Zachary Young

South Africa is only some sort of a success story if you think 42% unemployment rates is somehow desirable. What's next, are you guys going to tell me all about the success of Zimbabwe's central bank?!?!?

I don't think 'public servant' is an appropriate term to describe these parasites. They are not our servants by any stretch of the imagination.

This sounds pretty retarded. Nothing wrong with chasing after sloots. On the other hand this guy, for being part of the Harper government is scum, so i don't care much what happens to him.

The problems in Africa are not because of a lack of government. They have an excess of government. It is because there is no respect for the rule of law, because there is no respect for private property. There is no capitalism. That is why they are desperately poor - because of an excess of statism.

There are no shortages of centralized governments in Africa, yet that continent remains desperately poor. No, if we want to look at how African nations can become prosperous it would behoove us to observe the example of Botswana - the worlds fastest growing economy for much of the latter half of the 20th century. Botswana achieved their radical gains the old fashioned way - through strictly limited government and free market capitalism. Likewise when America had strictly limited government - between 1776 and 1913 you saw standards of living skyrocketing, not just for the elite - who do well under any system - but also for the poorest of the poor. Hong Kong is another great example of how limited government, free trade and free enterprise helps the poor.

Does anyone seriously think that all that is needed for prosperity in a third world nation like Somalia is for their central government to take what little money the population has and create a gigantic welfare state? This would mean economic disaster. It is only the market economy that can build stores of capital, that can lead to the gargantuan creation of wealth that western societies have seen.

The testament to an economic system is not how conditions were under it, but how they were changing. Things were terrible 100 years ago - but what were they like 120 years ago, and 80 years ago? Back then things were rapidly getting better - look at how wealthy we are today. Where do you think this wealth came from? But today wages are stagnating, we have high unemployment, no one can save any more because of confiscatory tax rates and interventionist economic and monetary and foreign policy are laying our economy to waste. Canada is on a decline, precisely because we have abandoned the liberal values of free trade and free enterprise that once heralded a new age of prosperity.

Not. For many years I did refuse to carry identification - at great personal hardship to myself - and I did pay, in cash, for the minor health care needs I had. If the government is going to steal all my money I am going to get what little table scraps I can for having to suffer the insult and injury of this theft.

Actually, 100 years ago Canada WAS my dream of a free market libertarian state, so I don't think it's that unlikely it could happen again. History is not always an onwards and upwards march towards progress. Sometimes we regress.

If one is against beatings, it is not hypocritical to support a reduction in beatings. That surely doesn't imply that one supports beatings, just because someone supports a reduction in beatings.

The Arabs don't care if we have fighter jets - although this is a HUGE waste of taxpayer money, we have no enemies (although Harper is working to change that, no one is going to attack us, we don't need to spend 15-50 billion of taxpayer money on aicraft. The Arabs don't care if we have jets - they do care if we use those jets to drop bombs on their children. A crucial distinction.

Doctors are quasi government employees. They are government employees in the sense that lockheed martin employees in the state are government employees. Anyone who is a net tax recipient is part of the parasite class, and that includes doctors, nurses and the merchants of death, as well as politicians, welfare bums, etc.

This club aint so hot either. Owing to decades of economic interventionism and the high taxes praised by those on these boards we are rapidly becoming a third world nation. An obsession with egalitarianism and the general outlook that if something isn't done by the government it cannot be done at all has set our society back greatly. As Ludwig von Mises pointed out the endgame of the interventionist state is complete and total socialism. That is the direction our society is heading in. With socialism comes totalitarianism. Big brother is just around the corner. No society can sustain a fiat money supply, no society can sustain this level of collectivism and interventionism. If we do not repeal 80 years of terrible domestic policy we are in for a very rough 21st century indeed.

People should pay for their own health care. This idea that you can get something for free is absurd. Nothing is free in this world. When you get something for free it ends up costing you a heck of a lot more than when you pay for it yourself. Half of the taxes in Ontario go to health care. If we paid for our own health care we could get rid of half of the taxes. Actually we should just get rid of all the taxes. If something is worth having then people will pay for it voluntarily. The idea that we should rob the public to pay for things is absurd - it's immoral, it's impractical, it has all the justice of a mugging.

No thanks. I was born in this country. This is my land. I won't let some vicious, greedy thugs ruin it for me. I've got a better idea - why don't you stop shilling for the largest criminal organization in this country? It will help you sleep better at night.