moralist

I already resolved this issue decades ago. Isn't there a free market Capitalist private sector where you live? It sounds like you haven't the slightest idea of how it works so I'll explain. I make money in the private sector by using public roads as a tool. The taxes I pay for my share of the use of those roads are all included in the price of products and services I sell. So I don't pay them... the cost is all passed on to the end users. They pay.

Now that is a prescient comment... Man does indeed create in his own image... whether it be machines, or governments.

No sarcasm intended. I was demonstrating the contradictory nature of 100% uncertainty. I'm saying that is what the original statement is saying. This is similar to the assertion that no absolute objective truth exists... which in itself is an absolute objective truth.

That also plays into the idea that debt is capital. Capital does not actually produce anything, only people who work can produce wealth. You see, there is a basic flaw in a debt driven economy. A long time ago, there used to be a social stigma associated with living in debt, whereas now it has become a source of pride. People have become proud of their ability to borrow money because it gives them a false sense of power. They are proud of their high credit card limits and equity lines of credit as if they were acheivements, when in truth they are only expressions of what they lack... capital. This is what makes recessions and depressions so beneficial. They are the inevitable inexorable return to the reality of capital as being capital... from the fantasy of regarding debt as if it was capital. Human nature does not change. Only individuals can change by acting contrary to their own human nature. My minority opinion about debt has absolutely no power to set public economic policy, so you are all safe in the certainty that the debt driven economy will continue with all of its just and deserved consequences. If you didn't learn anything from the debt collapse of 2008, you'll always have another opportunity when the next one comes. I'm content to only have the power to set my own private economic policy, because that is all which is required to protect me from the consequences of your debt driven economy. It's as safe as living in Galt's Gulch.

The preponderance of obesity in America seems to bear that out.

No sarcasm intended. I was demonstrating the contradictory nature of 100% uncertainty. I'm saying that is what the original statement is saying. This is similar to the assertion that no absolute objective truth exists... which in itself is an absolute objective truth.

Isn't it an absolute certainty in itself that you can never be certain?

Then there is nothing to complain about for you already have exactly what you want... an economy that runs on debt.

Do you realize that is now the minority viewpoint? The majority has clearly and loudly voted for something for nothing... and the government they have created in their own image will give them exactly what they deserve. So stand clear while they get it.

I'm saying that a different society would exist today if its economy was not based upon regarding debt as if it was capital like the present American economy is.... ...and no one knows what it would be like. All I know is what my own personal economy is like from operating on the principle of solvency. And it is a sound principle which has provided iron clad protection for decades from becoming the collatoral damage of many repeated boom and bust economic and political cycles. Just what did you expect to happen when everyone has indulged in the fantasy that a lack of capital is capital? Do you think that there are no consequences for abandoning reality for a fantasy? Everyone who indulges pays just as they deserve.

Yes. Modern society as we know it today... drowning in trillions upon trillions of dollars of debt... personal, corporate, and government.

No, as they both represent a lack of capital... but have come to be regarded as capital. Not immoral as in overt evil... just unwise. Operating 100% solvent is only my own personal preference. Everyone else is perfectly free to do whatever they want. Just stop for a moment to consider what happened in 2008 when debt became an unearned entitlement. For the years leading up to that time, debt was crack cocaine to the economy and everyone was freaking high on it. Just a few more years now and that lesson will be lost again as people return to gamble in the zero sum debt casino where one person's gain can only come from another's loss. I see the difference only as a matter of scale. Think of Ted Turner as a horse... you are free to bet on that horse, and it might win and it might lose. That's a risk you fully and voluntarily choose to assume. I consider myself a horse, too albeit a very tiny one... and so I choose to only bet on myself because I'm also the trainer, the manager, and I own the track.

I don't know the answer and need to ponder your question... but want to say how much I appreciate the truly thought provoking issues you raise here.

I believe your assessment is not far off the mark. Everyone is an informative example to others... whether it's a good one or a bad one. And Kate offers a wonderfully entertaining counterpoint. The more she acts as a cheerleader for the debt system, unearned entitlements, and sings praises to the monetary policies of bloated deadbeat debtor European liberal socialist bureaucracies, the more really good sound reasons she continues to provide for people to run the other way from them. When people talk of their admiration for the grand sweeping scale of macro economic governmental monetary policies... ...they're actually revealing to everyone how they handle their own personal finances.

