Police are tasked with protecting the rights of a group of individuals. An Objectivist police force does not recognize such thing as group "rights." That is an anti-concept.
"Any group or “collective,” large or small, is only a number of individuals. A group can have no rights other than the rights of its individual members." Virtue of Selfishness

"We have a huge problem with collectivism, esp with middle-class citizens who look to the gov't to take care of their life decisions or basic needs. This is part of why gov't is several times most costly and intrusive than it needs to be. " Yet this is exactly the agenda of the Progressives, which you support. It's fair game to call you out on this. Why would you support candidates and governments which advocate taking care of you and providing your most basic needs, like a phone for instance?

Again, no one disagrees with government providing a police force.
"The only proper purpose of a government is to protect man’s rights, which means: to protect him from physical violence. A proper government is only a policeman, acting as an agent of man’s self-defense, and, as such, may resort to force only against those who start the use of force. The only proper functions of a government are: the police, to protect you from criminals; the army, to protect you from foreign invaders; and the courts, to protect your property and contracts from breach or fraud by others, to settle disputes by rational rules, according to objective law. But a government that initiates the employment of force against men who had forced no one, the employment of armed compulsion against disarmed victims, is a nightmare infernal machine designed to annihilate morality: such a government reverses its only moral purpose and switches from the role of protector to the role of man’s deadliest enemy, from the role of policeman to the role of a criminal vested with the right to the wielding of violence against victims deprived of the right of self-defense. Such a government substitutes for morality the following rule of social conduct: you may do whatever you please to your neighbor, provided your gang is bigger than his." Galt's Speech

khalling is a girl and she agrees

Police are like a gun. They are a tool. They can be a tool for collectivism or individualism

Having a police force is not theft. What I reject to is paying for it based on income. That is an irrational determination for taxing and it is also progressive in nature. Rand is for government providing the function of property right and natural right protection. How to pay for it is procedural partly and there are moral solutions. An income tax is immoral and collectivist thinking. So, now that we remove police and courts from my concept of collectivist programs, pick another to defend.

There is no difference.

Maybe so if you believe all gov't taxes and spending are immoral and based on theft. If you some taxing/spending is okay but other is theft, we need to know what's difference.

I didn't mean any offense by "singling out", just trying to understand why some spending is collectivist.

I don't think there was any "singling out" except by you.

"I think those programs are all deemed immoral since they are based on the use of theft as their common tool of implementation."
Aren't all gov't programs funding by theft (compulsory taxes)? If so, what is the reason for singling out certain programs as collectivist?

Still irrelevant, Robbie. You were not arguing the talking points of your religious views. The subject of our discussion was your "bad asses" exist as a refutation of Objectivism...as you said, an oft repeated argument on your part. I pointed out the errors in your logic. If you still disagree, at least keep the red herrings in your lunch bag.

This is one of Rand's points: the result of consistently practicing altruism (the collectivist basis of most religions) can only lead to death of the individual.

Irrelevant to your "bad ass" vs. Objectivism argument.

Sorry, Robbie, I didn't realize this was your exclusive, private thread. I thought the Gulch was an open conversation for anyone to comment on anything that inspires them on the topic under discussion. "On principle" is a philosophical concept, and that's our main context here. Or were you just trying to be funny?

Your logic is flawed. Most of mankind has never heard the concept of natural rights. Your conclusion is similar to the flaw in thinking that advanced math is refuted by a history of most people not knowing or understanding it.

Rand's achievement was explaining the origin and validity of man's rights in a way not previously understood.

it was good