Peter Hume and others

I'm curious what do you think the point of a society/state is?
Current reasoning says that we each give up some of our rights to the state in order that we might all benefit.Taxation of one form or another is the logical consequence there of.

Your example of the Dutch dykes can only be described as medieval archery (long bow warfare). The only similarities between what is happening with AGW is rising water.

Firstly only one country was at stake, secondly The dutch did pay for it by 'taxing' other countries' wealth albeit it indirectly, it was called exploitation.How do you think Holland a pi$$ ant country had accumulated sufficient wealth to the government?

AGW will affect every country and there is no significant equivalent empire to pay for what needs to be done.

ETS is a market system in that the market determines the price of carbon. The fees offset/ partially compensates the people's extra costs. I.e. the polluters ultimately pay as such the silent hand of the market causes carbon to be elimiated.
Conversely, a carbon tax passes the cost on to the people, No compensation (help). The points inherent in RStuart and the government argument is that:
- the tax is determined by the government(s)
- it doesn't, necessarily force carbon to reduced.
- it would depend on an unachievable agreement, that ALL governments charge the same rate.
+This would lead to horsetrading between weaker governments for commercial gain,leading to it's ultimate collapse.
+ Internal political advantage devoid of carbon cost.
ETS effectively removes the latter point from internal political reach.
I would suggest that it is this element that political entities find most appealing but the same motivation doesn't have the same impact with leaders from countries that aren't as politically sensitive...i.e. China. their motivation is different.

IMO both options are far less that perfect.

Examinator
Good question but best for a separate thread I would think.

But for here, obviously if people can’t get the fundamental ethical and economic difference between voluntary and involuntary arrangements, and state and society, then the only result will be the moral and intellectual bankruptcy that the AGW camp displays.

Rstuart
Oh it get it, it’s like saying the Soviet Union was more “free market” than communist China. Why would anyone express it like that, except to dissemble the obvious?

Unlike the market for land, the market you are talking about doesn’t exist. The whole idea is that the government will extrude from its orifice an obligation forcing everyone to pay for something on which they set no market value. It’s not a market, it’s a compulsory tithe to a nutty religion, worshipping Kevin Rudd’s backside. We’re all going to boil to death from camel farts: the AGW cult are our salvation, hallelujah.

On being asked, you failed to give any reason why anyone should be forced to pay for either parties’ compulsory schemes to correct the world, any more than upland Dutch or Congo pygmies or anyone else should have been forced to pay for dykes they don’t want.

You don’t stand for “most people”; a false pretence of knowledge if ever there was one. But in any event, if the majority favour rape or robbery, does that make it okay?

Tax is by definition a compulsory impost, not a fee for services. Thus the state’s revenues depend on the forced expropriation of private property produced beforehand, and thus private property always precedes the state in logic, in fact, and in history.

Any now anyone who dares to want freedom from nasty fascists’ dream of centrally planning the entire world’s economy and ecology are “anarchists”?

Thus on every front the AGW cult, when challenged with critical scrutiny, retreats into a woeful welter of every kind of fallacy.

Peter Hume.
Clearly my prose missed its mark. what is the purpose of a society was intended to indicate the assumptive flaw in your reasoning.
You persist with the silly analogy about dykes. It is simply a nonsense, irrelevant.
You seem to have a common 'overly simplistic approach that every person and issue has some impenetrable barrier that precludes it's context

Without one there is no other. Your simplistic denial of these relationships creates a practical and or logical nonsense. No government can exist without some source of funds. That in essence some form of impost (taxation), in the case of a democracy that means the people (the beneficiaries of the collectivist concept inherent in a democratic society).

It might be argued the form of taxation or that *all* the taxation doesn't get used in direct benefits but it is the price that must be paid for that society and democracy.

IMO two of the key failings of philosophies are they tend to stereo type or ignore the human element and the wider context.

All forms of government incorporate traits from other forms. The key or unifying factor is the Human context.

Even your analogy about pygmies/ upland Dutch in the context of AGW is either a myopic nonsense or a failure to fully understand the concept of A *G* (as in Global, affecting everyone including the people you mentioned.)W.

