AMERICAN CONSERVATISM IN 2008 AND BEYOND

ican, You just don't know how to translate information

Do you or do you not admit that the Fordham conclusion was based on election-evening data

Who May Harm Whom?

"No one has a right to harm another." Just a little thought, along with a few examples, would demonstrate that blanket statement as pure nonsense. Suppose there is a beautiful lady that both Jim and Bob are pursuing. If Jim wins her hand, Bob is harmed. By the same token, if Bob wins her hand, Jim is harmed. Whose harm is more important and should the beautiful lady be permitted to harm either Bob or Jim are nonsense questions.

During the 1970s, when Hewlett-Packard and Texas Instruments came out with scientific calculators, great harm was suffered by slide rule manufacturers such as Keuffel & Esser, and Pickett. Slide rulers have since gone the way of the dodo but the question is: Should Hewlett-Packard and Texas Instruments have been permitted to inflict such grievous harm on slide rule manufacturers?

In 1927, General Electric successfully began marketing the refrigerator. The ice industry, a major industry and the livelihoods of thousands of workers, was destroyed virtually overnight. Should such harm have been permitted and what should Congress have done to save jobs in the slide rule and ice industries?

The first thing we should acknowledge is that we live in a world of harms. Harm is reciprocal. For example, if the government stopped Hewlett-Packard and Texas Instruments from harming Keuffel & Esser and Pickett, or stopped General Electric from harming ice producers, by denying them the right to manufacture calculators and refrigerators, they would have been harmed, plus the billions of consumers who benefited from calculators and refrigerators. There is no scientific or intelligent way to determine which person's harm is more important than the other. That means things are more complicated than saying that one person has no rights to harm another.

We must ask which harms are to be permitted in a free society and are not to be permitted. For example, it's generally deemed acceptable for me to harm you by momentarily disturbing your peace and quiet by driving a motorcycle past your house. It's deemed unacceptable for me to harm you by tossing a brick through your window.

In a free society, many conflicting harms are settled through the institution of private property rights. Private property rights have to do with rights belonging to the person deemed owner of property to keep, acquire, use and dispose of property as he deems fit so long as he does not violate similar rights of another. Let's say that you are offended, possibly harmed, by bars that play vulgar rap music and permit smoking. If you could use government to outlaw rap music and smoking in bars, you would be benefited and people who enjoyed rap music and smoking would be harmed. Again, there is no scientific or intelligent way to determine whose harm is more important.

In a free society, the question of who has the right to harm whom, by permitting rap music and smoking, is answered by the property rights question: Who owns the bar?

In a socialistic society, such conflicting harms are resolved through government intimidation and coercion.

What about the right to harm oneself, such as the potential harm that can come from not wearing a seatbelt. That, too, is a property rights question. If you own yourself, you have the right to take chances with your own life.

Some might argue that if you're not wearing a seatbelt and wind up a vegetable, society has to take care of you; therefore, the fascist threat "click it or ticket." Becoming a burden on society is not a problem of liberty and private property. It's a problem of socialism where one person is forced to take care of someone else. That being the case, the government, in the name of reducing health care costs, assumes part ownership of you and as such assumes a right to control many aspects of your life. That Americans have joyfully given up self-ownership is both tragic and sad.
http://economics.gmu.edu/wew/articles/09/WhoMayHarmWhom.htm

You are a dummy! I never said I'll blame Bush three years from now. Don't create imaginations in your limited brain, because it's already full of bull ****, and the capacity is very limited.

You just make yourself look more stupid!

How long is the left going to use that line?
Will it still be GW's fault 3 years from now?

When will you and Obama and the dems finally admit that they are respoinsible for any deficits and increased spending?

As long as it takes for people like you to understand the facts.

UnitedHealthcare CEO Stephen Hemsley owns $744,232,068 in unexercised stock options. CIGNA’s Edward Hanway spends his holidays in a $13 million beach house in New Jersey. Meanwhile, regular Americans are routinely denied coverage for the care they need when they need it most.

Welcome to the American health insurance industry. Instead of helping policyholders attain the health security they need for their families, big insurance companies get rich by denying coverage to patients. Now they’re sending lobbyists to Washington, DC to twist the arms of lawmakers to oppose reform of the status quo. Why? Because the status quo pays.

Becoming a burden on society is not a problem of liberty and private property. It's a problem of socialism where one person is forced to take care of someone else. That being the case, the government, in the name of reducing health care costs, assumes part ownership of you and as such assumes a right to control many aspects of your life. That Americans have joyfully given up self-ownership is both tragic and sad.

Foxfyre wrote:

Becoming a burden on society is not a problem of liberty and private property. It's a problem of socialism where one person is forced to take care of someone else. That being the case, the government, in the name of reducing health care costs, assumes part ownership of you and as such assumes a right to control many aspects of your life. That Americans have joyfully given up self-ownership is both tragic and sad.

Yes, we are forced by (criminal) law to help others (derives from old Saxon laws and guild regulations via the "General state laws for the Prussian states" (1794) to our constitution (1949: Article 2: Every person shall have the right to free development of his personality insofar as he does not violate the rights of others or offend against the constitutional order or the moral law.)

Well, so we live here in socialism, even before anyone 'invented' that term.

Quote:

Do you or do you not admit that the Fordham conclusion was based on election-evening data

So which is it?
Earlier the claim was that the Fordham conclusion was based on NEXT DAY results.
So, if thats the case, how could it be election-evening data?

at least until you die a miserable, slow rotting cancer death because the insurance you had in the good ol' days bounced you off the roles for a pre-existing condition or wouldn't pay for so called experimental medicine.

yeah, keep up the good work, y'all!

soon everything will completely fall apart and you can all stand around quoting the constitution and the ten commandments before shooting your guns in the air and declaring yourselves the only real americans.

at least until you die a miserable, slow rotting cancer death because the insurance you had in the good ol' days bounced you off the roles for a pre-existing condition or wouldn't pay for so called experimental medicine.

or maybe the illness you picked up is from some environmental crap.