(Link)

So (even with a nonanarchist position – and not dealing with the question of the taxes of State and local governments) there is certainly room for radical tax and spending reduction.

As for Brazil – yes they do.

For example, the B.B.C. had a documentary about how the mothers of soccer players were abducted. The criminals (either in jail, or still at large – these ones had masks on) were interviewed.

The criminals were asked how they justified the abduction (and sometimes murder) of women from the slums whose sons happen to have made some money from soccer (for some reason the B.B.C. people did not seem to have a problem with the abduction of people who were born rich – I sat there wishing that the criminals in the masks would just grab the B.B.C. people and hold THEM for ransom).

The reply tended to be that the ability to play soccer was luck and the character to develop this skill by practice was luck as well – and luck did not justify someone having lots more money than other people.

John Rawls (a nice man) would have been horrified at what these people did and I am sure that they had never read his “A Theory Of Justice” – but it was the same sort of argument.

These people just put the social justice (or “justice as fairness”) doctrine into practice – and (sometimes) they extend to the use of the bodies as well as the money of their victims.

There was a British novel written back in the 1950′s (oh my senile brain, I can not recall the author’s name) titled “Facial Justice” – where people were not allowed to be better looking that other people, and nasty things were done to people who were.

As a bald middle aged man I would not be in any danger in the world of “facial justice” (someone once told me that I would be in no danger in an American prison), but I still do not support either the messing up of faces (via operations – Facial Justice style) or the violation of their bodies.

But here is the “argument” – she (or these days sometimes he) has had a easy life (look at the soft hands and…..) I have suffered, why should I not…….

It is easy enough to construct a counter argument – but I suspect that a bullet in the head (or two bullets) is the best way to deal with such “philosophical” criminals.

Some people do not apply a doctrine as strongly as other people.

True, I am not an anarchist, so I’ll have to accept some level of taxation I guess.

But (also as I have already said) Brazil does indeed have a very big violent crime problem (including abductions) and the criminals justify their actions with the standard “social justice” arguments.

However, I agree that the governments of Chile and Brazil are not as bad as that of Venezuela – I never said they were.

Some people do not apply a doctrine as strongly as other people.

The B.B.C. described the man as a “Robin Hood figure who shared his loot with the poor”.

Now do you understand Rantingkraut?

I at least half wish that this nice social bandit had visited the homes of some B.B.C. people.

I accept that Chevez is a thug and Lula is not, although there are many abductions in Brazil – and criminals justify their actions by talking about how people richer than them is a violation of “social justice” (even if these people were born as poor or poorer than them – and they also abduct, and sometimes murder, the relatives of people who came from the same slums as them).

It is the same doctrine. The late John Rawls and other academics would have been horrified at abductions, rapes, mutilations and murders – but by their own “justice as fairness” doctrines they provide the foundation for such thinking (why wait for the government administrators to threaten the violence and get the money – why not do it directly).

As for the F.A.R.C and E.L.N. – both founded by rich kids (but people who came out with the same social justice doctrine that criminals from Mexico to Argentina come out with to justify their holding people to ransom – and to justify all their other crimes).

Rantingkraut may not like – but that is just the way things are.

However, I do not believe things are genetic, hopefully (as leftist control over education and the Roman Catholic church weakens) such doctrines will decline.

There is no real hope for the poor in Latin America (or any other part of the world) till such beliefs do decline.

Robin Hood the antitax man is fine, but Robin Hood who “robs from the rich to give the poor” is force of destruction for both rich and poor (because of what he does to civil society).

When it makes no economical sense to send crude oil to China (it cost a whole lot more in shipping), what can Chavez deliever to Red Ken? Last I heard, London doesn’t have petro refinery to make any sort of dent in its consumption.

I remember seeing a rather good car sticker at a race meeting last weekend: “Stealing is wrong. That’s the government’s job”.

“Of course one could say that they just take the main political doctrine of our time, that the wealth of some people is the cause of the poverty of other people (or, at least, that “social justice” demands that wealthy people have money or other property taken from them and given to the poor) and apply it directly.

Either by violent crime (such as abductions and holding for ransom that is the curse of so many Latin American nations – victims are often raped, mutilated and murdered) or voting for people who promise to help the poor at the expense of the rich.”

Looks like silly moral equivalence claims are not exclusive to the left. Opposing the economic policies of people like Lula da Silva is one thing, claiming they fall in the same category as ELN and FARC kidnappings is quite another.

If only that were literally true. I don’t care who sends him. (Richard Branson has some nice, fast trains going in that direction so he might volunteer.) But can whoever does it make sure it is a one-way ticket?