I'm saying anyone who has children without being able to afford to give them the education, healthcare, clothing, food, shelter, etc. they need and desire is irresponsible at best and they are thieves if they expect government to force anyone else to pay for those things.

I'm all for you not paying income-based taxes. Nobody should pay them. But don't expect anyone else to pay for the education, healthcare, clothing, food, shelter, toys, etc. of your children except through some voluntary charity organization, but never through government.

I'm also flat out saying that poor people should not have children and if they do, they are irresponsible.

I'm saying that those who can't afford to pay for all the needs of their own children including education should adopt their children out to people who can afford it. This is the responsible thing to do. I don't think they should be forced to adopt their children out though. But if they don't, their children should only get the education, healthcare, etc. their parents do pay for. So I guess your kids wouldn't be very educated. Much like a person who can only earn $12/hr.

I love how you put the 'k' in America as though I were promoting some horrible authoritarian violation of your rights when it is you who want to use men with guns to make other people pay for your irresponsible decision. Freedom means you pay for what you want and don't steal from others to pay for it. Freedom and Responsibility are inseparable.

There's your mistake. If you had majored in an applied science instead of a liberal art, you might stand a chance of making actual money. I'm an engineer, as far as I'm concerned taking language and liberal art classes (I speak 3 and am working on a 4th) are for fun. You might as well major in underwater basketweaving.

A responsible person would have gone to college and finished BEFORE having children and wouldn't have them if they couldn't afford to fulfill all of their needs including paying for their educations.

Wrong, this thread started off with an articulate, well-founded, cogent article written about the situation in Iraq. You then made ignorant comments about its author. It's not a discussion about my own personal philosophy which I've examined and is solid as a rock. It's not a thread for you to question me without offering any answers of your own.

Your attempts ot keep me on the defensive are transparant. If you want to keep evading questions but expect me to answer yours, you can piss up a rope and slide down the dry side.

And who the hell are you to test my philosophy without offering a test of your own? My philosophy is well-tested, has a solid historically factual foundation, and offers the most freedom to the most people without coercion or force while maintaining safety and prosperity. I think you are bothered by it because there are no holes in it what-so-ever.

If you care to start a thread to question each other's philosophy, go ahead, but be prepared to answer questions about yours if you expect me to answer questions about mine.

I'm content to let the readers decide what's happened here. It's been a productive discussion, thanks.

I'm content to let them see your smug attitude and your evasive tactics. They'll also note that I answered all of the questions directed at me honestly, fully, and without hesitation while you ran away like a coward when confronted about your own beliefs.

OK, so they are irresponsible. What you will have if you remove "free" education is a LARGE group of children that are completely uneducated, sick, and breeding irresponsibly. A downward spiral.

What happens in your world? They simply starve to death, out of the economic gene-pool? Just because their parent, an educated teacher making much less than your $50,000 winning number a year, can't afford to send them to school?

I heard you. But you didn't answer my question. Let's say all 68% of the populous suddenly becomes responsible and adopts their children out because they can't afford them.

Who then, adopts them? By your definition, the 32% of the people that can afford them. And when those 32% are having their OWN children, what parcentage of that 32% is going to adopt? What do you do with the rest of the children?

Please check my edit on the post above this one. I am educated. And will be more educated by the time I earn my second degree. But according to your definition, I will still be too poor to have children. So you can't use the "uneducated" argument, when educated people STILL make less than your magic number per year.

What you are promoting is not possible in today's world. It simply will not work.

You're saying only those making over $50K a year should procreate, because they are the only ones who will be able to afford to live in America. Since when was that considered freedom?

There is no such thing as a "free" education. There is theft to pay for substandard education.

No, they learn how to perform a menial job as their parents did until one of them is smart enough to act responsibly by not having kids and educating themselves until they can afford to have them.

If they suddenly became responsible they wouldn't have the kids in the first place. And if they already had kids, they'd work 2 or 3 jobs to support them. And if they did adopt them out, those that did get adopted would be better off. Those that didn't get adopted would suffer because of their parent's initial irresponsible actions. They'd probably grow up poor, but if they were hard-working and industrious enough, they'd earn their own education and get themselves out of the situation their irresponsible parents placed them in.

I edited my own post after your edit, and I still can use the poorly educated argument. Did you earn your degrees BEFORE you had kids? No, you didn't. You had the kids before you were able to take care of them. You made an ignorant, poorly educated decision to have children before you had the earning potential to pay for their needs.

Wrong. What I'm promiting was a reality in America for most of the time we were a country. Federally funded education only started recently. Before the federal government got involved, America had the best education system on earth. Before the federal goverment got involved we had the best healthcare system on earth. What I'm promoting is possible, and it offers a superior education, and work perfectly in America for more than 100 years. In fact Libertarians also say as long as we do have income based taxes, we should give a dollar-for-dollar tax credit to anyone who pays for a child to attend a private school. That means companies and individuals could choose to send their tax dollars to Washington, or to send poor children to school. Which would you do if given that choice?

Since the beginning of time. Those that have children they can't care for soon have sick, poorly educated, children and many of them die. 50k is an arbitrary number since it's the average income of most people in America. The number could be $1 or $1 million. As long as you can pay for the education, food, shelter, clothing, healthcare, and other needs of your children with that $1, $50k, or $1 million.

