Exactly. I think the word racism is used far too much today, mostly for PC reasons. Anyway, look at all the interbreeding thats going on. What race IS a person anyway? How much percentage would be required to discrimminate on the basis of actual race?? Its crazy.

Yeah that isn't racial profiling, but recognizing cultural advantages and using them. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred what many on either "side" chalk up to race is actually culture.

I am also deplorable, whatever that means. I have ordered a "deplorable me" T-shirt from Amazon.

I am a charter member of the Politically Incorrect club and as such feel that I must post this link for you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMSGU...
My favorite line starts around 3:10

In 1990, I started a medical device company actually MAKING product in the USA. I can tell you that we hired "illegal aliens" whenever possible to keep our production high. White people were too entitled, and blacks were ridiculously entitled. Call it racism if you want. It wasnt- it was profiling based on a need to find good workers quickly and without making too many mistakes. Anyway, at one point the state starting cracking down on illegals, and were raiding plants like ours. So we began looking for green carded hispanic workers. Those tended to be 2nd generation hispanics. Our production fell so much that we moved the plant to Mexico, where wages were 80% less (at the time), but production came back up. We sold that operation after a few years, and started up another smaller one back in the USA, using substantially more automation. We still hire illegal aliens whenever possible (fresh off the boat, as it were). They appreciate having a job. I definitely "profile" to this day (who doesnt in so many ways nowadays- and mostly NOT on the basis of race by the way.

Oh absolutely the latter happen, but even as you just stated "they come here for opportunities". Thus, logically, an absence of the freebies wouldn't have prevented them from coming here. It would, however, be an incentive to stay productive.

There is actual research which backs this, too. We all know the tale of the first-gem immigrant and how they know how important work is. The research backs this up, but then goes on to show that this is muted a it in the second generation, and by the third the "memory" of what life is like when things aren't handed to you is gone and the work ethic tanks. Interestingly, along with this goes previous national identity. The first generation identifies and {old country}-american, but by the third generation it becomes just "american" - leaving the old country behind.

So if we removed the "safety net", I think it reasonable to expect that the work ethic would persevere. Interestingly, the first generation immigrant is often quite anti-illegal immigration. I think this, too, is reasonable. After all, they went through the "tough process", and these others are avoiding it. Despite the press' hysterics over whites, I've found personally that the animosity level among first-generation legal immigrants is often much higher.

Welcome to the ranks of the politically incorrect! Maybe if there enough of us, we can defeat Hillary and at least return a slight bit of sanity to our government

They come for opportunities and we throw them freebie welfare. Doesn't take long before they become welfare babies. It's OUR fault this happens

Problem is...it's often expensive stereos and laptops that are the victim of such break-ins. Also, thieves often do expensive damage to cars in their haste to steal the best items.

To claim that "insurance will replace it" is simply stating that we ALL are going to pay for it. Why is this acceptable, yet putting a worthless thug out of commission, isn't (and not necessarily by killing him)?

There was one instance, in Spokane, where a thief was killed, driving away in a guy's pickup. They were going to get him for manslaughter, but the judge accepted the "loss of livelihood" claim of the owner and let him off with a hand slap.

Good for him!

Ayn Rand listed police, courts and the military as the essential government services. At the federal level, a consumption or sales tax might be the fairest way to fund it’s essential services (military and courts). Police would be a state or local government service.

The latest federal budget earmarks $829 billion for military spending and $53 billion for general government, including courts and executive functions, for a total of $882 billion. These budgets are extremely bloated (like the rest of the federal government) and would probably be no more than one-fourth of their present amounts in an Objectivist society. Say $220 billion. That would be the total federal budget.

Annual personal income is $16 trillion and annual personal consumption is $12.7 trillion. So essential federal services could be funded with a federal income tax rate of 1.4% or a consumption tax rate of 1.7%.

Problem solved, until or unless we find a way to fund the federal government on a totally voluntary basis.

The notion that the interstate system being possibly superseded by air travel absent Eisenhower's efforts is an intriguing one! I must think on this one some more.

I dare say that idea might even be reasonably described as "juicy". :)

Honestly it would only go down by a small amount in a small number of locations. In truth the southern swell is not just because of benefits. From everything I've seen, life among the non-elite is rather abysmal in much of Mexico, and frankly I can't say I wouldn't take the chance myself.

