When Did Personal Responsibility Become More Important Than Helping Ot

[Winchester]

[quote name='havok579257' timestamp='1352687556' post='2508384']
so not answering my question. i guess we are done here.
[/quote]
Sweetheart, we never started. You went for personal attacks. Not my fault your issues make you worse at them than moi.

[Winchester]

[quote name='havok579257' timestamp='1352687428' post='2508380']

are you still jumping into this a/b conversation?
[/quote]
He's here with my leave, and this is the internet, anyway. It's public. Get over it.

[tojo]

[quote name='Era Might' timestamp='1352687671' post='2508389']
You are asking me to share your premises about government. You are saying that I must contribute, well, because I was born into your premises and I should accept them.

But if I am obliged to support the government, then the government is obliged to support me. To what extent? That is the question...on both sides of the relationship. But limiting support to physical safety is quite arbitrary, as if hunger and disease and happiness were any less pressing human concerns than violence.

Thoreau explored these questions in his essay "Civil Disobedience" which I read again in honor of Election Day hehe:
[/quote]

You weren't born into [i]my premise[/i], you were born into [i]actual reality[/i]. You were also born into your family's household and had to accept it until when and if you became able to go and form your own.

I agree that it is an important and pertinent question to what degree the government is obliged to support us just as we are obliged to support it. I focused on safety both because you brought it up, and also because ensure safety from "enemies both foreign and domestic" is arguably a foundational and primary purpose of government. I will mention t,hat without domestic security, hunger becomes prevalent even in times of plenty, and pandemic in times of want.

It would be interesting to discuss what role beyond ensuring domestic security governments should have, but I was under the impression we were addressing whether the government is entitled to compel financial contribution to the common good, and frankly, I think siting the need to ensure security was the shortest path to that place.

[havok579257]

[quote name='Winchester' timestamp='1352688540' post='2508398']
Sweetheart, we never started. You went for personal attacks. Not my fault your issues make you worse at them than moi.
[/quote]

you make me laugh

[Winchester]

[quote name='havok579257' timestamp='1352692629' post='2508441']
you make me laugh
[/quote]
You're welcome.

[Era Might]

[quote name='tomasio127' timestamp='1352692081' post='2508434']It would be interesting to discuss what role beyond ensuring domestic security governments should have, but I was under the impression we were addressing whether the government is entitled to compel financial contribution to the common good, and frankly, I think siting the need to ensure security was the shortest path to that place.
[/quote]
We were only discussing that tangentially. The original point was about the fact that compelling financial support (i.e., taxes, any taxes) is "redistribution of wealth."

[Luigi]

As has happened only occasionally in the history of the Phatmass Debate Table, we seem to have strayed from the OP's original question. To return a bit:

1. I have no problem with government support of people who need it. Let me repeat, [i]need[/i] it. I am inclined to help them myself, but I can't locate all of them; the government does a better job of that.

But consider the following examples:
2. Lower middle class family, father (and mother, if you like) has always worked. He comes down with a dread disease and the family is cast into poverty by the high medical costs. Should the government pay for his medical costs and support the family now that the primary breadwinner is unable to work?

2A. What if the dread disease is lung cancer caused by the father's smoking for thirty years? Should the government/taxpayers still be responsible for supporting his family in spite of his own bad choices? Where is his personal responsibility in this?


3. If Obamacare goes through as proposed (and I have every reason to believe it will), all companies/businesses will be required to provide birth control to all employees who want it. If Obama issues an executive order (and I believe he will in his lame duck term), all companies/businesses could also be required to cover abortions. The government/taxpayers currently cover the prenatal medical costs, plus the labor & delivery costs, plus the costs of feeding-housing-clothing pregnant women & their children below the poverty line.

Where is the personal responsibility of the woman (and her sex partner) in this? If she wants birth control, somebody else has to pay for it (This element is on the horizon). If she gets pregnant and doesn't want the baby, somebody else has to pay for the abortion (This element is not in place, but it's the next logical step). If she gets pregnant and wants the baby, somebody else has to pay for the medical costs and the costs of raising the child (This element has been in place for decades).

All of it could be avoided if our hypothetical woman would simply take personal responsibility for keeping her britches on. Is that asking too much?

[Ed Normile]

[quote name='havok579257' timestamp='1352615492' post='2508057']

that is still something the government provides for you when you give your tax money. do you think its unjust to tax citizen so the government can build roads, provide a military, provide a saftey net for the least of our brothers, public schools(there are not enough private schools for every single united states citizen), police officer, firefighters, emts and paramedics and so on. without taxation we would not have fire fighters. fire fighting is a not for profit business. fire does not make money. emts and paramedics can make money but even those private companies in the inner cities have to be subsidesed by tax dollars because to many people have no insurance and no money to pay for the ambulance ride.

if the government did not tax people how would we provide for the things listed above? private ownership of military, police, fire, emts and paramedics, roads would be a horrible disaster. private ownership of schools would be a good thing but right now that's not possible because if tomorrow we shut down all public schools there would not be enough room in private schools for children and then they would be forced to stay home and not be allowed an education.
[/quote]


Surely you can not be this delusional, all you listed above is for the good of the nation as a whole those that work and those who can not or will not. There is a difference in providing services that are good and those services that provide for the culture of death. I contribute to the poor, I give to medical causes, I have sponsored children, I have given to food banks and I have given in church in the regular collection, special collections, the appeals from visiting missionaries, the annual appeals. I have given to storm collections, red cross, salvation army and unicef. These were all by my freewill as God asked us, not through tax monies taken from us by threat of incarceration and distributed and dipped into by many branches and programs before they reach the "least of our brothers"

The government you want to regulate and enforce charity is the very same government that votes its own pay raises, is exempt from Obamacare, is in outrageous debt and can not even balance its budget, yet you trust them as a charitable institute?

ed