I thought MiTH's comment was very much in line with the one in the lower left corner? Granted, he didn't say "everyone should be armed", he said "all content creators should be armed", but I'd argue the gist remains the same.
Balls vs. guns? Really? Who's talking about homicide? I'm talking about defense of your natural rights.
That is the basis behind using market forces to achieve socially desirable outcomes, yes. Here's the problem. We have a large segment of our society that ignores the basic scientific consensus that says more guns leads to more gun deaths. So until we can all agree with the scientific consensus, we are going to have a problem finding remedies. Once you reach the conclusion that guns lead to gun deaths, the solutions to reducing gun deaths are as follows: 1) Change the incentives of producers 2) Change the incentives of consumers You and I agree that changing the incentives to consumers and producers by banning drugs has been an abject failure. The market approach to reducing drug use would be to change incentives by increasing or decreasing prices. Why is this a bad approach?
If we had a political process that wasn't broken, I imagine we would decide as a society which weapons we could do without. If I were the dictator, I'd be fine with discerning which weapons were ideal for hunting and taxing the rest. The tax would be sufficiently high to make their manufacture unprofitable for any firm. If you have a problem with the study's methodology, you must present an alternative. A ball is a neutral object. If you can think of a control group alternative to a ball, please let me know. Secondly, If you agree with the scientific consensus regarding gun ownership and gun deaths, then increasing gun access will decrease, on average, individuals' access to their natural rights, i.e. their right to live. If you do not agree with the scientific consensus, there is very little point in continuing our discussion. I am very much prone to resorting to ad hominem attacks when people abandon a centuries-old accepted practice of using reason to suit their political purposes, and I generally respect your input on the subject too much to do so.
Well I was referring to his initial post which was much more assertive about it: I just wanted to point out that indeed it seems at least one of those four vignettes found its way into this thread, but that's really neither here nor there, so like you said, whatever.
"Unduly?" "Punish?" Seems like rhetoric more than reality? I mean, I get that you mostly object to the use of taxation for social engineering, but that's pretty extreme...
American Brummie said: ↑ I don't think it would be very difficult (in a world without the NRA's lobbying arm) to place an exorbitantly high tax on the manufacture of certain weapons. You purport to be a libertarian; is the desire to kill other people as quickly as possible that inelastic? $1000 per firearm.....that way poor crazy people would be hampered. Now, on the other hand (5 fingers), wealthy crazy people would have a clear field!
The manner in which they are being employed makes it not much of a market anymore. 1. You make the assumption that it is desirable and certain that drug use will decline if certain actions are taken to make policy less restrictive. 2. The market approach to decreasing the prison population that is there due to drug offenses is to un-ban the drugs, not to pretend one can know at what price things will be "all better".
Yes? Purposely making the manufacture of one of the company's products prohibitively expensive because it's "icky" is pretty punitive. Shall we tax the bejeezus out of Vivid Video?
As an end in itself? Not in particular. Plenty of drug users manage to be completely functional human beings. I consume huge amounts of caffeine daily, alcohol on occasion. I manage to function. Some people smoke marijuana regularly, or snort some cocaine from time to time. I bet most people here who work in offices sit near someone like that and don't even know it.
People undoubtedly die at a staggering rate from vehicles wielded by other humans. Shall we tax automakers until they start producing only software? EDIT: I think the squirrels have conspired against you.
To what gain? That would just put a premium on older, less safe cars, most likely. However if we were to tax Hummers a bit more, wouldn't break my heart or outrage my sensibilities. No you don't-- it is a disagreement we've had before, and one you are used to having with a bunch of people...
TO STOP THE SLAUGHTER!!!! What? Either you triple-posted or the server squirrels don't like you and triple-posted for you.
A lot of cities and countries rely on mass transit (buses or trains) by taxing the use of automobiles, directly or indirectly.