Statist Religious Obligations Suck Dick

Response to this intellectual trainwreck: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=la65W-gDX6I Abridged transcript: ******************** Atticana starts off by lamenting the fact of how welfare has become a dirty word in America and increasingly so in Europe. Of course, when he talks about America, which he seems to think of as a pure free market state, a classical statist fallacy, he brazingly ignores the fact that America spends trillions of dollars on welfare programs such as medicare, Medicaid and social security among many others which don't cross my mind right now which are bankrupting America. And as far as I'm concerned, it's about goddamn time people in Europe start to wake up to the destructiveness of the welfare state. Then he goes on to bring example of how supposedly generous welfare states in Western Europe have low unemployment while those with less welfare in Eastern Europe have more, completely ignoring the biggest welfare states such as France, Spain, United Kingdom, and Germany with unemployment of roughly 10%, 20%, 8% and 7% respectively, as well as Greece with 11% unemployment, although it probably got higher since the latest available statistics due to the collapse thanks to the wonderful, omnibenevolent and unsustainable welfare state. And as far as Eastern Europe goes, he neglected to mention Belarus, with 0.9% unemployment, which just goes to show how easily you can cherry pick statistics to suit your own agenda, which effectively very often ends up rendering arguments from statistics useless and fallacious. But even if Atticana's point on welfare and unemployment is completely accurate, and even if there is a low abuse of the system as he claims, his arguments of course completely negate the crux of the issue which is the fact that all money which goes to welfare in the welfare state is extorted at the point of a gun and you must pay it whether you like it or not, because if you don't, there will come people in uniforms and throw you in a box and if you resist being thrown into a box they will turn you into a swiss cheese. You know the drill. He also claims that tax avoidance causes more harm than welfare abuse, and while I am not an advocate of illegalism, his argument is a fallacy, because it's not people keeping the fruits of their labour which causes the harm, but rather the state spending more than it can afford and taking people's wealth at the point of a gun in the first place is the source of the problem. Fast forward, towards the end of his video Atticana goes to say that welfare payments "raise the moral level of the society", that "in both moral and spiritual terms", whatever the fuck that means, "welfare systems are a good thing", that "welfare is an expression of man's highest ethical impulses" and then goes on to orgasmically exclaim "The Glory of Welfare!", before cutting to the crux of his video of saying how it is part of our "religious obligation". Yeah, another reason to thank the fucking non-existent gods(translate my brain) for helping me see through the bullshit of religion. Atticana then says that "welfare state, so long as it is intelligently and humanely run, makes society a better place". Of course, putting aside the fact that this is a purely Platonic and pipe-dream view of a welfare state run by some all-wise philosopher kings, or rather, philosopher bureaucrats, I completely fail to see anything humane, ethical, moral or glorious about taking people's fruits of labor at the point of a gun and distributing it the way those all-wise philosopher bureaucrats see fit, rather than distributing it in a way the individual sees fit. It is also important to note on my part, even though other libertarians, especially of the Objectivist stripe, may fundamentally disagree with me on that, is that I have no problem whatsoever with people pooling their resources to achieve a common goal or having privately run charities and organizations to help the less fortunate members of our societies. In fact I happily embrace such ideas. The only problem I have is with it being done at the point of a gun. It's a great tragedy that Atticana, along with the rest of the statists, does not. In fact, what Atticana fails to see is that advocating such things to be done coercively at the point of gun, which would include turning people into swiss cheese if necessary, effectively renders ALL of his rhetoric about ethics, morality and humanity absolutely hollow and meaningless. So the bottom line Atticana, is that you are NOT being in any way, shape or form ethical, moral or humane by forcing people to provide for others at the point of a gun. You are just being a self-important pseudo-intellectual gasbag, and that's all there is to it. I really suggest you start having a higher regard for people's individual freedoms and property rights, then perhaps more libertarians will be willing to take you seriously. ********************