That is because the brain is a computer... ...and the mind is a radio.

What really helped me was to disconnect the television. It really helped me to realize that with which I actually come into direct personal contact is the world for which I am personally responsible. That is my personal sphere of influence where I exercise control by setting the moral tone. Once I realized that my world excludes things for which I had no control or responsibility (which is everything you see on television), the world around me can only be as good as I am. This positive feedback became motivation to refine my life simply by being mindful of of properly addressing the small details over which I have total control and full personal responsibility. What is outside of your personal sphere of influence and beyond your control and responsibility is within the sphere of influence of others and is their responsibility. I can't fully express how happy this made me when the full realization of this basic truth finally dawned on me.

I understand. It's impossible to enjoy freedom without first securing your economic freedom. And there is a logical orderly process to secure it for yourself. One of the first steps is to find out what your talent is. Everyone has a talent for which others are happy to pay for what you can do well. It can be anything, and there is no such thing as menial work. Anything has the potential to become a prosperous business when you work for yourself. My Father was a self employed janitor and window washer, and he was able to own a home and support his family. The challenge for each of us is to discover a way to buy ourselves out of slavery. My approach was to learn a simple interesting trade for which I had aptitude and thoroughly enjoyed, simply by first doing it as a job working for someone else. Then I did it for myself. You wouldn't believe the powerful consequences that one simple act can set into motion.

You know, Kate... you just keep providing reason upon reason why not to gamble in the debt market casinos.

I fully understand that the moochers and the government looters who service their demands do not agree with me. Because they comprise the political majority, it is they whose votes created a European style liberal socialist bureaucracy which gives them government food, government insurance, government housing, government education, government daycare, government healthcare, government loans, government grants, government disability, government jobs, and other government benefits... ...and all at the expense of others. I just described the principle by which politics operates. Wherever the moochers and looters comprise the political majority... they create large liberal socialist bureaucracies in their own image. With the understanding that simply stating my opinion of how I think things should be on an internet forum has absolutely no power to set public policy, I focus instead on refining my own responses to the way things are. In a broader sense, the operative question each one of us is on their own to answer: How do you live a good life in an evil world? I found a satisfactory answer to that question to implement in my own life, and am enjoying the results.

...or also by paying the lender back in inflated devalued dollars. This is why I avoid the Creditist system by operating within the Capitalist system.

Yes. From the infintessimally exquisite quantum particle dance... to the billions of light years of great rotating galaxies... to a planet with liquid water... to the 50 trillion living cells in your body... to the moral law everyone answers to whether they like it or not.

Yes, I am. ... and I made that perfectly clear from day one. There is no conflict between Ayn Rand's objective sense of moral justice and how I regard God's to be. And I don't believe in the liberals' religious fantasies of God any more than she did.

You'll just have to work out what you perceive as an injustice for yourself. For I am just as powerless to alter government public policy as you are... but we both have the power over how we each choose to respond to it. So, as an alternative to impotent complaining, my response was to learn how to turn a perceived injustice into a genuine blessing by becoming an American Capitalist producer who uses public roads to make money. What you choose to do about it is completely up to you.

There is an implication in your use of the word "unfortunately", as if those who work hard to own property didn't earn that merit, that it was just dumb luck. Yes. No say. Because it would have kept the moochers from becoming the political majority like they are right now. The earned merit of voting should never have been purposefully degraded into an unearned entitlement. The moochers should have never been allowed to out vote the producers like they have been doing. I fully understand that what I'm saying has absolutely no power to set public policy, so my own personal response to the present situation is to do my level best to keep getting fleeced down to an absolute minimum.

The intention you are describing does not apply to me because that is not my intention. I use the roads as a tool to make money, so the gas tax paid for the cost of maintanence is just another business expense which is passed on to the end users of my products and services. And not just me. Every businessman who uses the roads does exactly the same. So if you feel unjustly robbed... the solution to your complaint is to become a Capitalist producer, and then the roads will become a useful money making asset.