Renegade

This is a POV from a judgementall dumbass. Homeownership is an individual choce and is right for some but not for others. Basing the criteria for ownership on age is an ignorant statement. It may be. A home, from a financial POV is an investment. If you want to profit from your investment you must be selective about your choices. If you buy a home with unappealing attributes, and overpay, or buy at market peak, it may well be the worst investment you will ever have. Not just because of the principal and interest, but also because generally when you buy a home, you are leveraged, so that any declines in price are magnified. Possibly. Depends upon what your dream is. If owning a home is your dream, its not a dreamkiller. No question that a home is a costly investment and may be a moneypit, however in most cases the money invested is recovered. There are always exceptions. Most people need a place to live. If they didn't own, they woudl rent, so generally some allowance for expenses should be for accomodation. If you rent you accomodation expense is going to the landlord, if you own, the accomodation expense is going to the bank as interest payment and to the city as property taxes. Whether you are "throwing your money away", depends upon a number of things: Would you buy the same type of accomodation you would rent? Are interest rates low? (Low interest rates favour home ownership) What rate should I expect my house price to rise? Am I prepared to bear the full cost of maintainance and repairs? In a market of declining property prices, (such as what happened in toronto from 89-96) it is almost always better to rent.

Relax. I was kidding. I agree, but how is that different than anything I said? Of course perceptions will change, but never to the point where employers will consider men and women equivalent from a workforce perspective. You had me on your side until you posted this extreme example. How many children does an average woman have? Let 'say 2. In your farfetched example above an employer would lose the average woman for less than 1 day a year due to pregnancy. (There woudl be some women who would never have kids, some who already had them). A single day over the lifetime of employement would be such an insignificant factor that it would not even be considered. Not only is the period where the employer would lose the employee small, but the employer woudl assume that the employee woudl catch up for missed work. Replacement of workers on maternity only becomes an issue when the replacement period is longer. Your farfetched example is not valid to prove your point.

Why make the exception for the 2 people of opposite sex? Why can't they run into the woods and make up whatever vows they please as well?

Any individual can have his own choice restricted by the collective if he so wishes, however the individual must explicitly make that decision to give up individual liberty. He can't default into it, by example, just existing within the collective.

I'll answer in the abstract then. a. It would be fine for a govenment to take on responsibilites which are if done governmentally are massively less expensive, provided it doesn't achieve these cost savings through the use of coercion or force. b. It would be fine for the government to take on the organizing part of the task, as this is a variation of what I previously described. (ie something only government can do)

Yes. Because they fill a need, and there is no coercion involved in collecting the funding. I think it is stupid that people buy food to donate to the foodbank. They would be much smarter to just donate the equivalent in cash instead. The foodbank can make bulk purchases much more effectively than individuals.

Is that what you think too? If so why? Why is marriage not just a contract between two or more individuals? What other groups? Didn't government already start by trying to define what marriage was, and it left it open to challenges from people with different viewpoints? Isn't the best way for you to decide what your obligations are toward each other, and for you to decide whom you will marry, and not have the state dictate that to you? Great. We're moving forward then.

Do you mean that an individual who legallly takes full advantage of the system and maxmizes the amount of income he shelters from tax is shirking his obligation to society?

Rather than more mire in the muck of misunderstandings (look at that alliteration!), let me try and explain how I see things. 1. I think parents that can afford to, should pay for their kids education. I don't mean via taxes, I mean pay for it just like they do any private service. That is their parental obligation. It is part and parcel of the overall cost of having kids and they shoudl consider that cost when they decide how many kids to have. I think the vast majortiy of parents should fall into this category. 2. I think even kids who's parents did not plan for the cost of education and can't afford it, should be provided the opportunity to get educated. I woudl propose a loan system, but I can be convinced it should be partially or fully subsidized grant instead. The funding for these grants woudl come from general tax revenues. 3. For general "insurance" programs such as welfare. I'm fine with them being funded out of general tax revenues, so long as the the amount recieved is low enough that it still gives people incentive to work instead of recieve welfare. RW's reasoning for why the richer shoudl subsidize the poorer make a lot more sense to me then your concept of "deferred benefit". Your stated justification for supporting these general benefit programs, is because each one of us got something or is going to get something. I have pointed out numerous examples of people either not having got anything from the system or not going to get anything from the system. This is where your logic fails, and you are forced to scramble to justify why in those cases there still should be contribution to the system RW's justification doesn't depend upon what benefit was recieved or is going to be recieved. I have a somewhat different view of RW's social contract as I explained to him above, but I understand his logic. Probably true. And I'm ok with that. There are a great many things that if my parents had either done different or not at all would either cause me not to exist or to have a different existance. There is no way to tell if that existance would have been better or worse than the current one.

I have no issue with organized religion, as an organization. I do have issue when an organized religion espouses behaviour which then infringes on the rights of those outside that religion. For example, if a religion advocates that abortion is murder, and then encourages its members that it is their God-given duty to stop murderers at any cost, then that religion is inciting violence. Of course the members who take up the task and start bombing abortion clinic are to blame, but so is the organized religion for inciting violence.

Actually I'm going by memory on something I read a while ago. I could be wrong. I agree that 3K seems pretty low. True, but some of these cost they would incur anyway even in a publicly funded system. Both the rich and poor change the rules all the time. Eveytime the government passes a budget or legislation which affects taxes or services the rules are changed. It is misleading to imply that only the rich change the rules, or that it doesn't happen.

