Quote from Person McPerson

Communist- System where the government controls the commonwealth of the people, and owns their land and businesses, this can quickly become a dictatorship. ~IgnusBurns

Well read this.
http://www.differencebetween.net/miscellaneous/difference-between-communism-and-dictatorship/

He's not saying they're the same thing, he is accurately stating that the communist model is easy to abuse by leaders due to gigantic government regulation, which means that most countries using the system quickly become totalitarian societies.

Quote from Root

He's not saying they're the same thing, he is accurately stating that the communist model is easy to abuse by leaders due to gigantic government regulation, which means that most countries using the system quickly become totalitarian societies.

Yeah, that's what I was saying in the first place, thanks Root... A good example of that happening is when Stalin was in charge of Russia, it went from Socialism to a full on dictatorship.

The only things the government needs to do: Control the police, obviously for the reason of protecting people's property and well-being. Similarly, the military is a matter of state-- it can't be controlled by a large, fluid group. Neither of these organizations can be controlled privately because, really, lethal force and law enforcement can't be left to the interests of profit or personal gain. The only other functions to be performed by the government are tax collection and the provision of just enough income to survive plus slightly more to have some upward mobility for the poorest people in the country.

All other functions of the government can be handled with the wonderful forces of the invisible hand.

Quote from poisonchocolate

The only things the government needs to do: Control the police, obviously for the reason of protecting people's property and well-being. Similarly, the military is a matter of state-- it can't be controlled by a large, fluid group. Neither of these organizations can be controlled privately because, really, lethal force and law enforcement can't be left to the interests of profit or personal gain. The only other functions to be performed by the government are tax collection and the provision of just enough income to survive plus slightly more to have some upward mobility for the poorest people in the country.

All other functions of the government can be handled with the wonderful forces of the invisible hand.

Wow, seeing all these replies makes me realize I'm a drop of idiot (in my eyes) in a sea of geniuses... XD

Ah, I'm sure you aren't worse than most of the population of America (or really any country). I'm just someone who loves studying history, politics, economics, government, etc. History is just incredibly interesting-- it's like the worlds best-written story, but it's real. It has real people, real pictures, real artifacts. Too cool.

Quote from poisonchocolate

Ah, I'm sure you aren't worse than most of the population of America (or really any country). I'm just someone who loves studying history, politics, economics, government, etc. History is just incredibly interesting-- it's like the worlds best-written story, but it's real. It has real people, real pictures, real artifacts. Too cool.

True... Though it's a sad story, one of my favorite quotes about history goes "History is written in blood..."

One could make the argument that government in itself is fundamentally immoral.
What does a government essentially do? Make laws.
What do they need for the laws to mean anything? Law enforcement.
Essentially all a government does is make rules for a large amount of people and then extort money (taxes) from them to pay for the law enforcement that enforces the laws and collects the taxes.
All governments really do is initiate force on people in order to accomplish their agenda.
That in itself is immoral and distasteful.
Personally I identify as a libertarian.
So an ideal government would be one with little to no involvement in my life, with a bill of rights, and an enforcement arm to protect those rights. Also a fair court system of course. The enforcement arm shouldn't be funded by taxes either. Maybe government owned businesses could work. All government operations should be on the public record as well.
I'd say rather than laws, there should only be rights, with the only law to be that it's the government's obligation to protect those rights. Although, there should be laws to solve civil disputes as well when it comes to certain issues like business scams and such. As well as pollution. These laws would be determined by popular vote. They would be proposed by a petition, or a civil dispute in court in
Rights would include,
Life
Speech
Assembly
Religion, expression.
Firearm ownership
Consuming drugs or alcohol, or anything.
Procreation
Property
Right not to incriminate oneself.
Right to be free from physical bodily harm
etc.

That would be a start but I'm sure in practice there would have to be some tweaks. But that's what a perfect government would likely look like.
Of course this does not account for war, disease, famine, and other disasters.

Your perfect government is imperfect because:

- taxes pay for the government and all of its branches to function, providing free public services, supporting the army, the court services that you so wish but you'd probably want them to be free, etc etc. Who do you think pays for your lawyer if you can't afford one?

- you assume that laws are bad per se except in civil disputes but you don't think about actual criminals out there. Murder, theft, and so on, and so forth. Not to mention that they need to regulate roadworks, commerce, the government itself, etc etc.

It's one thing to have a nuanced discussion about specific areas where government regulation might cause more harm than good, but he's pretending that we'd collectively be better off if we did away with 99.99% of the government's primary functions which is a fantasy born from ignorance and nothing more. Governments don't exist to protect a list of 10 basic rights and even if they did his oversimplified "they're enforced through 'extortion', therefore it's immortal" argument applies to them as well.

I'm disappointed that a Debate Thread was bumped after three months for something so poorly researched and thought out.

Replacing taxes with government owned business have implications far too complex for this train of thought. It only encourages laziness and incompetence. Having a government that is not authoritative (within reasonable bounds at least) that decides everything by popular vote would also be completely impractical, you can't have referendums and votes for everything. Thats why everyone votes once every few years, and then has no choice but to listen to the leaders you elect for those few years. Otherwise you'd have voting scenarios for every single thing, and nothing will ever get done.

Well you can always bump a debate thread on your own. :o

But yeah case in point, we have like 3 or 4 referendums every year and all they do is either stall things or... achieve nothing. All they do is cost a lot of TAXPAYER MONEY. Yeah, these things cost.

Quote from Mantha

But yeah case in point, we have like 3 or 4 referendums every year and all they do is either stall things or... achieve nothing. All they do is cost a lot of TAXPAYER MONEY. Yeah, these things cost.

Exactly. The infrastructure alone that is required for these things is massive. Then again, when an argument for a particular type of 'ideal' government ends with "Of course this does not account for war, disease, famine, and other disasters", you know the idea is in trouble.