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.

The whole point is for the government to have a monopoly on education. Statists will never give that up. The idea of people opting out is completely alien to them. They don't care what people want. They care what they want, and wish to dictate to the rest of society how things should be. Control freaks.

There is simply no need for intellectual property. What it comes down to is people cannot compete on the free market, so they lobby for government protection. That is not how capitalism works. You either put up, or shut up, don't go whining to the government for help just because someone else can serve the consumers needs better than you can. The market doesn't care who got there first, and neither should we. All that matters is who can produce the best product at the lowest price for the consumer. But the established business interests don't like that. They love being able to milk the public for everything they can, and so they make laws to prevent competition. Without IP & copywrite the record industry and the book industry would collapse, because they would be completely replaced by the internet and data copying. It's already happening anyway. New technology makes old, inefficient business models obsolete. You luddites can fight it if you please, but it's too late. We pirates won this war already. Go ahead, pay $20 an album if you want. I don't care if you give your hard earned dollars to the record company. I have thousands of movies and albums, all entirely at no cost to myself. Studios in hollywood spend millions making films and I get them at zero cost. You want to pay full sticker price? Be my guest.

Angus : Yes, I suppose I could run away from the thugs extorting me. But that's not my preferred method of dealing with bullies - and what about all their other hapless victims? Am I to just let this evil gang attack innocents because I am too cowardly to do anything? I've got a better solution. Revolution. The thing about a club is membership is voluntary. I'd like to revoke mine, thank you very much.

You really had to quote your entire post to add one line? Really? I mean, I love the sound of my voice and all, but still I try to take it a little easy.

Did Microsoft go bankrupt or something while I wasn't looking? AFAIK they are still thriving, that's how I can say that. Now, if you were really concerned about Microsoft you would join me in saying they - like all corporations - should be exempt from all forms of taxation by the CDN government. I'm sure they would appreciate that more than having the government crack down on the oh-so-dreadful internet pirates. Yarrrr.

Businessmen do sometimes rob. The government always robs. There's a huge difference.

Tons of people do copy Microsoft's work - line for line, comma for comma - and pay them nothing. You can download pirated copies of Windows 7. Lots of people do so. Hasn't seemed to hurt their bottom line any. Intellectual Property is a scam. Why should I subsidize a super rich industrial conglomerate? If they cannot compete on the free market they don't deserve my money any more than anyone else. The fact is the internet has rendered record companies obsolete. Their business model is going the way of the dodo. Because we don't need them any more. Are musicians going to stop writing songs because record companies don't make billions any more? Hardly. First of all, how much of the money in a record sale goes to the artist themselves? Practically nothing. 5% maybe. Everything else goes to paying for advertising, packaging, marketing, ceo's salaries, the guy who stocks the shelves etc. etc. Well we don't need any of that any more. We can just copy the data and distribute it via our computers. So am I robbing from someone when I copy a CD that an artist created - even if it is expressly against their wishes? No, absolutely not. The fact that you wrote a song doesn't mean you can dictate to me what I can do with my property, namely my computer. It's not theft to reproduce something using your own materials. Theft is taking something that someone else owns, and claiming it as your own. I am not taking anything from anyone. I am copying data. The artist doesn't own my money, he is entitled to the sale of an album. If I choose to buy his album that is fine. But if someone else can reproduce his work and sell it at a better price than he can, then that is all the better for consumers, that is the magic of the market place. It's capitalism in action. Market competition making things better for the consumer. Of course artists are going to continue to write songs and books, even without intellectual property. Of course the utilitarian side of things is irrelevant from the more important moral side of things, but a lot of artists consider their work a form of self expression first, and a commercial enterprise second. And the ones who write their songs solely to make a buck, the britney spears and n'syncs of this world, well, if they never write another song I'm sure we won't miss them much. Teenage girls will find something else to shriek too, I'm sure. There is nothing I respect more than the institution that is private property. It is responsible for everything that is great in our society. But just because something is called property does not make it property. Just because something is called theft, does not make it theft. You cannot own ideas or recipes. Intellectual property is just another form of monopoly, granted by the government, to the detriment of the consumer. Big pharma and the record companies don't need a subsidy from me - they're rich enough already.

Bob : Certainly there is a lot a person can do to reduce their own risk of unhealth. They can eat a good diet, high in vegetables, fish, nuts, berries, some meat. They can not smoke, not drink, not engage in highly dangerous activities. They can limit their exposure to toxins. Now I don't think anyone should be FORCED to live a healthy lifestyle, but there is no small degree of moral hazard here in subsidizing the unhealthy life styles of others. If someone engages in high risk behaviour their insurance premiums will reflect that. But certainly I agree there are many diseases which cannot be prevented. And I wouldn't want to live in a society where anyone, for any reason, did not get medical care. Just because I don't want the government to supply health care to everyone doesn't mean I don't want everyone to have health care, or that I For a second think if we had a market in health care anyone would go without. We have a market in food, but who is starving to death? In reality we are much more likely to see shortages in health care in a socialized system like we have now. How long are those wait times to see a specialist again? To say nothing of opportunity costs. Who knows how far medical technology could have advanced if we unleashed the free market, if we didn't have the parasitic burden of the state making our economy sluggish?

When I was still in high school the Tory government at the time - in it's dying days - proposed a very modest tax credit for parents who send their children to private or religious schools. I remember at the time I was rabidly opposed to such a tax credit. I wrote a letter to the editor and even protested at public hearings the Tories were having on the suggestion. I was terrified this would destroy the public school system or some such nonsense. It's funny what difference a few years can make in terms of perspective. Today I think a tax credit for parents who send their children to private schools is a great idea - the higher the better. Actually I am in favour of any tax credit, for any person, for any reason. Anything we can do to help anyone at all escape the onerous tax burden, imposed by liberals and conservatives alike with reckless (often politically motivated) spending, should be done.

I agree with American Woman. One of the reasons we spend less on health care here in Canada is because we ration it. We oppose new taxes - rightfully so - but that means government has to cut supply. This is a key difference between government and the private sector. When the private sector get's busy businessmen look with pleasure on the money they will make. When the government gets busy that bitch about us being greedy and taking up too many resources.