Zachary Young

Just one more reason to love Tim Horton's, our nations most successful drug dealers! On the scale of 1 to who gives a fuck this rates a solid ten.

Not all wealthy people deserve their wealth. Bill Gates is the perfect example of someone who deserves every dollar he has made (and then some). Imagine a world without Windows. He brought personal computers to the homes of billions. The productivity that has resulted because of his business efforts is incredible. He deserves his billions and then some. Wealth is either acquired by being created, stolen or gifted. Now if wealth is created, who then justly deserves this wealth? If an artisan sculpts a statue, should it belong to him, to everyone communally or should a select group of men decide who should get the sculpture? This seems like a no brainer to me, and it is as true of any enterprise as it is of the artisan's efforts. But people who get wealthy through theft, through living off lucrative government contracts, people who get rich because their wealth is acquired by using the government to steal from people who actually create wealth, they are not even deserving of the shirts on their back, pathetic parasites that they are.

Politicians blab on about how our health care system is the best in the world, but if any of them have a serious medical issue they are the first to take flight. Now I think the original poster here is right on the money. Personally I favour the abolition of OHIP, I think $4000 a year for every man woman and child in my province is too high a cost to pay. Socialism doesn't work, never has, never will, and all the left wing advocacy groups in the world won't change that basic reality. None the less the political will is not present to put an end to this program just yet. Eventually this will change of course and the system as we know it will collapse, after all you can't just keep dumping taxpayer dollars into a broken system and expect this to hold together forever. What we need to do, as concerned citizens, is to agitate for a workable private system so that when the collapse comes the medical infastructure to handle our needs is already in place. Specifically we need a completely free market in health care. No taxes or regulations on it, no system of licensing, simply if anyone wishes to open up a practice they should be free to. Should a doctor trained in India move to this country he should be able to open up shop immediately. Or a nurse who has been delivering health care for years, if she wants to open up her own private practice who are we to refuse? Simply get government out of the way and allow the market to work.

You shouldn't need a license to own a gun. Actually the whole system of compulsory licensing in every field should be done away with. This is one of the reasons why we have only 2.2 doctors per thousand people, because the Canadian Medical Association is a cartel which limits the supply of doctors in this country. But this is all entirely off topic, this thread is about drugs and all drugs should be legalized immediately, recreational or otherwise. This would immediately bankrupt most of the criminals in our society, save us billions every year on enforcement, reduce medical costs (you'd no longer have to go to a doctor if you needed a prescription from a pharmacist) and junkies would no longer have to whore themselves out or break into your houses to finance their addictions because the cost of drugs would be pennies on the current dollar. People have a right to consume what they please, it is none of your business what someone chooses to consume and we certainly don't need government to be regulating this matter. Government if it is to exist at all should be kept tiny and constantly guarded against the expanse thereof. Regulate violence, protect property rights, this should be the purpose of government, not some all powerful monolith that controls every aspect of our lives. You cannot improve matters through state action, because there are constant and enormous costs to everything the government does.

"In short, let's have no government services at all." Well, that is not at all what I said, but that actually is my belief so I won't chastise you for making me take that position. There is nothing magic about the organization known as government, nothing that is currently accomplished by the state which cannot better be done by the market. The state ownership of the means of production has been shown to be terribly flawed. Capitalism, not socialism, is the future of the 21st century. If government is so great, why must you use violence to force me to pay for it? Why not allow me to opt out? We will see rather quickly how many people really support this institution if there is not the implicit gun to the back of our heads present. How much would you like to bet that your main source of income is a government cheque? In our country we have half of the people living parasitically off the other half. Well I for one am fed up. I have had enough. Go make your own fucking money, get a real job you lazy swine, stop stealing ours.

