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You brought up the stadium and the tax increase several times in connection to misspending by the homogenized government (I will get to this in a moment). Given that no one who controls this sort of thing knew that the bridge was in danger of imminent collapse, it is doubtful that this tax increase would instead have paid for a repair of the bridge even if that was within the realm of possibility; even still, it would not have saved the bridge. You were being intellectually dishonest by bringing it up.
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Point taken.
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It is often cheaper and more economical to replace infractructure (bridges, roads etc) than to repair them. In fact, with the viaduct that fell during the earthquake, they had to rethink the entire design of viaducts after that disaster. Repairing it and retrofitting it would have been an expensive bandaid. You are wrong in this account.
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The issue of the viaduct is not to demonstrate an issue that was avoidable (I know I misrepresented this so my mistake), it was supposed to represent a case where the government failed to act in regards to what was considered a reasonable danger. The benefit derived from the actual collapse isn't as important as the demonstration of government action. The government has no real interest in fixing or even seriously investigating the bridge by virtue of its divided attention. Unless alarms are raised or appropriate attention is called to the issue, government will be slow to act.
Whether the retrofits would have failed is still an uncertainty, the point is to illustrate that the government failed to act under means that were considered to be reasonable at the time.
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Also, you feel that repair of the entire road system should come before new projects. I'm sure that you practice this philosophy in your personal life, making sure your credit card bills are paid before you go to to see The Bourne Ultimatum, but personal finance doesn't scale up to match the finances of an entire country. Frequently new road works are more necessary than filling potholes in your neighbourhood. You show a distressing lack of scale in thought.
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Point taken.
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You suggest a corporation will take the politics out of infrastructure. This is ridiculous but I will get to it in a moment. You tell me that we have "already gotten over" the one company business, but a quick scan of the thread shows you haven't really addressed it. So you are lying again.
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I think there was some misunderstanding there, since I was talking about competition between transit, and that multiple corporations for modes of transit would cause the road corporation to compete for its use.
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Even still, due to the nature of the business, infrastructure companies really couldn't compete with each other, since everyone needs efficient roads that get them where they want to go. You have several times said that the very nature of corporations is that they compete, and that they produce the most effective use of funds due to this competition, but this competition within the infrastructure business couldn't exist. You are wrong on this account.
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Point taken.
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you suggest that anonymous 'shareholders' who have done nothing to earn their place in a corporation would have more interest in the goings-on of that corporation than the voters who have done nothing except gain citizenship to earn that right to vote. This shows a willfull ignorance of the behavior of people.
You say that 'politics' would be taken out of the equasion when we move to a corporate-based system, but then admit that the 'shareholders' would elect board members. that sounds like politics to any thinking man, and shows that you don't know what you're talking about.
You say that the corporation would compete with itself because no one would use shitty roads. This is obviously false. The corporation would still exact tolls, of the same price as would be for the road when it was new and perfect, for roads that were in serious disrepair. There is no incentive for the corporation to improve the road until it is undriveable. You are wrong.
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Point taken.
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You accuse sports teams of 'extortion' for threatning to leave if they don't get a new ballpark. But yet, this is free market bargaining. If a sports team is too prima-donna, no city will want them. let the market sort it out. You are betraying your free market ideals because it's crazy moon-man logic. You believe in crazy moon-man logic.
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A private team demanding taxpayer money under the threat that they would leave is not free market bargaining, it is rentseeking. Free market bargaining involves the distribution of information, so that all parties determine price by virtue of supply and demand. Voters don't have to be aware of why a team needs new facilities, they only know that if the demands of the team isn't met they will move elsewhere. Regardless of how unreasonable the demand may be, the team owner can cow voters into accepting their demands under threat.
It is practically extortion.
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You hold the government responsible for not forseeing the bridge collapse. "17years known deficient, how dare they!" you say. RR already explained how human engineers can only predict 5% of cracks in bridges, but nevermind that. How dare you claim 20/20 hindsight on something that happened a week ago; not only is this a liberal trait, but most people have the decency to put a few months between themselves and the event before claiming they "knew it all along." The fact is, it was declared deficient 17 years ago, but there was a survey of the bridge not a few years ago and they saw nothing outstanding. Your company would not do a better job, since your company would be using the same people and techniques to judge bridges as the government does, and would not throw money on bridges unless it had to. You hold a naive, idealized view of corporations and it has made you wrong yet again.
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Point taken.
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You tell Styphon that people don't have to drive on roads, that they can use alternate forms of transportation. Most of those forms of transportation require the use of roads. Once again you are proven mistaken, and you dropped the point so rapidly I dare say you knew it.
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Point taken.
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You say being drunk doesn't present an elevated risk in and of itself (which is wrong: aside from the health risks of over drinking, you lose motor skills and impair your judgement which can lead to picking fights with bad dudes which is risky) while driving in and of itself is a risk; therefore, drunk driving is no additional risk.