However, even among the illegal immigration from Mexico there are basically two groups, culteryslly speaking and these groups are region based. Interestingly one group goes predominantly to CA and the other to TX.

Any student or culture or rational thinker would see the difference it makes. It to takes an interest in getting to first principles, as it were, so media pundits (talking heads) and politicians (bobble heads) won't do it.

These are two separate questions. The first is "What are the essential services to be provided by government". The second is "How would Objectivists fund them?".

As to the first, my view is the military is a proper function of government, as is police. That said, it does not necessarily follow that these functions be carried out by the government via government employees. They could be performed by private contractors. I would argue that many military functions can not be properly carried out by private contractors, but this is arguable. I would argue that most police functions could readily be carried out by private contractors. This would do much for reducing police misconduct and brutality since private persons are just persons in a job, not "special people" in a police role.
The military I refereed to are line officers and enlisted people, not legions of civil servants in risk-adverse, job-for-life positions driving cost into everything, self funding and instituting the communism they are supposed to be protecting us from with ridiculous data rights to "protect the taxpayer". It would be fantastic to see some of these people competing for their jobs.
My fundamental measure of the role of government in anything is: Would the efficient, monotonically optimizing capitalistic market provide the best answer or not. Local minima will occur in a monotonic search algorithm, like capitalism. For us, they occur until technology kills the buggy whip and an obviously better answer is shown. I think the interstate highway system would've happened a long time from now, had Eisenhauer not set it up. I am glad it exists today, although one could argue air travel may have superseded it otherwise. Interesting discussion. If a "thing" is needed and we can all see we are stuck in a local minima too big for a company to overcome via investments limited naturally, then the government should involve itself. This could and should be to decide we want something, and hire companies to provide it.

The second part, how to fund such items, should follow a fair and reasonable contract to the best extent possible. Those benefiting should pay the most. Who benefits from the military? The people and companies keep their freedom and stuff. Income tax is probably unfair. Property tax is probably better, since that is the "stuff". This is how an insurance policy would be priced. This is how a security service would price service, although scope of your holdings would be another question. Does the military protect international holdings? They probably should. Then they should be included. If we chose not to protect international holdings, then they should not be included. If someone paid for 20 years, and the government decides not to protect something in an "allies" country, then the government has compelled that person to servitude for a greater good, and all taxation for that property must be returned, or its value reimbursed. This should hold for all property, physical and intellectual.

Agreed 90%. Certainly private police should always be allowed as long as they accept a common set of laws and court system -- and even those can be somewhat decentralized if people who want to are allowed to self-segregate politically, as we should be. (That way it would be possible to create a successful Gulch without first persuading millions of unbelievers to want to live in one.)

There cannot be a so called objectivist society unless you mean a small enclave of Objectivism believers. Even closely nit societies do not have all true believers in the religion or philosophy believed to nit the society together. The literary image of a future Gulch of those allowed to join by promising through an oath to be true to some ideas, will end in some kind of voluntary servitude to those who, in the background, run the society just as voluntary and involuntary taxpayers do today.

This is correct. There is little likelihood of imposing an Objectivist structure from above. Rand always said it was far too early. We should fight for tolerance of rational thought, for admiration of rational thought, for enshrinement of rationality as a virtue.

There is little need for me to elaborate on this topic. Someone else has done it already, at great length, indeed at such length that few have read it all, and fewer understood.

Were they a militia or vigilantes and is there a difference?

There should be some contextual scope assigned here. Are we talking a single nation-state government (such as say Mexico), or a federated government (such as the U.S.)? The answers would be different.

Common assumptions based on "objectivist society":

95-100% of the social programs of the current fad are gone
Military is needed for defense only, not ".. and national interests"
No foreign intervention
No land wars in Asia. ;)


For a federated nation, let us compare and contrast to the U.S.

Versus current expenditures, the elimination of social programs alone would cut the federal budget[1] by around 75%. This can not be emphasized enough. Just look at the 2015 numbers.

1) Total revenue: 3.2T
2) Total Expenditure: 3.7T

if we take the 75% reduction above apply it we could guesstimate the budget, assuming no military reductions, at around 925B. I believe with a non-campaigning military (Navy+Air Force - no standing army), you could shrink the military portion by at least 25% which would drop us to around 775B. If we did a straight per-capita we're around $1800/person per year (including children) to come up with somehow - assuming no further reductions. According to the data I have in 2012 the federal government collected ~$7600 per capita.

