendering obedience to public law, he finds himself protected and defended and in the exercise of increased and increasing rights.
CALVIN COOLIDGE, speech, May 30, 1924 |
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ontheway
Joined: 24 Aug 2005
Location: Somewhere under the rainbow...
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| Posted: Mon Feb 15, 2010 7:02 am Post subject: |
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| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
When each citizen submits himself to the authority of law he does not thereby decrease his independence or freedom, but rather increases it. By recognizing that he is a part of a larger body which is banded together for a common purpose, he becomes more than an individual, he rises to a new dignity of citizenship. Instead of finding himself restricted and confined by rendering obedience to public law, he finds himself protected and defended and in the exercise of increased and increasing rights.
CALVIN COOLIDGE, speech, May 30, 1924 |
When each citizen submits himself to the authority of law = voluntary association.
Laws against: murder, robbery, theft, assault, rape ...
Individuals agree they shall not initiate force or fraud against other individuals.
Government forces citizens to submit = fascist-socialism
Laws force people to: pay taxes, buy insurance, get vaccinations, join the military, remain unemployed if they cannot earn a certain wage, not medicate themselves as they wish ...
Individuals are denied the right to live as they wish, even though their chosen lifestyles and acts do not harm any other individual, but merely deny the power of the greedy, thieving, fascist-socialist state. |
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visitorq
Joined: 11 Jan 2008
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| Posted: Mon Feb 15, 2010 7:27 am Post subject: |
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| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
When each citizen submits himself to the authority of law he does not thereby decrease his independence or freedom, but rather increases it. By recognizing that he is a part of a larger body which is banded together for a common purpose, he becomes more than an individual, he rises to a new dignity of citizenship. Instead of finding himself restricted and confined by rendering obedience to public law, he finds himself protected and defended and in the exercise of increased and increasing rights.
CALVIN COOLIDGE, speech, May 30, 1924 |
The "authority of the law? No doubt he was referring to "the government" and whatever it "deemed" to be the law. All the flowery prose aside, all he's saying is "submit to the government". Suggesting that mindless obedience to government tyranny is "dignified", and that "protection" will not come at the price of losing your freedom is ludicrous.
Obviously laws are made to confine our freedoms - that is the very definition. In the case of serious crimes like murder (or theft etc. - anything where somebody is infringing upon the freedom of another) laws are warranted. In all other cases, they are not. In a free society is not the role of government to impede or tell people what they must do. In America today, we have more laws than we know what to do with (it's a lawyer's paradise) and pretty well none of them (except the obvious ones like "don't kill/rape/steal from people") were "agreed upon" by the public. They were imposed from above, and many are unconstitutional.
It's pretty obvious that Ya-ta thinks everyone should just shut up and obey the government. I wonder if he'd be singing the same tune if he were living under Joe Stalin or Mao (where the same sort rubbish was fed to the public). Given his mindless defense of Obama in every thread, I wouldn't be surprised. |
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visitorq
Joined: 11 Jan 2008
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| Posted: Mon Feb 15, 2010 7:51 am Post subject: |
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| ontheway wrote: |
| visitorq wrote: |
You miss the point (as usual). Proscriptive laws tells you what is forbidden. These are very basic things, like not killing, raping, stealing, or defrauding others. Under a libertarian-style constitution, this is then basically summed up as not infringing upon the liberties of others.
When you are required to have a license to do something, that is the government telling you what you must do. This infringes on your liberty, even though you haven't infringed on others. If you are driving drunk and kill someone, then you must pay the consequences (manslaughter or whatever) and likely go to prison. Perhaps you could be forbidden from driving from then on as you've shown yourself to be a danger to others. Yet having a license will not have prevented you from killing that person in the first place. Forcing everybody, who have done no wrong, to have a license is an infringement on their personal liberty. People have a right to do whatever they want (ie. drive a car, sell liquor etc.) as long as it doesn't infringe on the liberty of others, and shouldn't require government approval.
