kward

It worked well for the High countries in 1941.

Not a lot different than now, except in the scenario you've laid out we're not collectively going broke paying for it.

1. You're quoting prices based on current government-created inflationary costs. Health care in an unfettered free market is far cheaper than the numbers you're throwing around. 2. Just because it hasn't been done, doesn't mean it can't. I'm glad the Wright Brothers didn't think the way you do. 3. There is no free market, so I don't know what you're talking about in terms of "increase my premium". 4. Everyone needs health care at some point. The cheaper, and more readily available the better, wouldn't you say? 5. Cancer can be beaten, and more money can be invested privately because there's less bureaucracy to filter that money through. 6. Absolutely we can achieve immortality. Do yourself a favour and learn about Ray Kurzweil. Medical science can get there, and it will, but government's got to get out of the way to help it along faster, and more cheaply. 7. I do enjoy your over-simplification of history. And the Somali pirates...you're talking about a flea on a dog's arse. But sure, talk to them, figure out a business model. Maybe there's a way to make money together. Who knows? Or you figure out how they operate? Where their money comes from, and you tackle that source or root cause. A better solution than just arming yourself to the teeth just because.

Yes, I'm sure it's causing you a lot of trouble to read and reply to posts on a message board to which you belong.

Locking your door is a psychological thing. If someone wants in, they'll get in. Of course almost all of us do it. I do it. The difference is I didn't expect everyone on my street to pay for the lock. Citizens and private land owners and businesses can come together and form their own policing body, and one a lot more answerable to its constituents than the top-down policing bodies forced upon us right now.

I don't have the option to fully opt out. Not yet, anyway. Canadian society is still in its "insane" socialists throes. Wood is good, but solar's better.

A problem for the owners of said commodities, and for the owners of said property being traversed, and for the owners/operators of communications services. Not a problem for a federal government. Or at least, it shouldn't be...unless we want to continue taxing...i.e. stealing from people.

Do you know what makes treatment expensive? Scarcity, and limits on competition.

There are no guarantees. Diplomacy is every bit as effective as a fighter plane, if not more. And it's way cheaper. You seem to be stuck on this notion that a lack of military hardware makes us susceptible to attack. And that is outdated thinking. Closing diplomatic channels, and protectionist policies. Those are what make us susceptible. On the one hand you say it is my concern and my problem. So, you accept the idea of personal responsibility? And yet you advocate spending almost everyone's tax money on military hardware?

1. Absolutely right. You shouldn't be. Pay for your own health care and ask everyone else to do the same. 2. Right, because the government runs the fire department better, more cheaply, and efficiently than private citizens who've banded together could? 3. See number 2. 4. See number 2. 5. Is insurance in a free market, free of government requirements, regulations, and bureaucracy cheaper? 6. Why take portions of everyone's wages to pay for services not everyone will use, and some people use and abuse far more than others? 7. Are citizens capable of fighting cancer through private charities as opposed to government bureaucracy? 8. You've got it backwards...we can achieve immortality...but first we have to get government out of the way. Government is a giant body that sucks a good chunk of investment into areas that do nothing to help progress, instead money is wasted instead of going directly to the intended source. It's not about giving up, it's about recognizing that social engineering doesn't work...the profit motive does.

Collective. Scary word. Stop paying for health care? As an individual? No. As a "collective"? Absolutely.

The numbers are arbitrary and not based on reality. If you accept the logical premise that attacks will always be able to get through, then you accept the idea that it makes no sense to spend billions trying to prevent the same. People trying to prevent rape is fine, but don't spend billions of tax payer dollars doing it. Child mortality rates will always be above zero? Yet people will still try to make it zero? You do understand that spending billions of dollars "trying" to do something that cannot ever be achieved is pretty close to the definition of insanity? You deal with a "terrorist" like you would anyone else. You listen to what they have to say, you listen to what their concerns are, and try to find some common ground. You know what doesn't disarm a terrorist? Someone who puts up a wall and arms themselves. Allying with anyone is a mistake. The US included. Befriending, trading, that's fine...alliances are asking for trouble. People will always want to do business with you if you have something they want. How many times do I have to tell you, I do not advocate that you stop defending yourself. Nor do I say the government needs to stop defending its constituents. Where I have a problem is in the "how". Taking people's hard earned money and wasting it on an inefficient and inept system of defense like buying expensive war machine toys is not defending anything. It makes money for defense contractors. We are made safer by a government that engages in diplomacy, and isn't asserting itself into the affairs of others. THAT is how a government best serves it's constituents. I would opt out in a nanosecond if the option were made available. And if I needed help I would turn to my neighbours or private charities and organizations funded in the private sector instead of burdening everyone with what is essentially my problem.

