May I respctfully begin a new thread?

[Hyrion]

You really need a remedial course in the workings of representative government.

I'd also suggest a course in basic reality...

If you truly believe that all of the people who would get Quabbin water would have "payed [sic] for it voluntarily", and that there would be no one who would accept Quabbin water without paying their fair share, your naivete pegs the needle.

What's amazing is that Pigpot seems to believe that the avg person is totally honorable while conversely believing the avg politician is totally dishonorable. My humble opinion of her/his authorings.

[pigpot]

Water, for most communities in Greater Boston, comes from the Quabbin Reservoir in western Massachusetts (my Facebook name comes from a mountain in one of the towns flooded in 1939-46 to create Quabbin). Had Quabbin not been built, AT GREAT TAXPAYER EXPENSE, we would be lucky to have water of dubious quality; and even that would have to be filtered and treated AT GREAT TAXPAYER EXPENSE. If we had no government-supplied water supplies, companies like Nestle would surely offer to supply what was needed -- at a rate ensuring a handsome profit for itself, high compensation for its executives and a sexy return on capital for shareholders.

Excuse my ignorance. What am I paying my rates for and every other tax as well.

Previous citizens of Massachusetts paid to build Quabbin. My current water rates go towards getting the water to me and to making sure that it does not get dangerously polluted in the process.

As for "every other tax as well", consult your national and local budgets.

So for all the Government demands of taxation to pay for this and that if the people really wanted to have built it theywould have payed for it voluntarily. It's seems the Government wanted "Quabbin" to be built.

No sh*t, Sherlock! The Massachusetts government wanted Quabbin to be built because the people in Greater Boston needed the water which it would provide; and cities like Worcester were needing water from some of the other sources out that way. The enabling legislation was enacted by Representatives and Senators elected by their constituencies, and signed into a law by a Governor elected the same way. If you truly believe that all of the people who would get Quabbin water would have "payed [sic] for it voluntarily", and that there would be no one who would accept Quabbin water without paying their fair share, your naivete pegs the needle. That goes double if you believe that a private company could have brought about the necessary land takings, during the Great Depression, at a lesser cost than what the Commonwealth of Massachusetts paid.


You really need a remedial course in the workings of representative government.

edited to restructure quotations -- AndyK

"So the people didn't want Quabbin to be built then. The Government wanted Quabbin to be built... Hang on Holmes I have an idea, but it's not a sh*t one like yours. What say, dare I mention old boy, that, what if... what if... the people of Greater Boston got together and employed companies who tendered for the most efficient bids in creating Quabbin. They could take the needless Government out of the equation and and thus it would most certainly have cost them less due to at the very least, Holmes my boy, not employing ridiculous bureaucrats who add absolutely no value to anything ever.

The companies that don't deliver on their contracts as per, they simply don't get paid until the do deliver but no more than than agreed sum. It's their loss if they can't keep to agreed sum. We can however come to a reasonable arrangement and work things through. The contract was made and it was their fault and they must remedy their mistakes. If disagreements came about then an independent arbitrator was already agreed upon before the signing of the contracts and was part of the contract itself. The arbitrator was agreed on from a pool of top class arbitrators. If he or she can't do the job Holmes then bally well sack the man or woman. The people of Greater Boston can find someone else.

This is the beauty of freedom of choice in every respect Holmes dear boy, we get what we want, NOT what we are given by a bureaucratic system that holds a monopolistic, 100% share on the power in our every day lives.

It's all the same Holmes dear boy. Privately competing firms doing the very best job possible Holmes is far more efficient than lazy Government officials, some with rolled up trouser legs taking huge amounts of dollars in brown paper bags, only joking about the last part Holmes, that is of course not true in any way, shape or form. Secret societies do not exist Holmes and certainlynot in the honourable elected government.

This proves there is no need for Government Holmes. No need at all. I'll still help the poor man out on the street. We can all volunteer Holmes and create jobs for these people. Start with soup kitchens and places of safety for them to sleep. What am I saying Holmes everywhere is more safe as communities are hiring their own private security forces now and have sacked the local Police force that was provided by the Government and look what happened to crime Holmes. It went down.

So Holmes, I'm glad you offered me the opportunity to put you straight on the lack of need for Government.

I say old boy... have you made that cup of char yet. Be a good old stick and put the kettle on, I'll have two digestives."

[Pottapaug1938]

Pigpot, you will recall that I said:

That goes double if you believe that a private company could have brought about the necessary land takings, during the Great Depression, at a lesser cost than what the Commonwealth of Massachusetts paid.

Your (ahem) brilliant response was:

What say, dare I mention old boy, that, what if... what if... the people of Greater Boston got together and employed companies who tendered for the most efficient bids in creating Quabbin. They could take the needless Government out of the equation and and thus it would most certainly have cost them less due to at the very least, Holmes my boy, not employing ridiculous bureaucrats who add absolutely no value to anything ever.