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I said that drunk driving elevates a risk, but that being drunk does not make oneself a danger to others. One can be drunk and not be a danger to others, it's once you put them behind of the wheel of a car that they present a real danger.
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You claim taxes are theft. This is incorrect.
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You're gonna have to do better than that.
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You support the gold standard. This has nothing to do with the thread but jesus.
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And thank you for not harping on it again.
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You support anarchy. This has everything to do with your thread. Jesus.
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Don't knock it 'till you've tried it.
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You give Mikey shit for rationalizing deaths when you do the very same. You care nothing for your fellow man but we already knew that, Oklahoma Sexy Patrol
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It was wrong for me to give Mikey shit without going into detail. In general it's wrong of me to give Mikey shit.
There's no parallel between repairing bridges, and banning carcinogens, because while the latter would end deaths caused by carcinogens it would in effect lower life expectancies and make people die from causes before they could die from carcinogens. A collapsed bridge doesn't raise life expectancies.
This doesn't mean that Mikey is wrong in spirit, it means that I'm being a bitch and playing word games.
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You mock the concept of 'theft of liberty' in regards to breaking the law as theft (something that came out of your mouth and not mine), but then you say you would much rather suffer serious, debilitating bodily harm rather than suffer theft of freedom. you're the worst coward there is; you shit bricks when it's your turn to suffer, but you mock the fear of others who suffer the same.
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No better way to deal with fear than to make fun of it. My intent is not to mock others but to mock the state of the system.
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You think that roads that are not bridges don't matter because they're not under the threat of falling down. You show a disturbing lack of imagination in that crumbling roads are still unsafe to drive. Will your corporation demonstrate the same lack of imagination?
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Point taken.
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You accuse my liberalism as being akin to the cook in Oliver Twist. Does this mean I don't feed starving poor children? That is nothing like bleeding heart liberalism. You don't know what a metaphor is.
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The nature of the Oliver Twist cook is that he
does feed starving children but not enough. When he's asked for a suitable amount of food, the reaction is to shout and issue a savage beating.
You are leaving me information starved. I cannot argue your points if all you're doing is yelling at me and spamming gold standard.
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You feel that paying tolls is consentual, but that driving on roads paid by your tax dollars (you already paid the tolls due to the virtue of being a tax payer) is non-consentual because you're not aware that accidents can happen. This is crazy moon-man logic again.
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Where the Hell did you get that? Paying taxes lacks consent because the taxes are extracted regardless of whether you've agreed to have the funds taken by government. You can consent to pay a toll because otherwise you would not be using the road. You can't consent to pay a tax, because you'll be paying regardless of whether or not you have rendered use.
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You suggest coyly that Minnesota was negligent (perhaps conspiring to do so?) and say that that is a conflict of interest. I asked you to elaborate but you never did. I can only assume you brought it up to, like I said before, accuse a state of conspiracy to murder in order to get sweet fundzzz.
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One doesn't have to conspire to murder in order to remain negligent. If the collapse of a bridge costs the state nothing, then it lacks incentive to keep the bridge sufficiently maintained. It's not because the state has conspired to get on the Federal dole, it's because the incentive isn't there to issue a priority.
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You constantly whine about people not addressing the things you're discussing, but you dropped questions I have asked at least three times. You're a prima-donna with a short memory span.
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Granted.
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You admit that the government produces services, but don't create. You also admit that companies that produce services create. You admit that both recieve revenue for their products. You have a difficult time with applying concepts in different contexts.
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The point I was trying to make is that the government does not truly create, because the means of creation (tax dollars) is not rightfully possessed by the government. It's taxpayers who create the services that the government provides, because without those means there would be nothing. Since the government cannot rightfully claim the money as its own by virtue of the lack of trade, it has not truly created by virtue of its own labor.
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You have said many times that governments are non-competitive in any real meaningful sense of the word. I assume you're talking about federal governments, but the thing you haven't admitted at all is that the 'government' is not a homogenous entity. There are many different agencies within the federal government! There are state and local governments that jockey with each other for funds! There are many lobbyists all trying to get their cut!
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Point taken.
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Even though you say that the government has a steady income due to tax
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I never said this.
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this income is not infinite; even though the US government spends outside of its means frequently, it doesn't mean it hands blank checks to everyone with their hands out.
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I never claimed that they did. Governments will distribute funds according to their perceived need, and because there is a lack of revenue incentive for the maintenance of a bridge (revenue is extracted regardless of whether or not there is a bridge) and because of the lack of that incentive, maintenance loses priority.
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I asked you several times to no avail about this.
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I thought I had answered this, but I guess I misunderstood the question. I hope this answers it.
Honestly, thank you for actually
explaining your viewpoint as opposed to issuing statements.
What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?
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