One of the first things that fascist and communist governments did when they came to power was to disarm the population. Of course my fellow Canadians are too stupid to demand rights, wishing instead for the government to run their lives for them and protect them from all harm (never asking who will protect us from our government, should the day come when it turns tyrannical) and this is one area where the Americans are way ahead of us. You see, the second amendment wasn't added to the constitution in order to secure the right of red necks to shoot at tin cans or even for urban city dwellers to fight off crack heads but rather so that should the day come when a tyrannical government establishes the people would have the ability to rise up and over throw their government. This is a right we Canadians need to demand as well, not that the cowards who inhabit this country could ever rise to revolution were it necessary - we have a long and shameful history of weakly begging our masters for freedom instead of seizing it for ourselves. Year by year police gain more power and no one seems to mind. Abuse of authority is rampant. I myself have suffered false arrest nearly a dozen times. No one cares, no one gives any credence to my complaints, everyone seems to think that the police can do no wrong. They have beaten me, imprisoned me, denied me access to council, held me over night countless times for frivilous reasons, and here we have regulations that would give them even more power and people are clamoring their support for these regulations. We do not need police with more power. We need a free society. We need fewer police, the police that would exist need to have less power and they need to paid less money. The most dangerous criminals in our society today ARE the police.

Why not instead of spending billions on consultants we save billions by not spending any money on consultants and also firing the worthless bureaucrats that feed off the public trough? Win win!

The economy is a positive sum game. Wealth is created. This idea that you get rich by taking from someone else is absurd. That is simply not how the private sector works. That IS how the public sector works, which is why we have a class war going on in North America. You have the productive private sector, which generates wealth, and the parasitic public sector that lives off everyone else. This is why politics is a crock of shit. The law has turned into an instrument of plunder instead of a defense of property rights and liberty. Perhaps if you people read a little more economic theory and didn't get your ideas about how the world works from the game monopoly our society would be a little better off.

If we are content to remain a second rate nation - are perhaps there is merit to that perspective. I favour open immigration, and dream of a day when Canada is the most powerful and prosperous nation in the word.

This seems like a much lesser crime than the stimulus package itself. This is retail corruption, where wholesale exists in plain view.

Central banks are to blame for inflation and the business cycle.

How many people do you think it takes to make a pencil? In a very strict sense, we can do nothing ourselves. This is the basis behind social organization and the division of labour. You have described a system where the state does everything. I prefer the inverse; when the state does nothing.

Adam Smith.

In fact it is legal to steal in Canada. You don't believe me? I don't care, I'm still telling the truth, whether you believe me or not. Try to figure it out on your own for a while, when you cannot I will come back and explain it to you. You probably still won't listen then, but maybe, just maybe...

Why do you people talk about things that you have no idea about? No matter. Everyone is a libertarian, when they want to convince someone of something, because the only way people will ever really believe you is if you tell the truth. But the sad state of our world is that you have all been lied to for so long by so many people that when I speak the truth to you, you will react with hostility and fear. Go back to your schools, your churches, your factories your homes. Grow fat and lazy and indolent on the wealth that is a by product of the freedom that our ancestors claimed as their birthright. Grow ignorant and tired and apathetic. Forget about the science of human action and the miracle that is laissez-faire and listen to the false prophets preach on about how you are too stupid and evil to be allowed to live your own life and make your own decisions. Believe that bullshit if you want, I don't care, I'm not going to be afraid, I'm not going to be controlled, I will live my life as it deserves to be lived - in liberty, harmonious with those who seek to not do me harm and antagonistic towards those who seek to harm me, through voluntary exchange and interaction, a consumer in the market economy. Forget that we were once free. Forget that this country was once a great land of promise and pride. Tuck your head between your legs, close your eyes and cry, give me one soft smile as you wait for your turn to die.

You claim to speak the truth. You are lying. There is no such thing as a wreckless tax cut because government spending is evil. You are right to attack increased military spending and the war on drugs - I have no complaint with your criticism here. I'm not going to discuss tactics because I don't care (with regards to the adds) and I mean every politician is a hypocrite so it's hardly a unique complaint here. Let me remind you of Goldwater's advice, that moderation in pursuit of justice is no virtue and extremism in defense of liberty is no vice. As for the "social safety net" (what is that, the new term for Ponzi Scheme?) why do you need to steal my money to do this? Go save for yourself deadbeat. The only thing that will help the environment is the only thing that ever has - new technology, and that will be developed like everything else worthwhile, on the free and open market.