I see this as pretty reasonalble justification for funding public education. I still have issue with your model of a social contract however. You state that the rich owe the poor a set of benefits, because the poor let them keep their wealth. That smacks of extortion. Do the poor owe the rich anything because the rich don't use their wealth to sell the poor into salvery? In essence what you call a social contract , I see as a balance of power. Our society exist because it is more efficient to have a set of rules where everyone can coexist than to have one group opress the other. The rich are willing to give up some wealth to the poor because it cost less to them than it would if they had to use the wealth to opress the poor. The poor are willing to accept the wealth they are given because if they revolted, they may get no wealth at all. The rich minimize what the wealth they transfer to the poor, and the poor do the reverse. Should education be one of those basic services provided by the rich to the poor? Maybe, I'm not sure one way or another. But assuming it is, why would it not be provided in the same way welfare is. Only the low income tier get it for free, the middle class and rich should pay for it.

You grant a six year old a loan the same way you grant a 18 yo a loan. You simply track how much was owed. I've already paid mine back. What public instution are you referring to? The education system? For the most part it is built. All we are doing is discussing how the cost can be recovered. Now that I've answered your questions, maybe you can point out where I said that welfare should be eliminated, or have you ignored the fact that you made that accusation and was challenged on it?

I wasn't aware that anarchists believed in God!! Because as you said it is all about perceptions. When more men stay at home and baby-sit, then perhaps those preceptions too will change.

It is unrealistic to use a 15K-20K/year private school tution as the basis of your computation. More likely a figure like 3K/year should be used as it is the cost used in the public system. I don't see a $35K debt as a form of slavery, and if an individual doesn't see $35K is worth the education, why should society bother to provide it? RW, I appreciate your perspective. It does give food for thought. The issue lies in quantifing that obligation the rich have. You have yourself said that it is impossible to quantify, yet quantify we must because that is what we require the rich to pay. The problem with your "social contract" concept is that it is very vague and subject to change. What are the rich and poor agreeing to specificly? What if it changes and someone no longer agrees? I don't think it has be adequately discussed, in order to assume such a contract exist.

Of course it is. But not only do employers percieve women more likely to get pregnant, they also percieve them to be more likely to stay home when the kids are sick, etc. Yes, that's what I'm saying. CA, I'm not sure if your example was for my benefit, but I already agree with you. In your example, what I'm saying is that in reality you are not just painting "Migh Break Down Randomly" on the signs, you are also adding "Might Rust Prematurely", "Might have Saftey Defects", etc

Why should society even do that? Somebody has to provide the capital upfront and deal with the losses if the person dies young and is never able to repay. Since you seem to be so convinced thatit is wrong to demand that people that make money from society contribute back to society then it seems that the fairiest system would just let poor rot without access to school. It is, after all, their fault that they are poor. Because it is an investment in their ability which may pay a return down the road similar to venture capital. It may be that some of them are unable to repay, however IMV it will be more than repaid by those who can and do succeed. BTW, I don't believe that it is wrong that people who make money from society contribute back to it. I just believe that the contribution back to society should be reflective of what society contributed to them.

Possibly. In my view, parents would have to pay for the education of their kids whether sent to private or public instituions. Kids who couldn't afford it, would be granted loans, which would be repayed on employment.

No, that is not polygamy in the sense we are talking about - that is one man with multiple pair bonds. The woman involved may have consented to the situation for economic reasons but I have never heard of situation where they considered each other 'family'. Polygamy has a number of variations. I don't see this one as any more or less valid than others. In some polygamy relationships each woman has a relationship with the man, but not to each other. In others, it can be one communal family. We do not need government intervention into deciding what kind of relationships "recognized" and which are not. That should be a choice individuals make for themselves.

If you believe that all polygamy is based on coervciveness, they you would also have to explain how polyandry exists. How did a women coerce multiple husbands to marry and stay married? Polyandry

Yes. There are no examples in history where polygamy is not based on a powerful man imposing his will on many women within a patriarchal society. It is no coincidence that societies that allow polygamy are also societies where women have few rights. That said, the hippy experiments in the 60s came closer to non-coercive polygamy, however, these experiments did not stand the test of time which tells mean that there is something fundamental about humans that makes non-coercive polygamy undesireable. There have been numerious examples of well-off men with both wives and mistresses. IMV those have been nothing but disguised polygamy structured to suit the accepted norm. You can argue that the men were powerful and rich, and by virtue of their power and wealth the women were coerced, but IMV I don't see that as coercion. The women willingly concented to the arrangement and in many cases was beneficial for all parties.

Yes, of course they could. But there is tremendous public sentiment against use of the clause. Yes, but it was not very long ago that even private companies did not recognize same-sex relationships. Challenges started in the 90s and in the space of 15 years they came to be accepted. I agree that attitudes have not come around yet, but IMV most of the public's sentiment is not based upon rational logic. I agree. As I've said I don't know much about Bountiful, and I couldn't hold it up as a family structure worthy of recognition. I am only argueing for polygomy on a abstract level.

Poligamy has been around for centuries and is accepted in a variety of religions and cultures. It is only relatively recently it has been banned in Western Society. Do you really believe that all of those relationships spanning different religions across centuries have all been coercive?

I really don't know the details of the Bountiful case, but you may be right. Where coercion is involved, it is not a good case to bring forward as a test case. I disagree. Humans are biologically predisposed to opposite-sex bonding as well, and while that might be true of the vast majority, it is not true of all. Same with polygamy. There will likely be a few for who it is the right family arrangement without coercion involved.

mikedavid, Were you the hiring manager? Did you interview all the canidates? How do you know this wasn't the most qualified canidate for the position?