Corey

Let's not undermine every issue now though just because he's a flaming socialist. America loves its war profiteering, and quite frankly, it steals from other people as much as it steals from its own citizens through taxation. My point is: yea we all can't stand that weasly bastard, but i think when we go so far as to wish ill will on people rather than just not caring about them all together, it makes objectivism look like some sort of hate machine, instead of promoting the spirit of the individual. And no, in Canada we do not leave our doors unlocked... Im surprised someone didnt beat the shit out of him with a baseball bat for walking in their front door unasked. My first remark to him would be "what the fuck do you think you're doing?" It might be safer, but i attest that to quality of education and the standing of the middle class - not anything to do with guns.

It does. Thank you Leo.

Religion is fantastically entertaining, isn't it?

While I might be surrounded by Socialism on all sides - I am thankful that there is no merging of religion and politics in my country. I dream of a United States that doesn't exist. I wish it did, because I would move there in an instant.

Hello everyone! This is my first post as well as a question, but I figure I'll get the I'm new stuff out of the way and say that I'm excited to finally find a place where I can speak with similar minded individuals about current events and what not. I have spent the last couple days reading this forum and I greatly look forward to participating in its community! While I might be no expert on objectivism, I have read Rand's fictional novels, and recently have started into her non-fiction essays. Hopefully any misunderstandings or holes in my knowledge can be filled by learning from the writings of others on this site as well as her essays. My question is the following scenario: I live in Vancouver, Canada (which is a bordello of socialism) and as such I meet significant resistence when discussing my own ideologies with friends. Most of the time, with reason on my side, all that my opponents in a debate can muster is some sort of irrational justification for why we owe our lives in servitude to others. However when discussing private property and taxation, I can get tricked up on a couple questions. First, if an individual were simply allowed to privatize and own resources, could one company simply not take over all of one natural resource and then hold us hostage to it? For instance if someone was capable of owning all the fresh water in our country - could they not then just set unreasonable prices that we would be forced to pay? I fear that the questions answer may be so simple that I seem naïve, but I have been unable to come up with a good enough rationalization for why in a completely free market, this would never in fact happen. Secondly, Government and taxation still seem impossible to me. If we have a completely free market economy, which is entirely independent from the government, how does the government exist? Does it not need to tax the public to pay for itself to exist? Even if the governments only service is the defence of the nation as a whole - how can it exist without income? These two issues are arguments have plagued me for a while, so any insight would be easing to my mind.