WRONG! Please see the more recent post! You have fallen for the “no taxation, no public services” argument which pre-supposes that we are all ultimately completely selfish.

I wrote a response to NB but it’s been lost to the world of tinterwebs and I don’t fancy re-writing it. There’s a trackback above to the post I wrote on a similar subject.

“it follows inexorably from your argument that it is wrong to imprison people who murder. Ergo, there must be a flaw in your argument.”

No. My argument (after Bastiat) is that

a) since theft by individual action is wrong and
b) there is no legitimisation process than can make it right springing from collective action which
c) cannot also be used to justify anything (however terrible)

Hence…

d) taxation is wrong.

Let’s try it for murder

a) murder by individuals is wrong
b) if an individual murders (or threatens to murder) then
c) other individuals (his family, friends and others) have the moral right to redress, revenge and restitution
d) so the murderer can be “punished” by other individuals who have been wronged
e) such wronged individuals may act together, in concert or through an agency and retain the right to punish

A legal process may well be involved to determine if a wrong has occurred – but this is moot point (tee hee).

Bluey: “no doubt, but I live in hope that democracy can work”

You do? Seems you have some pretty clear criticism of and disillusionment with it.

Patently: “I think it could, and I think it should” about the BBC doing a ‘public good’

The whole point of this conversation is the notion of ‘public good’. It is that decisions are made by a centralised organisation about what is in the public good that is my problem with the system as it stands. I don’t think much of the BBC and would dismantle it tomorrow, but I actually think the argument is much better fought—as someone in this thread points out—using the wider arts. Tastes and opinion are much more polarised in the arts, as is participation, so there is much more controversy over its public funding. A centralised body cannot decide on a ‘public good’ in arts, culture or broadcast media. And neither can a genuine democracy, as this will only ever be a decision made by a majority. This stuff really is easy to individualise, and I do think it is coming.

(Yikes, Blue Eyes, any chance you can change the spellcheck on your new blog template to read UK english? All this ‘ise’s got flagged as unamerican)

Stu: “As for whether the BBC provides a public good, that’s a personal value decision. I think it does – although it should be smaller and more focused on the good things it does (docu, kids, Internet…”

The point summed up entirely. I like celebrity cook-offs, half hours devoted to someone making three quid at a tat auction, the serial violence of cockneys, and I don’t even have a computer. I think you and your documentaries and children and internet news should go and get lost. Who is to say what is right enough to be able to steal money from either of us to say?

“DavidNcl assumes that all white people want non-white people to be their slaves”

Of course he doesn’t, he suggests a hypothetical situation. We could use some less emotive examples, Milton Friedman used to talk about the majority deciding what colour tie you had to wear, is that better for you?

“You seem to be trying to tell me that it doesn’t matter what the majority think, it’s about what you think is “right”‘

Correct! At least, it doesn’t matter what the majority think when money isn’t being taken from them to decide what their culture is to be…

“The BBC has been around for nearly a century”

The licence fee was introduced in 1946. I know this after a friend googled it on his iphone this weekend in a pub, which he was subsequently thrown out of under their ‘no mobile phone use’ rule. What is my life coming to that this is what I do in pubs?

DavidNcl: ‘“I think if we lost the BBC we’d lose something inherent to our culture” – I’m at a loss to see what, frankly”

The socialism, silly!

patently: “Davidncl; it follows inexorably from your argument that it is wrong to imprison people who murder. Ergo, there must be a flaw in your argument”

There may or may not be a flaw in his argument, but it certainly doesn’t stem from what he just said there. Ergo, can you elaborate?

Ergo, there must be a flaw in your argument.