At 05:52 PM 11/12/98 +0000, Damien Broderick wrote:
[...snip...]
>
>Presumably libertarians will find all this a bit of a bore, since they will
>maintain that *no* central provision of education, health, etc, is
>justified. Still, given that state-funded education is common, I can't see
>any just way to avoid allowing groups to choose how to deploy the chunk of
>the education dollars they pay in. Similarly with pornography, abortions,
>writers grants :) etc. If enough people find these practices loathsome and
>detestable, let their consciences be assuaged by the knowledge that the
>share of the tax buck that's going to pay for the services is not coming
>from *their* contribution but from the tax paid in by the very many who
>disagree with them.
[...snip...]
I cannot help but to see this as an argument *against* taxation. If fine-grained representational disbursement is an appropriate way to spend tax dollars, why not eliminate the middle man (government) and let the individual directly spend their money for these services? It would certainly be more efficient.
Perhaps a compromise would be for the government to decide allocation, but for the individual to determine the actual spending of their tax dollars. Of course, this leads to several other issues, but I'll leave it at this.
-James Rogers
jamesr@best.com