You quite forget/overlook the fact that a private company does not have the legal power to create something like Quabbin. You are also unaware that most of the work to construct Quabbin was done by lowest-bidding private companies. You are hopelessly naive if you believe that private companies, motivated (as they should be ) by the prospect of making a profit, could have built Quabbin more cheaply than it was.

You are also hopelessly ignorant when you talk about "the people of Greater Boston [getting] together" to get Quabbin built. That's where you need a remedial course in representative government, Pal, because that's exactly what they did -- through their elected representatives. This isn't a matter of forming a committee to construct a local playground; this is a matter of getting the legal authority to build a multimillion dollar reservoir. No private group can do that.

You have also bought into the delusion that people in our goverments are "ridiculous bureaucrats who add absolutely no value to anything ever." I am not going to accord that delusion the respect of crafting a response to it.

[NYGman]

Also what aabout the Billions of Dollars spent by NYC to bring water down to the city from Westchester. I do not see citizens of NY getting together to pool billions of dollars together, to get this project done. It is a $6 Billion project that will take 50 years to complete. Not something I see private people funding or managing, based on those numbers. A Government has the resources to take on these type of infrastructure projects, private citizens do not.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_ ... nnel_No._3

[Judge Roy Bean]

... what if... what if... the people of Greater Boston got together ...

You mean, what if the people of Greater Boston got together and viola - stuff just happens? Obviously you've never tried to manage an organization of more than one person.

[AndyK]

Also, what about the two or three (thousand) people who didn't opt into the mega-expenditure program?

Do they not get any water?

And how would that be implemented? After all, they're all connected to the same water mains as everyone else.

Inquiring minds want to know the details of your castles-in-the-clouds plan.

[Arthur Rubin]

Moderator post
Political and ethical questions are not permitted on Quatloos. Although I was opposed to the initial decision, I now see why.

Only discussion of whether this thread should continue are allowed from now on. If I don't here a good reason why it should continue, I will lock it within 24 hours.

[pigpot]

The people that want the connections pay a private group to privately construct what they want. From project managers to coal face workers. The project management team takes care of that. You only get the best or most certainly the ones you want. It's called self-determination. You know freedom of choice. When others see it working and they want the benefits they can contribute and become connected. Wanting a benefit is different to being compelled to HAVE a benefit or what SOME may consider to be a benefit. Fluoridation for instance. Mass medication thrust upon some that don't want it. Solution is to let everybody that want's it go and get it from the waste industries that produce it as a toxin. Those that don't want have it don't get it. Don't determine that everybody should have it first and then go and make the ones that don't want it in the first place have to go and by a filter for it (reverse osmosis also). That's thinking backwards. The people are grown up, in the main, to think for themselves so let them decide for themselves. Just because a poor few don't think for themselves, "Nanny State" can reel her head in and let regular folk run their own lives.

[NYGman]

The people that want the connections pay a private group to privately construct what they want. From project managers to coal face workers. The project management team takes care of that. You only get the best or most certainly the ones you want. It's called self-determination. You know freedom of choice. When others see it working and they want the benefits they can contribute and become connected. Wanting a benefit is different to being compelled to HAVE a benefit or what SOME may consider to be a benefit. Fluoridation for instance. Mass medication thrust upon some that don't want it. Solution is to let everybody that want's it go and get it from the waste industries that produce it as a toxin. Those that don't want have it don't get it. Don't determine that everybody should have it first and then go and make the ones that don't want it in the first place have to go and by a filter for it (reverse osmosis also). That's thinking backwards. The people are grown up, in the main, to think for themselves so let them decide for themselves. Just because a poor few don't think for themselves, "Nanny State" can reel her head in and let regular folk run their own lives.

Problem is cost. Big infrastructure projects require large expenses and also require coordination. It may cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to connect your home. The government can afford to bear the cost up front, and recoup it over time, an individual may not be ale to do that. Also as for coordination, you need to make sure things are done in the safest way, that will not interfere with someone else, you may run pipes to your home, but in so doing, make it more costly or even impossible for your neighbor to do the same, or in laying your expensive pipe, you have paid the bulk of the work for others, how do you expect to recoup, will you now ave to contract and deal with all your neighbors, what if they all want to build lines directly to their homes...

what you suggest, like this thread, is just patently absurd, and while in a simple pre-industrial world, may have worked, in the modern world of today, you need the government to do these things. Who pays for the roads, you may not drive, but everything you have gets to you, because of those roads, not just the road your house is on, all roads. Is everyone going to built their own transit system to get their own goods, no... absurd.

The only place I see this working is on a Kibbutz is Israel, or an artist commune in the desert, where people work the land and are self sufficient.