I'm not sure why I came here today. The comments proceeding me do not seem very wise. The left attacks the right, the right attacks the left, this is a dumb tired boring game I have played many times before. What sense does the left right spectrum make anyway? The right says that communists are left wing and the left says that fascists are right wing, and everyone agrees that liberals (in the N.A. sense) are a bunch of whiny pansies that need to man up and grow a pair but it's just all so arbitrary. I mean what's the difference between the international socialism of the communists and the national socialism of the nazi's? They both grant the state total control over my life - which is not something I am willing to do, obviously. Here's a better scale. Let's start with freedom and work our way back to authoritarianism, if you really want to think one dimensionally. How many of my actions are a product of my voluntary choice, and how many are done under compulsion of violence and coercion? Of course the right wants debt. Spending is power. The left wants it too. Everyone in this fucking world wants power, you think politicians are going to be different? And it's not that power itself is necessarily bad, it's only when you mix it with violence and coercion. Oops, too late! Well let's not worry about that...

"The crucial aspect is that to protect a private property from public infringements, one needs the help of a community with some kind of social contract." Paging Locke, Rousseau, Hobbes... You know what you need to protect private property from the transgressions of others? A lock or a gun. Do you think the government (oooooooooh) is going to magically stop people from stealing from you? The state is the ultimate violator of property rights. It is absurd to envision it as some sort of white knight here to prevent other people from taking your stuff. Where does half your money go every year? It's like we're all so terrified of some stranger in a distant land hurting us or stealing from us that we submit to the ultimate tyranny at the hands of those who claim they love us (the state) in exchange for false promises of safety. I'll tell you what - you do whatever you want, but if the government tries to take my money, they will have to kill me first. Because that's what it comes down to in the end. Money. Everyone has grand words about self sacrifice and greatness and nobility and honour, but in the end you're all a bunch of idiots who want something for nothing and are willing to have the state enslave me if they promise they can do it. Well guess what? They can't. And I'm not going to be your fucking slave.

How is this in the least important?

I think the word "strawman" is the one we're looking for folks. You're attacking a claim I didn't make. Of you benefit people when you spend hundreds of billions of dollars. How could you not? But what you are ignoring, my friend, is the cost - probably because you are a lazy bum who doesn't have to pay taxes. "Well aside from never being able to raise money again, having zero capital for infrastructure investment, having our foreign assets siezed and the relegation of a G8 nation to 3rd world status there is absolutely zero downside." I would love it if the government were not able to raise money (how do they raise money? they steal from us via taxation, they steal from our children by borrowing, or they steal from those with savings via inflation). As for the rest of your nonsense, it is simply that. Who's foreign assets are you talking about? The government's (who of course should not own land in other countries, how stupid of an idea is that, it's bad enough that they own land here)? Or the citizens? As for becoming a member of the 3rd world, according to the Wall Street Journal we are well on our way, because of the socialist welfare state policies enacted BY our government.

"Is it the case that citizens must always be on the alert for such threats to the environment? Is that our responsibility?" Development of the morraine is not a threat to the environment and I am not scared by your scare tactics. How is my life going to be worse if someone builds something there? More likely it will be better, as I will benefit from the added production in our economy.

It should be sold off, but they will not do it in the right way (put it up on the open market, let people bid on it) but rather will arrange some sweet heart contract for their friends, continuing to bilk the public. Privatization is always good, but what is called privatization is not always that. What good is it to privatize the profits if we socialize the costs?

The debt should be repudiated. There is no justification to steal more money from the Canadian public, simply because the government in the past has spent beyond it's means. There is virtually no downside to this plan.

Do you people ever tired of cheerleading for politicians who only want to steal your money and control your life? This isn't a football game people, this is the real world. Why don't you wake up to what is really going on?

"Geez, you'd think no one ever heard of the business cycle before. Our economy is SUPPOSED to have a recession every now and then." Is it? Why is that? You'd think YOU'VE never heard of the Austrian Theory of the Business Cycle. The Austrian Theory of the Business Cycle says that economies are not SUPPOSED to have recessions every now and then, but rather the business cycle is a product of artificial manipulations of the interest rates, and the malinvestment that is a result thereof. Let me break it down for you. Interest rates are artificially lowered (the 'real' interest rates should be determined by the market and it's determined by the percentage of savings) creating the boom. Entrepreneurs are fooled into making investments that look profitable, but aren't. Eventually these investments are proven to be uneconomic, and so they are liquidated. This is the bust. If we abolished the Bank of Canada and went back to sound money there would be no more business cycle.