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TheKak wrote:
Lowered legalized drinking ages
Legalized prostotution (not in all countries)
Legalized drugs (also not all countries)
Socially, sex is more accpeted instead of taboo, especially at younger ages when kids need to learn about sex instead of being told to not do it.
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I agree that these are bad laws. Prostitution and drug possession should be legal, and the legal drinking age should begin as soon as an individual is legally culpable as an adult (18).
However, the right to bear arms is a unique and important liberty; the specific right to practice religion without government interference is important; as someone previously alluded to, the right to publicly criticize or champion a political movement is more highly protected in the US.
These liberties are, in my estimation, much more important than prostitution and the drinking age. The drug issue is another story, of course (to which thousands of US prisoners can attest).
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Dragonlich wrote:
Er... the government does not "confiscate" your wages. You pay taxes, which are then used to help the country as a whole, which is also good for you personally. I could never quite figure out that many Yanks have against their supposed high tax rate... it's *nothing* compared to Europe. But then, in my country, that money is spend on social benefits, universal health-care, good (nearly free) schooling, construction of vital infrastructure, etc. etc.
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The government <i>does</i> confiscate my wages. If I refuse to pay my taxes, they will come take my property away from me at gunpoint if necessary, and will send me to jail. That is confiscation.
Now, I do agree with the notion that the government must collect a certain amount in taxes to provide the necessary defense, security, and infrastructure to the country's citizens and businesses. However, the question of "to what degree" is key here.
The US government (or I should say, politicians) collect much more in taxes than is needed to provide its citizens with the basics. The rest is squandered on programs designed more to buy votes from affected citizens than to effectively deliver services.
This is not "good" for me. This is a pilfering of my private property for the purpose of providing giveaways to people who most often don't really need it. And, it has the end effect of undermining my ability to provide financial security for my immediate family and generations of my family to come. (When I speak of wealth, I don't mean to imply decadent consumerism. I equate the accumulation of wealth with providing safety and security for my family. The more resources I can provide for my family, the more secure they will be).
In a word, excessive taxes effectively prevent the masses from ever obtaining true wealth, and thus true power. Whether intended or not, this effect of excessive taxation ensure that common citizens tend to rise to the ranks of middle class, and then hit a glass ceiling.
Western Europe's tax systems are even more oppressive. That's why most truly gifted, visionary industrialists have moved to the US from Western Europe (as well as the rest of the world), and that's why the US is the dominant economic and military force in the world. Lower taxes decrease the burden to grow businesses, and thus create jobs, and create markets for goods and services.
Essentially, I believe that Western Europe has made themselves economically and militarily dependent on the US by driving away their best economic minds through excessive government regulation and oppressive taxation.
Western Europe, by and large, has superior grade-school and intermediate education (the US public education system is abysmal), but US universities are among the best in the world (again, usually due to funding and the support of private industry), and anyone in the US can obtain funding to attend the university of their choice.
HOWEVER, the practice of medicine in Europe and Canada is 10 years behind the US. Socialized medicine stymies cutting-edge care and advancement. If you like it in your country, fine. I prefer to have more effective procedures that I pay for than inferior procedures that are free.
I guess the point that I'm trying to make is this: the idea that what the government does with you money (taxes) benefits you is HIGHLY debatable, and in most cases is just plain wrong when you really examine the details.
In the US, the government has proven to be the LEAST cost-effective, efficient, and successful entity at providing practically services when compared to the private sector. <b>It is ridiculous for the government to forcibly take my money away to do a bad job of providing an unneccessary service to a group of citizens who are capable of providing for themselves in the first place. </b>
Anyway, I'm done ranting for now. I usually try to be more scholarly and provide citations, but I'm avoiding a pile of work right now. . .
