Immigrants make you richer.

[pErvinalia]

Jim, how can you have any credibility in saying that? He's clearly a Marxist.

[mistermack]

Now you made me try and imagine Tony Abbott and his cronies as Marxists, you idjeet.

They aren't Marxists, they are Marxist useful idiots. So are all socialists.

Ah, you do know that the current Abbott government is one of the most conservative, right wing governments Australia has had for many, many decades?

That's the will of the people then.
They must have been pretty pissed off with the other lot.
The only time I ever voted conservative was to keep Neil Kinnock out.
Is that how bad the other lot were?

[Hermit]

Now you made me try and imagine Tony Abbott and his cronies as Marxists, you idjeet.

They aren't Marxists, they are Marxist useful idiots. So are all socialists.

Sez you, who doesn't live here and knows exactly jack and shit about life in Australia.

[Blind groper]

Just a comment to Seth.

Your response to my last post was also about intangibles, and especially your concept of 'liberty'. There are many views of liberty. For example, the USA founding fathers talked of liberty while keeping slaves. Kinda weird!

If a person is born into a lower socio-economic group, and is unable to break out of it due to inability to finance education or start a business, then that is a form of attack on their liberty. The liberty you claim is so important, Seth, tends to be restricted inside the USA to people with money.

In the more progressive countries, who are partly socialist, like Scandinavian nations, it does not matter if you are born financially disadvantaged, since the state will assist you to gain an education, if you have the brain power.

My degree was gained with state help, and it is seriously unlikely I could have put myself through university without it. That assist put me on the road to higher earnings, and I have now paid in tax more money than I would get back from the socialist state in two lifetimes. I do not resent the tax, since I earned enough so that I could afford to pay it without undue sacrifice. I am also pleased that my high taxes have been able to help others.

[Seth]

Just a comment to Seth.

Your response to my last post was also about intangibles, and especially your concept of 'liberty'. There are many views of liberty. For example, the USA founding fathers talked of liberty while keeping slaves. Kinda weird!

True enough. Nobody's perfect, as reflected in our Constitution's preamble: "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

Abolishing slavery cost our nation at least 620,000 American lives in the quest to further perfect our Union.

If a person is born into a lower socio-economic group, and is unable to break out of it due to inability to finance education or start a business, then that is a form of attack on their liberty. The liberty you claim is so important, Seth, tends to be restricted inside the USA to people with money.

An attack by whom, exactly? Our history is rife with lower socio-economic individuals who have shattered this illusionary ceiling you refer to.

In the more progressive countries, who are partly socialist, like Scandinavian nations, it does not matter if you are born financially disadvantaged, since the state will assist you to gain an education, if you have the brain power.

The same is true here.

My degree was gained with state help, and it is seriously unlikely I could have put myself through university without it. That assist put me on the road to higher earnings, and I have now paid in tax more money than I would get back from the socialist state in two lifetimes.

Ever hear of "Pell Grants" or "student loans" or any of the other hundreds or thousands of financial assistance programs available to those who put in the work and show promise that the investment in their educations will be of benefit to society in the long term?

The problem with the socialist model that provides higher education to everyone is that the value of that education is diluted by the malingering of those who want to spend four years drinking beer and smoking dope on the government's dime upon whom a higher education is entirely wasted. A medical degree from a Russian medical school is pretty much useless even in Russia, where "doctors" work in shoe shops because there are no physician jobs for which they are actually qualified.

It's an iteration of the tragedy of the commons. If you give everyone a degree because you think it's "fair" to do so, then a degree is not worth the paper it's written on to anyone else because anybody can get one.

The American system forces (or is supposed to) force students to apply themselves and demonstrate their worthiness to hold a degree, which makes the degree they receive worth something as a reference point for employers. Not everyone needs a college degree, and there are plenty of people upon whom a higher education would be entirely wasted. But higher education is available to ANYONE who is determined to obtain it, but they have to work for it.

I do not resent the tax, since I earned enough so that I could afford to pay it without undue sacrifice. I am also pleased that my high taxes have been able to help others.

That's just great. It's wonderful that you are happy being taxed. My point however is that your joy and satisfaction with being the beneficiary of coerced government theft from people who justifiably don't give a damn whether you get a college degree or not because they are busy laboring at unskilled jobs where a degree is a DIS-qualifier (for being overqualified) so they can feed their children and avoid living in a box under a bridge does not even come close to justifying taking money from everyone else just to serve your personal educational or employment objectives.