For a federated nation, I'd recommend apportioning that to the states based on population. If a given state has 10% of the population, the state government is charged 77.5B. But if we look at not doing that keep in mind that around 230Bn/year is collected in non-income and non-payroll (excise, estate, etc.). Im not sure at the moment how much of that is estate, which I assume we'd want to get rid of, but let us call it 30Bn so this non-income tax revenue is 200B. This leaves around 575Bn to come up with.

Income tax revenue is ~47%, or about 1.5T. You could eliminate the payroll and corporate taxes, and cut the income tax by close to 2/3rds and be pretty damned close. I'd wager that between their payroll taxes being gone (thus "getting a raise"), the room for employers to pay more due to lack of corporate income taxes likely leading to better pay - most working people would balk much less when paying about 23 cents on the dollar of what they pay now (per-capita).

I'd still prefer to farm that choice to the individual states. So a state like California would get a bill for around $70Bn and they can figure out if they want to go on income or some other options (such as repeating the price by county).

There are much deeper questions on the subject of a federated state - such as are we talking about an objectivist federal only, or does it include the individual states as well? Note that I also did not take into account the ~250Bn or so in annual debt payments by the fedgov. So, if we were to assume the state was not in debt so heavily, that would be ~33% reduction.

From a nation-state perspective it becomes a bit more hypothetical because we would have to look at nation-states that are so fundamentally different that the numbers would be hard to come by. But I have the data for TX handy - a state w/o income tax. Next year's budget is 209Bn.

Drop 58Bn for public schools, 77Bn for HHS, 20Bn for universities, and you're left with about 54Bn. I think that would leave plenty of room for increasing defense spending. Currently TX spends a bit under 1Bn on border security. It could throw in 50Bn a year on building a defensive military (small and focused navy and air force, some long reach deterrence missiles, etc.) and still come out pretty well - and still without an income tax. Now, I'm not making an argument here for secession but to continue the comparison but if you consider that in 2012 the IRS collected nearly 220 Bn in income tax from Texas citizens, I'd say that from that perspective it would be a serious boon, all else equal, to Texans if they kept that 220Bn on top of the reduction in state aid payments. After all, they send to D.C. more than there state government spends. And they do not have an income tax.

Sure they don't have a big military and would need to ramp up some spending on that. But if we consider current US percentage of ~16%, drop maybe 6% for not needing a global reach, then there is plenty of funding available in the current state welfare program to provide a similar ratio for the nation-state of Texas. With the elimination of 220Bn going to the fed, you could even simply raise expenditures by 25% and come out ahead - and still have no income tax.

All in all, I think to really understand the question you simply have to look at the reduction of cost in a government that doesn't spend so much in aid payments - a government restricted to the minimum essentials. Once you begin to realize how comparatively little the government would need to collect, the question almost becomes moot in my mind.


1. I dislike using the "federal budget" because a) as anyone wth a checking account knows: what really matters is expenditures and b) what budget?

I can support that. In fact I would support complete removal of ALL social services and minimum wages.

Of course that won't happen but I would support it.

Maybe the punishment should be the denial of some or all of the criminals rights. I could hire someone to capture or kill him. You still need courts. It's complicated for sure but I think private solutions could be found

I would suggest the removal of social services for illegal immigrants AND the elimination of minimum wages for people without work permits. Suddenly illegal immigration would stop I think

A part of protection is to prevent people against ethics and ethical laws from interfering with the ethical and creative. John Galt notes distinctions between people with civilization and savages.One may agree mind giants may devise own protections and greater than it.Authorities may protect savage types against ethics from people with ethics able to dispatch savage types without ethics. It's a way to stablize harmony and allow people with civilization to invent and create what successfully and upgrade the world and nation of innocent people and maintain good civilization and not engage in professional authority activity..

One may agree police and military are part of government to protect and are there to protect people. One may agree it's the highest. Maybe words and materializations in certain areas and more words in separate areas.The greatest may be both.

Is what's definite disagreeable and disagreeing?




Is what's definite disagreeable with its own entity and disagreeing?One may note it a continuation before who makes words to describe conveniently toward the species of one and more. The harmony may look to imitate what's definite.What's there continues.What may be there is because it's not here. What's here may be here because it's not there.