http://www.youtube.com/embed/65y3Zk6bUhU?start=424

The candidate mentioned democracy and the war on terror, but his “most important reason” was religious, and that is what drew applause.

I have always been a bit puzzled by the religious motivation. Israel as a political state is not the same as the house of Israel or the tribe of Judah mentioned in the Bible, and it doesn’t make sense to apply to it the promises and privileges given to biblical Israel.

The pity argument, that the U.S. should support Israel because the Jews suffered so much during the Holocaust, doesn’t make sense either. History is full of examples of terrible suffering and brutal genocide, and the U.S. response has not been remotely proportional to its treatment of Israel. The Armenian genocide, in which over 1.5 million were killed, is a useful example because it has been a controversy for President Obama’s administration. Obama originally promised to recognize the Armenian Genocide. He has taken this statement off of his website, but an archived copy is available here (pdf). However, he has subsequently failed to do so. Moreover, Secretary of State Clinton recently said that recognizing the Armenian Genocide was a dangerous, and that it was still subject to historical debate. The reason for all the hemming and hawing about the issue is, of course, the U.S. relationship with Turkey–another strategic resource.

I know that most of this is tangentially related, but it is a good example of why it doesn’t make sense to justify supporting Israel out of pity for the Holocaust. The Holocaust was terrible and inexcusable, but that doesn’t mean that the U.S. should fund Israel for the rest of its existence.

I’m no statistician, but I think 9/40,036 is the probability that a particular election will be within one vote rather than the probability of whether your vote will be the pivotal one.

I reject the idea that a person who loves government can also love liberty. One who loves liberty can tolerate government and use it to preserve liberty, but loving government itself is antithetical to loving liberty. There’s no false dichotomy there. We may have different opinions about what “government” means, but that’s another issue entirely.

Your accusation that those who love liberty are not bothered by the inequality of opportunity between rich children and poor children is simply false. It does bother me that some parents are either unable or unwilling to provide for their children. Some are lazy, some are foolish, and some are just unfortunate. I would be happy if every child could receive a great education and eventually find a fulfilling, meaningful career. That would be wonderful. But I am not willing to rob my neighbors to achieve it. That would clearly be immoral. Moreover, I would not say to a parent, you cannot spend your hard earned money to benefit your child because there are other children who won’t have the same opportunity. Who am I to judge my neighbor and take from him what he has earned? That would be claiming power and privilege that I have no right to claim–much like a king.

There will always be poor people and rich people. Some skills and abilities are more valued than others, and any honest person will admit that people come with varying levels of intelligence and work ethic. That doesn’t mean that I want poor people to be poor. I firmly believe that each person should help those around him, and that ultimately this is the only way to find joy.

But a person who uses force or threat of force to impose their utopian dreams on others has committed a far greater wrong than the bitter miser. And teaching the idea that a person has the right to coerce his neighbors to provide for himself and his family–whether for education, housing, or food–is no different in the end from teaching that it is fine and good to bind one part of the people into slavery to support another part.

In the words of Abraham Lincoln in his seventh debate with Steven A. Douglas:

That is the real issue. That is the issue that will continue in this country when these poor tongues of Judge Douglas and myself shall be silent. It is the eternal struggle between these two principles-right and wrong-throughout the world. They are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time; and will ever continue to struggle. The one is the common right of humanity and the other the divine right of kings. It is the same principle in whatever shape it develops itself. It is the same spirit that says, “You work and toil and earn bread, and I’ll eat it.” No matter in what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people of his own nation and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race of men as an apology for enslaving another race, it is the same tyrannical principle.

This is both a “false dichotomy” fallacy and a “no true scotsman” fallacy. You’ve defined liberty in such a way that anyone who loves it must fit your particular mold. If they don’t believe like you, they don’t love liberty. Surely you can do better than resorting to such bald rhetorical tricks.

Appealing to equality is clever, and relevant in some circumstances. Individuals may be privileged by the state, and get unequal and undeserved access to benefits paid by the taxes of other more deserving individuals. But privilege is not only state-granted. Children may be privileged by wealthy & well-connected parents, thus gain access to superior schools, services, and reap rewards which they have not earned.