[pigpot]

Problem is cost. Big infrastructure projects require large expenses and also require coordination. It may cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to connect your home. The government can afford to bear the cost up front, and recoup it over time, an individual may not be ale to do that. Also as for coordination, you need to make sure things are done in the safest way, that will not interfere with someone else, you may run pipes to your home, but in so doing, make it more costly or even impossible for your neighbor to do the same, or in laying your expensive pipe, you have paid the bulk of the work for others, how do you expect to recoup, will you now ave to contract and deal with all your neighbors, what if they all want to build lines directly to their homes...

what you suggest, like this thread, is just patently absurd, and while in a simple pre-industrial world, may have worked, in the modern world of today, you need the government to do these things. Who pays for the roads, you may not drive, but everything you have gets to you, because of those roads, not just the road your house is on, all roads. Is everyone going to built their own transit system to get their own goods, no... absurd.

The only place I see this working is on a Kibbutz is Israel, or an artist commune in the desert, where people work the land and are self sufficient.

Well the only cost for one person is the cost for one person. Drum another 9 people and the cost is lowered by the extra 9 people. Listen, I assume you live by others, everybody pays anyway so you don't need government to force you to do so. That's the issue here, the gun barrel. Pay and comply or die (in most extreme but nonetheless essential form). The games over, look around you, people aren't happy with it and the message, however small IS getting out there.

And then you post two conflicting ideas. This:

what you suggest, like this thread, is just patently absurd, and while in a simple pre-industrial world, may have worked, in the modern world of today, you need the government to do these things.

And then this:

The only place I see this working is on a Kibbutz is Israel, or an artist commune in the desert, where people work the land and are self sufficient.

An answer to all you issues lies here in this video:

Law without Government: Conflict Resolution in a Free Society

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kPyrq6SEL0

[Judge Roy Bean]

...
An answer to all you issues lies here in this video:

Law without Government: Conflict Resolution in a"n impossibly small" Free Society "with no contact with another UNARMED, DOCILE, ALTRUISTIC Free Society."

Fixed it for you.

[Dr. Caligari]

Well the only cost for one person is the cost for one person. Drum another 9 people and the cost is lowered by the extra 9 people.

I'm not going to let that one go. The first person to build a water system will have costs of millions of dollars. She or he may eventually recoup that from people who sign up later, but the initial builder, in your impractical scenario, has to come up with an absurdly large sum of cash (or something, because there couldn't be currency in your anarchistic utopia) to get the reservoir, pumping station and other infrastructure built.

[pigpot]

Well the only cost for one person is the cost for one person. Drum another 9 people and the cost is lowered by the extra 9 people.

I'm not going to let that one go. The first person to build a water system will have costs of millions of dollars. She or he may eventually recoup that from people who sign up later, but the initial builder, in your impractical scenario, has to come up with an absurdly large sum of cash (or something, because there couldn't be currency in your anarchistic utopia) to get the reservoir, pumping station and other infrastructure built.

No, not at all Doctor you're complicating things to suit your already established position. A simple water catch is how a small community builds water supplies. Multiply this by the other 9 each maintaining catches and then others may see the sense of buying into the same idea. By doing this and catching from rain it frees the people from going and taking water pails to the local source and such. Time is freed to become more productive and thus as time (spent as labour) is currency it is used for many other things that diversify labour and increase localised decentralised profit (of more time gained as machinery is used to work for the community and the community becomes less machine like. People who know and can teach, do so and teach their successes to others, NOT LAME GOVERNMENT CURRICULUM. People become self-knowing and centres of learning develop and so on and so on. It extrapolates from there, much like what is now but without force, coercion and debt slavery so it extrapolates beyond the exponential. You can either see it or not. Depends how your mind is governed. Slave mind or free mind. There's no such thing between the two. You either see and want freedom or you don't end of. I never used to and loved to vote for the Party that I saw as the one that would change everything. "It" (the Party) never changed anything so I voted for the other end of the spectrum to find they were the same. Everybody got taxed, people were arrested for victimless crimes and so on it went.

NO THANKS.

Government NEVER played a part in it making anything better. Why because it's a stick to prop up the lazy who receive benefits but for those who can't afford to live (not out of their own choice) I'd willingly give a portion of my wealth to help them get on track and so would most others I know. I've been there and done voluntary work.

Giving back is not alien to me. To others however...... I leave that one with you. What I am and as time goes by, increasingly so, is NOT going to give is my compliance to governments in any form. Again I'll do it peacefully as that's the kind of person I am. I don't come to there house with hand cuffs and harmful paraphernalia. Why should they come to mine when I haven't committed harm, loss, injury or fraud. (Rhetorical, no question mark needed). And puuuhleeeze don't start like what others have done to define what harm, loss, injury or fraud looks like as for any sane adult it looks like a reasonable thing. For sure the "State" cannot be harmed and it can never be a victim.

Your call...

Cheers.

[Judge Roy Bean]

...
Government NEVER played a part in it making anything better. ...

Political sophistry of the lowest sort and this diatribe has come to an end. Please take this kind of topic to another site.