[krapp]

I don't know. Living in a country where being able to shoot people is an absolute, immutable, inalienable right granted by God himself (more so than anything else in the Bill of Rights) but where access to food, shelter, healthcare and education are all expensive privileges subject to the whims of the free market, and where half of the population doesn't even believe viruses are real, and where you don't even need the popular vote to elect a President (it's just nice to have) because the electoral system is a series of 18th century compromises to keep slavers happy... doesn't seem like the best of all possible worlds to me.

[hellojesus]

> Living in a country where being able to shoot people is an absolute, immutable, inalienable right granted by God himself (more so than anything else in the Bill of Rights)...

2A provides access to weapons. It doesn't allow people to murder one another.

> but where access to food, shelter, healthcare and education are all expensive privileges subject to the whims of the free market,...

Article 1 Section 8 doesn't enumerate Congress the power to provide any of those things.

What's more, I beieve the Federal government shouldn't. Rights should only ever be negative unless being a counterparty to positive action taken by the government (e.g., it makes sense to provide public defenders since it is reactionary to the government trying to take away your rights).

Healthcare, education, etc. are better served by the private sector with charity as the supplement for the less fortunate.

> and where you don't even need the popular vote to elect a President (it's just nice to have) because the electoral system is a series of 18th century compromises to keep slavers happy...

The electorial system is designed to prevent tyranny of the majority and is biased towards inaction. This seems better than a pure democracy to me because most government action is bad: inefficient, introduces moral hazard, etc.

In a system of pure democracy, the bottom 51% can vote to tax the top 49%'s income away. Then the next iteration the new bottom 51% can vote the same. Eventually this could lead to purely even distributions. That seems wildly worse for society: all incentive to produce would be void.

[krapp]

Most people - even most Americans - aren't libertarian minarchists who believe everything the government does is harmful by default and that free market capitalism is an unalloyed moral good. History has shown that the kind of governance you want rarely works out well for anyone but oligarchs.

[hellojesus]

I don't believe everything the government does is harmful. Personally I'm quite fond of the FAA despite the many that complain about TSA.

But most of what the government does introduces dead weight to economic transactions or moral hazard. This is especially true when the government tries to provide social benefits beyond taking over a product or service that could perfectly well be provided by the private sector.

I would have little argument against the government regulating that private healthcare providers cannot discriminate on the basis of preexisting conditions. It would increase costs uniformly across the industry. I do have arguments for providing healthcare on the basis of income, as I believe the program would be better served by private charity. Those who argue the contrary do so only because they want to force all citizens to contribute to the private charity (run publically) of healthcare-for-the-poor, because they want to solve someone else's problem but don't want to have to bear the burden themselves.

[rcarmo]

It does if you're quickly converging into the Handmaid's Tale universe. May the odds be ever in their favor - I'm quite happy we don't carry guns to make it through the day...

[MiiMe19]

You do not have a right to other people's work. I should not be forced to give you food because you are too lazy to do it yourself. If you do not work, you do not eat, just like Jamestown.

[krapp]

Yes, all the poor are simply lazy, and you yourself have never ever benefited from the collective labor of society.

[MiiMe19]

You do not deserve to eat just by existing (unless you are disabled or medically cannot work). Saying this is true implies that you have a right to other people's labor, which you do not.

[femiagbabiaka]

Land, water, air and light used to produce food are not owned by any particular human either. The monopolization of that land (at the point of a gun most often) is the beginning of the issue. The overuse of that land, often subsidized heavily by taxpayers, in order to generate exorbitant profit for the few is a rot in human society. Those owners are the actual ones who don't work and expect a reward for it

[astrange]

You forgot "are a child".