Top 10 favorite statist arguments

[Lord T Hawkeye]

Another one of my random ideas I want to get around to making a vid about.  The title pretty much says it all.  I have most of the good ones but does anyone have any others they'd like to contribute?

10. Love it or leave it

9. Taxation is not theft

8. Without government, everyone will murder, rape, steal etc etc...

7. Who'll build the roads, take care of the poor, run healthcare, tie my shoes etc etc...

6. Without regulation, the rich will dominate us!

5. Redistribution of wealth

4. The "free rider problem"

3.

2.

1. The social contract

[MrBogosity]

Negative Externalities should be on the list.

[Lord T Hawkeye]

Ugh...I know that term but it's slipped my rusty memory.  Care to elaborate?

[MrBogosity]

Ugh...I know that term but it's slipped my rusty memory.  Care to elaborate?

The big example they give is pollution: big factories run by unfeeling, uncaring, greedy fat psychopaths go out of their way to spew as much crap into the air as possible. It's an externality because they don't incur the costs of doing so, and so the price mechanism doesn't work to disincentivize the behavior.

[Goaticus]

Certain things like currency and science research are too complicated for ordinary mortals. We need the Government to descend from Mount Olympus and give these gifts to us. 

[MrBogosity]

Yes, and related to that is the idea of standardization, that government needs to set down standards because it's something that private organizations could never do (despite the existence of IEEE, ISO, and many others that do exactly that).

[ebalosus]

Another one of my random ideas I want to get around to making a vid about

I look forward to that video 

But I digress: One of the thing's I've noticed with statist arguments (like for example from the Amazing Atheist) is that they are asking valid questions about how things would be without the government doing things, but fail to grasp the principle behind it. They seem to believe that only a government can do those things listed, not those big bad businesses...or heaven forbid, self-organised interested individuals (i.e. an ad hoc committee) 

To those people, the government is like alcohol: the solution to, and the cause of a lot of our problems

[MrBogosity]

One of the thing's I've noticed with statist arguments (like for example from the Amazing Atheist) is that they are asking valid questions about how things would be without the government doing things, but fail to grasp the principle behind it.

It's like creationists asking questions like, "If we evolved, where did morality come from?" or "Why are there still monkeys?" Both of these are good questions, and the answers to these can lead you to a better understanding of evolution. But they're not asked with that in mind; they're asked as if these are great unanswerable questions that automatically show the other side is wrong because there couldn't possibly be any answer to them.

[Lord T Hawkeye]

That's probably why when I do answer them, they blow me off and go straight back to insisting they can't be answered.

[MrBogosity]

That's probably why when I do answer them, they blow me off and go straight back to insisting they can't be answered.

Yes, and that's true of both the statists and the creationists.

[AnCap Dave]

Yes, and that's true of both the statists and the creationists.

A lot of creationists are also statists, so it makes sense that they would use similar logic.

[Anpanman]

A lot of creationists are also creationists, so it makes sense that they would use similar logic.

A lot of creationists are also *statists*. Is that what you mean?

[AnCap Dave]

A lot of creationists are also *statists*. Is that what you mean?

Oops. You'll have to excuse me. I'm still in "morning mode."

[Anpanman]

Oops. You'll have to excuse me. I'm still in "morning mode."

Ha well I never slept. I have a very messed up sleeping schedule.

[MrBogosity]

What really gets me, though, are the ones that aren't creationists--that join the rest of us in attacking creationism--but use the exact same fallacies and tactics in support of the state. They would NEVER accept that kind of argumentation from creationists, yet they themselves rely on it all the time.