Incidentally, government issued driver's licenses are just a way for the gov't to have everyone carry ID. ID cards = government control. It has nothing whatsoever to do with your benevolent government looking out for your safety. |
The driver's license began as a way to raise money for the state. The first licenses were issued with no test of any kind. Pay the tax, get a license. Renewals raised more money - no test required. Many drivers who held these original licenses were able to drive for their whole lives - 60, 70, 80 years - by renewing their original license, without ever taking any driving test.
Government pretends to help the people, but its true purpose is to raise money for itself and its own special interests.
Our modern government is organized greed and corruption on a grand scale. |
Yes they have long been a source of revenue (in some European countries they can cost thousands of Euros to get), but arguably their most important function in recent times is to serve as government issued ID that everyone carries. Now they're even putting RFID chips in them that can be scanned by police from a distance while you're driving down the street (they already scan license plates too). Moreover, new cars are now being installed with kill-switch devices that allow police to remotely shut off your engine from a distance. Like Ya-ta, they try and spin it as though it's for the "public good" (like what if your car gets stolen?), but it's actually just another obvious instrument of government control.
Imagine you're driving down the road and suddenly your car turns off and the police pull up with all your personal info on their screen (obtained by scanning the card in your wallet). Then imagine if a corrupt government with little or no regard for liberty (like, I dunno, ours maybe) had this kind of power over its citizenry and see just how unpleasant a prospect this is.
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2008/09/new-york-offers/
http://www.gadgetreview.com/2009/07/gm-adds-remote-kill-switch-to-onstar-vehicles.html |
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jaykimf
Joined: 24 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Mon Feb 15, 2010 10:53 am Post subject: |
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| If you don't want a driver's license, don't get one. Feel free to buy your own land and build your own roads. You can drive to your hearts content on your roads on your land. If you want to drive on publicly financed and built roads there is nothing wrong with paying a small yearly fee for the privilege. In your Utopian fantasy do you think private companies are going to build the roads and then let you drive on them without paying a fee? |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Mon Feb 15, 2010 4:30 pm Post subject: |
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| jaykimf wrote: |
| If you don't want a driver's license, don't get one. Feel free to buy your own land and build your own roads. You can drive to your hearts content on your roads on your land. If you want to drive on publicly financed and built roads there is nothing wrong with paying a small yearly fee for the privilege. In your Utopian fantasy do you think private companies are going to build the roads and then let you drive on them without paying a fee? |
This is an important point. As much as certain fairly extreme individuals like to claim that the government is forcing you to do things (which they aren't, at least in the United States: if you don't like it here, you can leave at any time, and as such, just as with any business arrangement, your arrangement with the government is voluntary), no one's forcing you to get a license. You're paying a fee in return for a service (namely, use of public roads). The fact that the licensing system can also be used to remove one's legal ability to use public roads in the even that they prove themselves a danger is just icing on the cake. Jaykimf's point is a very good one; a privatized road system probably would very likely look almost exactly like the government one. Purchase a license to use the roads, renew the license periodically to maintain the right to do so, be stripped of the license if you prove yourself a danger to others on the road. Both are voluntary monetary transactions we engage in because we want to drive on these roads.