If you really wanted and needed a higher education, then you would have invested the time and labor required to obtain one without stealing the food from poor children's mouths to fulfill your ambitions.

[Seth]

Now you made me try and imagine Tony Abbott and his cronies as Marxists, you idjeet.

They aren't Marxists, they are Marxist useful idiots. So are all socialists.

Ah, you do know that the current Abbott government is one of the most conservative, right wing governments Australia has had for many, many decades?

Everything is relative. It's still fundamentally socialist is it not? You can't be a "little bit socialist" any more than you can be a "little bit pregnant."

You either subscribe to collectivism or you subscribe to individualism. There is no middle ground because collectivism is inherently and fundamentally diametrically opposed to individualism. Collectivism cannot tolerate individualism at all and must therefore use force to compel proper behavior and obedience to collectivist principles that deny individual liberty and property.

Individualism, on the other hand, can accept and even welcome collective action in the collective interest because it first respects the rights of the individual and ASKS that they contribute to the common good as a manifestation of the natural tendencies of mature adult personalities to be charitable, altruistic and compassionate.

[Hermit]

Everything is relative. It's still fundamentally socialist is it not? You can't be a "little bit socialist" any more than you can be a "little bit pregnant."

Lol. Abbott is about to finalise the selloff of the only government owned health insurance scheme. That's $4 billion worth of government assets going into private hands. He is also organising the sale of government owned electricity grids. That's $20 billion in New South Wales alone. Similar sales in Victoria and Queensland are in the works, but nobody has come up with an estimate yet about how much they will net. Oh, and the ports are going into private hands too. Then there's the lowering of company tax and the flattening of personal income tax scales.

Previous governments have sold off the only remaining federally owned bank, the entire telecommunication structure, all airports, as well as Qantas airlines. University education used to be free. It has become available on a user pays basis for a number of years now. The cheapest degree will cost you about 50 grand. Law or medicine? Well north of a quarter million.

If Australia's governments are even just a little bit socialist, they are hiding that aspect very well indeed. Even the Labor Party is busily privatising government owned assets. In fact, It was Labor's Prime Minister Paul Keating who started the ball rolling with the sale of the Commonwealth Bank, Qantas and the first tranche of Australia's telecom monopoly.

It helps if you know at least a little bit about Australia when one wants to comment on it. You just don't.

[Blind groper]

To Seth

Re education.

Just so you realise, do not think that higher education in a socialist system is easy. If you do not work and pass your exams, you get kicked out.

On being half socialist.

Of course you can. Socialist or individualist is not an either/or choice. It is a continuum. In fact, it is many continuums. You can be a little bit socialist and a little bit individualist. It is a case of accepting whatever degree and kind of each you consider optimal.

Education is a case in point. In NZ, the state will 'assist' in your university education. But it does not pay it all, or hold your hand to ensure you get a degree. Individual responsibility is vital. You can succeed or fail. However, the state assistance means that many people who would not otherwise have been able to do it, are able to do it. I was one of them.

Certainly there are always special people who can overcome almost any obstacle. But the majority cannot. If you believe in the idea of 'the greater good for the greater number', then you will see the value of assistance.

[Seth]

To Seth

Re education.

Just so you realise, do not think that higher education in a socialist system is easy. If you do not work and pass your exams, you get kicked out.

Just like the current grade-creep in American colleges (which are infested with and poisoned by Marxists of the worst sort) the issue is the value of a free education in the marketplace. In a socialist setting the standards must be set low enough that the proletariat does not view them as exclusive of the average prole. To set high standards of academic achievement is intrinsically unfair because it creates a division in the classless society by creating a privileged class of intelligentsia, which is not "fair" to the less intelligent. The socialist solution is to dumb-down the curricula and to tailor what remains so that it becomes little more than more Marxist propaganda with no real value. You see, if one prole can advance and become a member of the elite class it threatens socialist social stability by fomenting envy and anger, so no one can be permitted to excel, lest the proles rebel and take down the elite.

On being half socialist.

Of course you can. Socialist or individualist is not an either/or choice. It is a continuum. In fact, it is many continuums. You can be a little bit socialist and a little bit individualist. It is a case of accepting whatever degree and kind of each you consider optimal.