But that type of inequality does not seem to bother “those who love liberty.” Only the type of inequality where the government helps one group. That is important, it is a minor part of the inequality in much of the world, but don’t let that stop you in your crusade against do-gooders seeking to help the those disadvantaged by birth through government intervention.

We have in this nation this element of domestic slavery. It is a matter of absolute certainty that it is a disturbing element. It is the opinion of all the great men who have expressed an opinion upon it, that it is a dangerous element. We keep up a controversy in regard to it. That controversy necessarily springs from difference of opinion; and if we can learn exactly—can reduce to the lowest elements—what this difference of opinion is, we shall perhaps be better prepared for discussing the different systems of policy that we would propose in regard to that disturbing element. I suggest that the difference of opinion, reduced to its lowest terms, is no other than the difference between the men who think slavery a wrong and those who do not think it wrong.

The Republican party think it wrong; we think it is a moral, a social, and a political wrong. We think it is a wrong not confining itself merely to the persons or the States where it exists, but that it is a wrong in its tendency, to say the least, that extends itself to the existence of the whole nation. Because we think it wrong, we propose a course of policy that shall deal with it as a wrong. We deal with it as with any other wrong, in so far as we can prevent its growing any larger, and so deal with it that in the run of time there may be some promise of an end to it. We have a due regard to the actual presence of it amongst us, and the difficulties of getting rid of it in any satisfactory way, and all the constitutional obligations thrown about it. I suppose that in reference both to its actual existence in the nation, and to our constitutional obligations, we have no right at all to disturb it in the States where it exists, and we profess that we have no more inclination to disturb it than we have the right to do it

We go further than that; we don’t propose to disturb it where, in one instance, we think the Constitution would permit us. We think the Constitution would permit us to disturb it in the District of Columbia. Still, we do not propose to do that, unless it should be in terms which I don’t suppose the nation is very likely soon to agree to,—the terms of making the emancipation gradual, and compensating the unwilling owners. Where we suppose we have the constitutional right, we restrain ourselves in reference to the actual existence of the institution and the difficulties thrown about it. We also oppose it as an evil, so far as it seeks to spread itself. We insist on the policy that shall restrict it to its present limits. We don’t suppose that in doing this we violate anything due to the actual presence of the institution, or anything due to the constitutional guarantees thrown around it

We oppose the Dred Scott decision in a certain way, upon which I ought perhaps to address you a few words. We do not propose that when Dred Scott has been decided to be a slave by the court, we, as a mob, will decide him to be free. We do not propose that, when any other one, or one thousand, shall be decided by that court to be slaves, we will in any violent way disturb the rights of property thus settled; but we nevertheless do oppose that decision as a political rule which shall be binding on the voter to vote for nobody who thinks it wrong, which shall be binding on the members of Congress or the President to favor no measure that does, not actually concur with the principles of that decision. We do not propose to be bound by it as a political rule in that way, because we think it lays the foundation, not merely of enlarging and spreading out what we consider an evil, but it lays the foundation for spreading that evil into the States themselves. We propose so resisting it as to have it reversed if we can, and a new judicial rule established upon this subject. I will add this, that if there be any man who does not believe that slavery is wrong in the three aspects which I have mentioned, or in any one of them, that man is misplaced, and ought to leave us. While, on the other hand, if there be any man in the Republican party who is impatient over the necessity springing from its actual presence, and is impatient of the constitutional guarantees thrown around it, and would act in disregard of these, he too is misplaced, standing with us. He will find his place somewhere else; for we have a due regard, so far as we are capable of understanding them, for all these things. This, gentlemen, as well as I can give it, is a plain statement of our principles in their enormity.

This post actually started out with that idea in mind. I wonder what would happen if every person who is eligible for government benefits were to take as much as they could–as a form of political protest. Would this drive government to raise taxes beyond what the general public could stomach? I don’t think it would be moral, though, because the unfortunate taxpayers would suffer even more losses than usual.

@Lauren

It is important not to mistake the benefits of living in a market society for government benefits. Even if government were not involved in food production, road construction, etc., we would still have food, roads, and so on. The difference would be that the market would efficiently determine how much of these goods were produced and how they would be provided. The myth that without government subsidies we would still be living in the dark ages is nonsense. So the fact that we all benefit from living in society can never justify a person reaping unjust gains from government extortion. The benefits of living in society come from voluntary cooperation, while government benefits are the product of involuntary taxation.