I've seen certain Libertarians here make some pretty disingenuous points, but this one is just outright silly. Yeah, drivers licenses are primarily about raising funds. So what? Given engaging in any sort of driving that requires a license involves the usage of publically-funded roads, that's not particularly unreasonable, and no one's forcing you to use them. |
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bucheon bum
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Mon Feb 15, 2010 6:21 pm Post subject: |
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| So Libertarians don't support drivers licenses? Ok, well, guess that's one way I'm not a libertarian. |
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bacasper
Joined: 26 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Mon Feb 15, 2010 6:39 pm Post subject: |
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| jaykimf wrote: |
| If you don't want a driver's license, don't get one. Feel free to buy your own land and build your own roads. You can drive to your hearts content on your roads on your land. If you want to drive on publicly financed and built roads there is nothing wrong with paying a small yearly fee for the privilege. In your Utopian fantasy do you think private companies are going to build the roads and then let you drive on them without paying a fee? |
The vast majority of funds used for building roads does NOT come from licensing fees but from taxes I already pay. I have every right to use them. |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Mon Feb 15, 2010 7:19 pm Post subject: |
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| bacasper wrote: |
| jaykimf wrote: |
| If you don't want a driver's license, don't get one. Feel free to buy your own land and build your own roads. You can drive to your hearts content on your roads on your land. If you want to drive on publicly financed and built roads there is nothing wrong with paying a small yearly fee for the privilege. In your Utopian fantasy do you think private companies are going to build the roads and then let you drive on them without paying a fee? |
The vast majority of funds used for building roads does NOT come from licensing fees but from taxes I already pay. I have every right to use them. |
In what sense are you using the term "right" here? You clearly don't have a legal right. I think you'd be hard pressed to assert an ethical right either, for the same reason you don't have an ethical right to simply walk into a corn field and take corn despite the fact that your tax dollars go to subsidizing it's growth. Another example: your tax dollars help subsidize public universities, but you don't have a right to attend them without additional payment.
It's also important to remember that even people who never drive a day in their lives still benefit from the existence of infrastructure. Goods being shipped into and out of their city, usage of public transportation, tourism income in their city which creates jobs, and so forth: even if you don't drive, you still benefit, and thus it's still reasonable to expect you to contribute to said infrastructure's maintenance. An additional fee for personal use is not unreasonable.
If one intends to attack the government, driver's licenses really are a bad place to start, because they're quite reasonable. Participation is totally voluntary, so the government isn't "stealing" from you, nor is it "forcing" you to carry an id. It also provides an effective means of removing dangerous drivers from the road, via license revocation. I for one think it's a positive addition to our society. |
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The Happy Warrior
Joined: 10 Feb 2010
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| Posted: Mon Feb 15, 2010 8:07 pm Post subject: |
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| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
When each citizen submits himself to the authority of law he does not thereby decrease his independence or freedom, but rather increases it. By recognizing that he is a part of a larger body which is banded together for a common purpose, he becomes more than an individual, he rises to a new dignity of citizenship. Instead of finding himself restricted and confined by rendering obedience to public law, he finds himself protected and defended and in the exercise of increased and increasing rights.
CALVIN COOLIDGE, speech, May 30, 1924 |
This statement is great, and not at all at odds with libertarianism. Unless you think by this Calvin Coolidge necessarily meant to persecute minorities and advocate interventionist economic policies. |
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visitorq
Joined: 11 Jan 2008
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| Posted: Mon Feb 15, 2010 8:12 pm Post subject: |
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| jaykimf wrote: |
| If you don't want a driver's license, don't get one. Feel free to buy your own land and build your own roads. You can drive to your hearts content on your roads on your land. If you want to drive on publicly financed and built roads there is nothing wrong with paying a small yearly fee for the privilege. In your Utopian fantasy do you think private companies are going to build the roads and then let you drive on them without paying a fee? |
And in what part of your pea-brain did you equate paying a license fee with paying for roads? As bacasper pointed out, I pay taxes like everyone else (in fact I am forced to pay taxes by law). This is public money - it does NOT belong to the government. This money is used to build roads. The roads are therefore public property, they belong to the taxpayers. As a taxpayer I therefore have a right to use the roads. Nowhere does it follow that the government then has a right to restrict me by requiring a license to drive on roads I helped pay for. At least if the roads were private, I'd be allowed to use them if I paid (but apparently this isn't the case with government roads).
Just because the government collects our taxes does not mean it gets to decide to do whatever the hell it wants and impose any laws it wants (unless we're talking about tyranny)... |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Tue Feb 16, 2010 2:20 am Post subject: |
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| The Happy Warrior wrote: |
| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
When each citizen submits himself to the authority of law he does not thereby decrease his independence or freedom, but rather increases it. By recognizing that he is a part of a larger body which is banded together for a common purpose, he becomes more than an individual, he rises to a new dignity of citizenship. Instead of finding himself restricted and confined by rendering obedience to public law, he finds himself protected and defended and in the exercise of increased and increasing rights.