It is an either/or choice. You either believe in the sovereignty of the individual and his rights or you don't. Socialism is founded on the premise that the collective is supreme and that the individual must always give way to the needs and desires of the majority. Individualism on the other hand says that even if every single person in the community wants to infringe on an individuals fundamental rights, neither the community nor any other individual may do so except as an act of self defense against the initiation of force or fraud by the individual.

Education is a case in point. In NZ, the state will 'assist' in your university education. But it does not pay it all, or hold your hand to ensure you get a degree. Individual responsibility is vital. You can succeed or fail. However, the state assistance means that many people who would not otherwise have been able to do it, are able to do it. I was one of them.

How wonderful for you. Has it ever occurred to you that "the state" is not some distinct perpetual-motion entity from which funds to pay for your education simply appear as if by magic?

In point of fact "the state" is nothing more than an organizational manifestation of the power and philosophy of the socialist collective which is the enforcement arm of socialism that extracts labor and property from others without their consent in order to redistribute it to you for your benefit.

In other words, that "assistance" you refer to is nothing more or less than the ill-gotten proceeds of armed robbery, and therefor you are a co-conspirator in armed robbery and the beneficiary of the enslavement of others to your service and convenience.

Certainly there are always special people who can overcome almost any obstacle. But the majority cannot. If you believe in the idea of 'the greater good for the greater number', then you will see the value of assistance.

Assistance is wonderful. Whacking grandma over the head with a bat to steal her diamond necklace so that you can enjoy that assistance is not. And that's quite literally all socialism ends up doing...whacking people over the head, or shooting them, in order to frighten and coerce the rest of the proletariat to fork over the tribute demanded by the selfish who want an education at someone else's expense.

If you want my financial assistance to attend college, prove to me that you are worthy of that investment of my labor and property and ASK ME to assist you, don't send out your machine-gun armed jackbooted thugs from the IRS to take it from me by force.

[JimC]

Seth wrote:

...don't send out your machine-gun armed jackbooted thugs from the IRS to take it from me by force.

Very remarkable indeed. I wasn't aware till now that BG, a somewhat elderly wine-drinking New Zealander, was in fact in charge of the US Internal Revenue Service, with machine-gun armed jackbooted thugs at his beck and call!

I shall walk softly around BG from now on, that's for sure...

[Blind groper]

Well, yeah Jim. But I hate to have to tell you how disobedient my "jackbooted minions" are when I need them.

Seth

You clearly have no idea of the standards reached by 'socialist' universities. Many achieve a standard way above your average US university. The university I attended was rated about number 50 in the world for academic standard, meaning it was way, way better than most American universities. We are not 'handed our degrees' by marxists.

[mistermack]

Jackboots are bloody expensive. And they take a lot of breaking in.
You wouldn't wear them just to go tax collecting.
They are for pulling women. Women love a uniform.

[Seth]

Seth wrote:

...don't send out your machine-gun armed jackbooted thugs from the IRS to take it from me by force.

Very remarkable indeed. I wasn't aware till now that BG, a somewhat elderly wine-drinking New Zealander, was in fact in charge of the US Internal Revenue Service, with machine-gun armed jackbooted thugs at his beck and call!

I shall walk softly around BG from now on, that's for sure...

Oh, you can be sure that somewhere, even in utopian New Zealand, there are jackbooted thugs with machine guns training hard to kill anyone who resists the commands of the government to fork over their property strongly enough.

[Seth]

Well, yeah Jim. But I hate to have to tell you how disobedient my "jackbooted minions" are when I need them.

Seth

You clearly have no idea of the standards reached by 'socialist' universities. Many achieve a standard way above your average US university. The university I attended was rated about number 50 in the world for academic standard, meaning it was way, way better than most American universities. We are not 'handed our degrees' by marxists.

No, it's handed to you by the proletarian slaves who your Marxist minions bent to your will.

[rainbow]

Seth wrote:

...don't send out your machine-gun armed jackbooted thugs from the IRS to take it from me by force.

Very remarkable indeed. I wasn't aware till now that BG, a somewhat elderly wine-drinking New Zealander, was in fact in charge of the US Internal Revenue Service, with machine-gun armed jackbooted thugs at his beck and call!

I shall walk softly around BG from now on, that's for sure...

Oh, you can be sure that somewhere, even in utopian New Zealand, there are jackbooted thugs with machine guns training hard to kill anyone who resists the commands of the government to fork over their property strongly enough.

Property that was taken from the Maoris by force and fraud.

Where were you Libertarians then?