If your argument is, I don't believe it so I shouldn't have to pay for it I could site the same (undemocratic reasoning about my paying for, current wars, our ridiculously expensive, ineffectual military forces and our part in the world wide military money black hole).In short, it's called democracy.

Your argument is simply a myopic AGW denialist one. Despite its faux complexity it is still as flawed as all the others.

Peter Hume: "Unlike the market for land, the market you are talking about doesn’t exist."

Actually it does. Europe has been trading emission permits for about a decade now.

Peter Hume: "forcing everyone to pay for something on which they set no market value"

Oh, I wouldn't worry about that Peter. If they are prepared to pay for it, it must have some value to them.

Peter Hume: "it’s a compulsory tithe to a nutty religion"

Nope. No one is compelling you to join the religion. Granted you are a part of it now, but Australia is a relatively free country. Find somewhere else that will take you, and no one will stop you going.

Peter Hume: "You don’t stand for “most people”; a false pretence of knowledge if ever there was one."

True. Which is why I didn't claim I stood for most people. Why do you say I did?

Peter Hume: "Any now anyone who dares to want freedom from nasty fascists’ dream of centrally planning the entire world’s economy and ecology are “anarchists”?"

It is more of a case of not wanting to be drawn into some dreamers vision of utopia on the basis of a lie. The world does not have a centrally planed economy and doesn't look likely to have one in my lifetime, and thus "wanting freedom from this nasty fascists" world is in fact wanting freedom from some delusional fantasy. You don't have to sell such freedom to me, Peter. I never suffered from the delusion in the first place.

>>This max's out my irony meter. And it just shows the contortions a pollie will go through to get a vote.<<

Pretty much the ultimate irony and ideological inversion in Oz politics in recent times was the way the Hawke/Keating Labor Government walked away from the socialist paradigm and embraced the globalised economy. Talk about chutzpah! By the time they were done, their successors, Howard and Costello, had little wind in their sails for big reform; they had no choice but to slowly start the process of micro-economic reform.

This shows that when a government takes a contemporary, strong policy line, the Opposition is rendered into picking up the crumbs. When the policy is not clear or set like in the ETS debate, the contest becomes a dialectic where both parties take a position that is as differentiated from their opponents as possible. Yes, it is about parties positioning themselves to get a vote, but it is also in the interests of getting a balanced dialectic around the issues.

I reckon the debate on the ETS is healthy for precisely that reason. The bulldust will eventually be outed through the pressure that comes from scrutiny, and a new direction will evolve out of the ashes of the old debate.

Peter Hume: "But in any event, if the majority favour rape or robbery, does that make it okay?"

Did someone say it was? Did I say what has and is happening to the pygmies is OK? No. But since you apparently think there is a chance I might believe annihilation of the pygmies is OK: I don't. Do you think everybody who disagrees with you favours genocide? You are right in one thing: I am selfish enough to want the society I live in be structured like those doing the wiping, as opposed to having the loosely coupled structure of the ones being wiped.

Peter Hume: "Tax is by definition a compulsory impost, not a fee for services."

So you have said, over and over again. It is like hearing some sermon from the mount, or a communist manifesto. It is as if you believe mere repetition of some meaningless phrase imparts relevance. Here is a tip: you don't have to tell me what a tax is, as I have been paying them for decades. I don't like them. Unfortunately I dislike the alternative even less.

It is a bit like that with AGW actually. It is not that anyone actually likes the idea of an ETS. It is just that if you happen to think AGW is real, you probably also think the alternatives are worse. Certainly for a liberal like myself, Abbott's ordaining centrally planned solutions like carbon sequestration, carbonisation of soil and what not is definitely worse. Doing nothing would be a better alternative. To give Abbott his due, he probably knows it. If so, doing nothing it is what he has had in mind all along.

Peter Hume: "Thus on every front the AGW cult, when challenged with critical scrutiny, retreats into a woeful welter of every kind of fallacy."

What a shame. You were doing so well with the smoke screens and mirrors. Yet in the end you could not help yourself and revealed what your real concerns. You can't stand to see anyone talk about AGW as if it was real, even hypothetically.