CALVIN COOLIDGE, speech, May 30, 1924 |
This statement is great, and not at all at odds with libertarianism. Unless you think by this Calvin Coolidge necessarily meant to persecute minorities and advocate interventionist economic policies. |
I don't think I'd go so far as to say it isn't at odds with libertarianism, since we have two anti-gov't type libertarians arguing that they have a right to pick and choose which regulations to abide by. I would however agree that any sane person sees the need for regulation of who drives and under what conditions they drive.
BTW, my favorite Silent Cal story:
Some guy walked up to Prez Coolidge and said something like: "I have a bet with a friend that I can get you to say more than two words."
Silent Cal responded: "You lose."  |
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jaykimf
Joined: 24 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Tue Feb 16, 2010 10:52 am Post subject: |
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| bacasper wrote: |
| jaykimf wrote: |
| If you don't want a driver's license, don't get one. Feel free to buy your own land and build your own roads. You can drive to your hearts content on your roads on your land. If you want to drive on publicly financed and built roads there is nothing wrong with paying a small yearly fee for the privilege. In your Utopian fantasy do you think private companies are going to build the roads and then let you drive on them without paying a fee? |
The vast majority of funds used for building roads does NOT come from licensing fees but from taxes I already pay. I have every right to use them. |
The cost of our road system includes not only the initial construction cost but also repair and maintenance , signage, traffic police, snow removal, electricity for signals and lights etc, . While it may be true that the vast majority of the funds do not come from drivers license fees, it is also true that a portion of the funding does come from license fees. Why should you have the right to drive on public roads if you have only paid the vast majority of your share and not your full share? Furthermore, why should someone who doesn't drive have to pay the same tax burden as someone who does? Our local public swimming pool was paid for with public funds. Why should I have to pay an additional fee each time I take my kids swimming? Because it is a user fee that apportions more of the cost of the pool to those who actually use it. Seems perfectly fair and reasonable to me. Likewise certain toll roads charge a user fee to those who actually use it. Perfectly fair and reasonable. The driver's license fee, vehicle registration fee and gasoline excise tax are all reasonable attempts to apportion a higher share of the cost burden of our road system onto those who actually use it. You pay a relatively small fee per driver another fee per vehicle and another fee per gallon of gas used. Seems perfectly fair and reasonable to me.
Furthermore you do not have the right to drive on public roads because you have paid all your taxes. Our democratic society has chosen a requirement for licensing . You do have a right to advocate for a change in the law. And the right to move to a society whose laws meet your approval. |
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jaykimf
Joined: 24 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Tue Feb 16, 2010 11:10 am Post subject: |
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| visitorq wrote: |
| jaykimf wrote: |
| If you don't want a driver's license, don't get one. Feel free to buy your own land and build your own roads. You can drive to your hearts content on your roads on your land. If you want to drive on publicly financed and built roads there is nothing wrong with paying a small yearly fee for the privilege. In your Utopian fantasy do you think private companies are going to build the roads and then let you drive on them without paying a fee? |
And in what part of your pea-brain did you equate paying a license fee with paying for roads? As bacasper pointed out, I pay taxes like everyone else (in fact I am forced to pay taxes by law). This is public money - it does NOT belong to the government. This money is used to build roads. The roads are therefore public property, they belong to the taxpayers. As a taxpayer I therefore have a right to use the roads. Nowhere does it follow that the government then has a right to restrict me by requiring a license to drive on roads I helped pay for. At least if the roads were private, I'd be allowed to use them if I paid (but apparently this isn't the case with government roads).
Just because the government collects our taxes does not mean it gets to decide to do whatever the hell it wants and impose any laws it wants (unless we're talking about tyranny)... |
Pea-brain ? You seem to like insulting people. That is a violation of the TOS. Read this: http://forums.eslcafe.com/korea/viewtopic.php?t=155977 If you don't like the expectation of civility here in the Dave's ESL cafe community, perhaps you should move to a community that is more tolerant of rude insulting behavior. My question to the mods is : how many times must someone be warned about insulting others before they are asked to leave? |
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