I guess more modern forms of collectivism - such as credit unions - are not common in US?
Credit unions are very much alive and well in the US. It's a banking option. Some are happy with that option,and some aren't, but it's an option.
The farmer down the road calls and asks me if I can fix his barn door. I fix his barn door and a couple of months later he'll show up with half of a pig or something, for my freezer. It's not even barter, and nobody keeps track. I help him when I can, and he helps me when he can. It's a form of free-market that works for us. Many of my friends and neighbors would agree.
Collectivism/socialism/communism would mean that I was obligated to help him. None of us would be happy with that arrangement.
Therein lies the difference.
I won't argue about society's equivalency regarding good and bad behavior. There are both kinds of people in the world, and both have their camps...
Some people choose to do good of their own accord. Making it law, mandating it, and requiring it under threat of government force changes the very definition of 'good'.
Government being involved means coercion and threat of force/violence. Always. In any matter.
And Government won't voluntarily stay out of anything.
There's the fight.
The very concept of a 'benevolent' government has changed.
Only then will we have real evidence to prove or dispute ANTZ claims.
That is all too true Kent but we can't just abandon the science. We need every tool we can use but the most important tool we have is our voice saying loud and clear, ENOUGH!!!! We won't stand for it anymore. Followed by voting the .......s that legislate the lies out of office and going after the like of the FDA and the rest of the alphabet soup gangs for fraud. Remember , they are profiting big time from the lies they tell and the strong arm tactics they use IMO are just as bad as the old protection rackets of the 20's. The only reason they are getting away with these con games is because it's government approved.
Ayn Rand was no nun, and HPV causes lung cancer, too.In 1974, after decades of heavy smoking, Ayn Rand undergoes lung cancer surgery and the doctors manage to save her life.
In 1976, after several "free market" medical bills, she understands the benefits of Collectivism and enrolls to Social Security and Medicare.
She dies in 1982 of heart failure.
If anything, the antz can have a field day any day depicting her as the posterchild of "free market" smoking.
The real problem with those tax-subsidized private grants and scholarships is that the college administrations grovel to get them. It gives the wealthy more power over the colleges. They are both power-mad and stupid. I have in mind stuff like advertising mogul Sid Lerner's donations to Johns Hopkins, Columbia, and Syracuse University."A different principle and different considerations are involved in the case of public (i.e., governmental) scholarships. The right to accept them rests on the right of the victims to the property (or some part of it) which was taken from them by force.
The recipient of a public scholarship is morally justified only so long as he regards it as restitution and opposes all forms of welfare statism. Those who advocate public scholarships, have no right to them; those who oppose them, have. If this sounds like a paradox, the fault lies in the moral contradictions of welfare statism, not in its victims.
Since there is no such thing as the right of some men to vote away the rights of others, and no such thing as the right of the government to seize the property of some men for the unearned benefit of others—the advocates and supporters of the welfare state are morally guilty of robbing their opponents, and the fact that the robbery is legalized makes it morally worse, not better. The victims do not have to add self-inflicted martyrdom to the injury done to them by others; they do not have to let the looters profit doubly, by letting them distribute the money exclusively to the parasites who clamored for it. Whenever the welfare-state laws offer them some small restitution, the victims should take it . . . ."
Ayn Rand
“The Question of Scholarships,”
Government Grants and Scholarships—Ayn Rand Lexicon
I've never seen the show Mad Men, and didn't know anything about Sid Lerner until reading the links you posted, and searching a bit from there. Looks like he's involved with people putting out anti-vaping trash, including the 'mouse study'.The real problem with those tax-subsidized private grants and scholarships is that the college administrations grovel to get them. It gives the wealthy more power over the colleges. They are both power-mad and stupid. I have in mind stuff like advertising mogul Sid Lerner's donations to Johns Hopkins, Columbia, and Syracuse University.
http://www.jhsph.edu/news/news-releases/2014/new-lerner-center-for-public-health-promotion-launched-by-johns-hopkins-bloomberg-school-of-public-health.html
https://www.mailman.columbia.edu/give/donor-profiles/sid-lerner
http://www.awakeningscny.com/Natural-Awakenings-Central-NY/March-2015/An-Interview-with-Mad-Man-Sid-Lerner/
This is the kind of crap that the government should be protecting us against, not encouraging. And all that guff about "looters" and "parasites" is just a distraction from the really important thing, our freedom from charlatanism and tyranny.
I'm not fully caught up on this thread but from what I am reading the 3 of you (jman, carolT and Kent) are arguing for a similar goal.
Causality is what the infection theory is working toward from my understanding. MSuspect pathogens have been identified but not yet proven to be causes. This is the "work in progress" part of the infection theory.
I think, once pathogenic causality is finally proven, as it has been with HPV, then a logical next step would be to find out what compounds in cig smoke affect what pathogen and how or conversely have no affect. Only then will we have real evidence to prove or dispute ANTZ claims.
I'm not fully caught up on this thread but from what I am reading the 3 of you (jman, carolT and Kent) are arguing for a similar goal. Causality is what the infection theory is working toward from my understanding. MSuspect pathogens have been identified but not yet proven to be causes. This is the "work in progress" part of the infection theory.
I think, once pathogenic causality is finally proven, as it has been with HPV, then a logical next step would be to find out what compounds in cig smoke affect what pathogen and how or conversely have no affect. Only then will we have real evidence to prove or dispute ANTZ claims.
I get really stressed when I try to open my mind about what she says. I feel guilt, either way. It certainly wouldn't surprise me if every word of it were true, but the implications, and how it complicates the fight - I'm not sure I can handle it.If I was a betting man, I'd bet that CarolT is probably right.
But I'd want odds.
I mean, seriously, why would we NOT expect it to be mostly true?