You're free to have children, but you're not free to steal from me to pay for their education. That's not freedom.

Yes, one last thing. I do come at this from a certain smugness. It's the smugness of one who knows he does not have all the answers, meeting someone who thinks he does.

Two things I know for sure. 1) I am not always right. 2) Neither are you.

I know you understand and agree with my point #1. I'm trying to convince you of point #2.

I don't need convincing of #2. I've never claimed to be always right. But my philosophy is more solid than any other you can name and it offers the most freedom to the most people at the least cost. If you think you have a better idea, let's hear it. As the saying goes, put up or shut up.

The GDP per capita numbers in America are $37,600 per person per year. But that number divides the GDP by the number of every man, woman and child so it's skewed downward since most kids don't earn a living. When you go to urban areas (LA, Chicago, New York City, New Orleans, Miami, Dallas, Seattle, San Francisco, St. Louis, San Jose, Las Vegas, etc.) the cost of living is higher and so are wages. $37,600 can buy a lot more in Kansas than $50k can buy in San Francisco.

According to the Census numbers of 2002, the actual average median household income in America (all 50 states) is $43,017 (Not too far from $50k before we even making purchasing power parity adjustments) And in highly populated areas it's higher up to about 56k per year depending on the state.

http://www.census.gov/hhes/income/in.../statemhi.html

So there you go. It's certainly higher than what you were saying. In the cheapest state it's over $30k. Maybe you should move to West Virginia. I'm sure your earnings would almost be average, and even if you couldn't pay for your kids to go to school, they probably have all their teeth and are brilliant compared to the locals.

It's ok, you can say it. Tell me I'm right. :haha:

sorry to intrude on this heated debate so late in it's evolution, and i want to confess that I have NOT read ALL of the posts as they seem to be, ostensibly at least, mainly argumentative, but Radar, if there is no income tax, who pays for the infrastructure? roads, sewers, etc.? who defends our borders? if there was no tax, wouldn't this all be privatized and therefore cost the consumer a whole shit load more? would all roads be toll roads? I don't see it.

If there existed the articles of rights as you describe, wouldn't there be huge grey areas where peoples rights overlap, and infringement on those becomes muddy?

the government exists as it does because it has evolved that way from neccessity. The tax laws from greed and special interest kickbacks. However, in your defense, I agree that the Patriot act and the Homeland security act are potentially disastrous acts that in "time of emergency" can rob us of our rights. And now, we keep hearing different colors of alert status. Is this just to warm us up for when it goes RED and they begin to take away our rights? Maybe.

And if that happens, I'm joining your revolution. Take some time and look into pre WWI germany and what they did with peoples rights and "state of emergency" scenarios. It didn;t take hitler long to declare that state of emergency and militarize the country in preparation for his Imperialistic goals. And here we are taking over Iraq.


uh oh.

don't trust them. don't trust any of them.

Lumberjim: Every single constitutional part of government can be paid for with the excise taxes, tariffs already collected from other countries (although I'd have it spread out evenly at about 3% to make it fair). That includes our military, judiciary, etc. Who do you think pays for the roads now? The states do. The states have sales taxes, property taxes, and other taxes that pay for local infrastructure. If not a single penny of income tax was collected starting today, we'd still have a military, court system, sewars, roads, libraries, police, firefighters, etc.

You've got that backwards. Private industry is ALWAYS cheaper than government. The roads, and everything else would be far cheaper privately than through government. Competition breeds superior quality and lower prices.

That's completely false. It's not necessary for government to steal from Americans and send it to other countries. To pay tobacco farmers to grow tobbacco and then pay for anti-smoking campaigns, to try to do everything for everybody. But those trying to get elected are trying to please everyone looking for a handout and who gets left to pay the bill? It's you and me.

I'd rather pay for what I want to use, and not for what I don't. I'd rather go through voluntary exchange than through coercive force. I'd trust private industry far more than I trust goverment.

Hitler came to power because of America's involvment in WWI. The war was nearly over and armistice talks were already being prepared when America came in and prolonged the war for a year and a half, and then because France was our friend (They were still pissed about losing land to Germany in the Franco-Prussian war) we blamed the war on Germany even Austria started it and put unimaginably horrible restrictions on them and took all their assets. When the whole world went into depression, it was even worse in Germany which left the people so desperate they'd even listen to Hitler. Were it not for the conditions forced on Germany by America, Hitler would have been laughed at and never come to power.

Life is a "fend for yourself" thing. And I agree that not all people are born with the same abilities, talents, brains, looks, etc. but Constitutional equality refers to equality of opportunity, not of standing. You have the equal freedom to go as far as your particular talents, abilities, brains, looks, etc. can take you. For some people that's not as far as others.

Also the majority of HOUSEHOLD incomes are single incomes.

There aren't 251 million working age adults in America and everyone can live responsibly if they choose to. That means if they can't afford to have kids, they don't have them. And it's not a new America, it's the same America we've always had. I'd just remove the forceful government robbing some people to pay for others. One persons needs don't entitle them to rob another person just because they are doing better.