[syshum]

>>It is appointed to be the best and most competent venue to address problems like that. Government is the way "collective individuals and businesses" solve the problems that impact the whole society.

I do not believe that should be the function of government, nor that is was "appointed" to do any such thing.

The role of government is protect the negative rights of individuals, government "is the organization of the natural right of lawful defense. It is the substitution of a common force for individual forces. And this common force is to do only what the individual forces have a natural and lawful right to do: to protect persons, liberties, and properties; to maintain the right of each, and to cause justice to reign over us all." -- Frédéric Bastiat

[ivan_gammel]

You used a good quote, but you'd better talk about it's meaning and how exactly it contradicts what I was saying, because "protection of persons, liberties and properties" does include helping people not to die on the street (even for selfish interests of rich public that still makes sense) and it's unclear why you believe otherwise.

[syshum]

Since you like the quote allow me to continue from the same book

"But when the law, by means of its necessary agent, force, imposes upon men a regulation of labor, a method or a subject of education, a religious faith or creed — then the law is no longer negative; it acts positively upon people. It substitutes the will of the legislator for their own wills; the initiative of the legislator for their own initiatives. When this happens, the people no longer need to discuss, to compare, to plan ahead; the law does all this for them. Intelligence becomes a useless prop for the people; they cease to be men; they lose their personality, their liberty, their property. Try to imagine a regulation of labor imposed by force that is not a violation of liberty; a transfer of wealth imposed by force that is not a violation of property. If you cannot reconcile these contradictions, then you must conclude that the law cannot organize labor and industry without organizing injustice."

"You say: "There are persons who have no money," and you turn to the law. But the law is not a breast that fills itself with milk. Nor are the lacteal veins of the law supplied with milk from a source outside the society. Nothing can enter the public treasury for the benefit of one citizen or one class unless other citizens and other classes have been forced to send it in. If every person draws from the treasury the amount that he has put in it, it is true that the law then plunders nobody. But this procedure does nothing for the persons who have no money. It does not promote equality of income. The law can be an instrument of equalization only as it takes from some persons and gives to other persons. When the law does this, it is an instrument of plunder. With this in mind, examine the protective tariffs, subsidies, guaranteed profits, guaranteed jobs, relief and welfare schemes, public education, progressive taxation, free credit, and public works. You will find that they are always based on legal plunder, organized injustice."

The Law - by Frédéric Bastiat

[ivan_gammel]

There's no much sense to argue here with French liberal from the XIX century who fought against mercantilism. These views are obsolete and naive, simply because he was neither familiar with the governments and laws of XXI century, nor he knew about economics as much as we know today. It's also quite sad that a quote replaced personal opinion.

[syshum]

Principles are timeless.

It is sad you ethics and morality have a experation date, and the quote did not replace my personal opinion as I agree 100% with the quote, that is why I quoted it.

One does not have to reinvent the wheel every time an idea needs to be rebutted, People use quotes as a shortcut to highlight their personal opinions many times in more articulate ways then they could themselves or simply to save time which is what I have done here.

i am not going to write out a 5000 word essay on the problems with government in a HN comment that about 3 people will read