See? This is what I'm talking about...rotating in, rotating out...constant expenses that don't ever stop. And to what end? Why incur all of these costs?

Nuclear tipped ICBMs...again, same argument as with fighter jets. How many? How much money? Where would they be deployed? How would you defend them from an air assault, ground assault, etc.? How would it not become a new cold war where you had the USSR and USA stockpiling crazy numbers of ammo, to what end? Mutually assured destruction? I could be convinced to keep a small fleet of armed drones underground somewhere. Maybe even a small arsenal of nuclear-tipped ICBMs. But not this unending buying of military equipment and flying patrols and all the upkeep, and personnel and fuel costs that go with. Put a strict limit...buy drones, a few nukes...and park 'em. In case of emergency break glass. Everything else is a complete and utter waste of money.

"We" have tremendous resources? Who's "we"? Are you personally going to benefit from these resources? Are you going to look at families who've lost loved ones in an attack AFTER you've already spent billions on jets and everything else, and then double down and spend even more? Do you not see...there's no line here. You start spending in the interest of total security...something that cannot ever be achieved or guaranteed to anyone...and where does it stop? Where is the line? When is total safety achieved? Who measures it? How is it measured? Important questions when you're essentially stealing a portion of people's hard earned money to pay for all of this.

Again, there is no fool-proof method for defending yourself from an attack. Attacks will always occur, forever and ever amen. So it makes no sense wasting billions of dollars on something that cannot ever be stopped. A better use of money would be to engage in active, open dialogue with nations around the world. To open up channels of trade, befriend, and do business with any and all. Buying jets or other equipment is an abyss with no end. If private land owners want to take on that expense, fine, but don't tax people and then throw money down a rat-hole in the interest of assuaging some kind of psychological fake feeling of "safety".

Harper is just another in a long succession of social engineers.

Royalties is not some magical parcel of money the government receives. It's the same money that would be paid to a private land owner, and to private individuals who do the work extracting or helping to extract the resource. Filtering the money through an expensive government apparatus uses up a good chunk of the money earned from the exploited resource BEFORE it reaches all of us. You know what really reduces the tax burden? Getting rid of that royalty filtering government apparatus and the hefty salaries, benefits, and pensions that go with it. And what about that digging and shipping? Where are those jobs created? And what happens when those paid to dig and ship in turn spend their wages into the economy? Does that in turn grow more jobs, and create new demand for production and the productive jobs that go with it?

That's why you've got to tell the government to sell off these "Crown" lands to private land owners who will have an interest in protecting their assets.

Land ownership will put a stop to pollution a lot more cheaply and effectively than the government will, under Harper or anyone else for that matter.

Police our airspace? Against whom? Is there some imminent attack of flying cats from outer space I don't know about? Hell, why stop at deploying 24, why not 32, or 64? It's only everyone's money right?

Time to put an end to our involvement with NORAD and the expensive "commitments" that go with it.

The government receives and spends "royalties" into the economy more efficiently than a private citizen? You know what can't be tricked away with fancy accounting? An actual physical, productive private-sector job. One whose proceeds get spent into the economy right away without having to pass through umpteen bureaucratic channels, and pay an endless amount of middlemen before we all derive some kind of benefit in the private sector...y'know, where real economic growth takes place.

$1.5 billion dollars per year. To do...what exactly?

Yes, that's exactly what I said, we throw our weapons down and everyone will automatically love us. Give me a break. The goal is not to be loved, that is silly. No one is ever going to be liked by everyone. But you learn not to solve your differences with violence or force of the threat thereof, and you evolve, and you make your citizens safer in the process.