[e2e] It's all my fault

[Vadim Antonov]

On Thu, 17 May 2007, David P. Reed wrote:

> Are taxes collected and then spent different 
> qualitatively from profits taken and then invested?   Both are 
> involuntary redirections of resources based on the power of one set of 
> humans over another.

How exactly profits are "involuntary"?  They result from people
voluntarily buying goods. There is no other way for non-criminal companies
to get profits.

> Is a democratic government morally better than a corporate entity
> created and protected by that government's police powers?

Democracy is a tyrrany of majority. If this is moral depends on your 
definion of morality.

The "corporate entities" are NOT created by the governments. The times 
when one couldn't form a company without a permission from the King are, 
thankfully, past.  In modern times governments merely register businesses 
to collect taxes from them.

As for the protection... heh. You may be surprised to learn that 
businesses in US are protected mostly by other businesses (security 
companies, arbitrage providers, insurers, etc) and not by the government. 
There are five times more security guards than policemen in this country; 
and every commercial contract I've seen includes arbitrage provisions.

All of that simply because government protection sucks. Cases take years
to go through courts. Police won't sit in a lobby and watch visitors. And
even if it does it has no obligation to actually protect any individual or
business. Yes, you heard me right. In the US police has no duty to protect
citizens. Neither do courts, DHS, or any other agencies. The courts said
so (see, for example Warren v. District of Columbia, 444 A.2d 1 --
"fundamental principle that a government and its agents are under no
general duty to provide public services, such as police protection, to any
particular individual citizen").

The real gem about the police protection comes from Souza v. City 
of Antioch, 62 California Reporter, 2d 909, 916: "police officers have 
no affirmative statutory duty to do anything." Meaning that if a police 
officer helps you it is only because he's a good guy, not because it is 
his duty.

Sorry to bust another collectivist myth.

--vadim

PS. If somebody thinks that this discussion is out of place, please say 
    so. I certainly do not want to impose this on uninterested readers.