To Jeffery's liberal friend: (note, for the full text of what I'm responding to, please see
comments here.)
As to your preface regarding just skipping over any mention of abortion as a "strawman" argument, since this is a discussion of the morality of forcible taxation and its uses, it is perfectly relevant. I suppose if you felt only a fraction of your taxes were utilized to forcibly rape women it wouldn't be a disposable argument.
1.) Taxes are not necessarily a part of a civil society. Keep in mind that prior to the Civil War, there was no income tax, and the legality of it's utilization wasn't resolved until 1913 and the ratification of the 16th Amendment. The United States had managed to fight a number of wars prior to the Civil War without the use of an income tax prior to the Civil War, so your example of the military is without merit. Perhaps if we paid less in taxes, we'd find ourselves in less wars.
Further, infrastructure projects, such as roads, can be done and maintained more efficiently by private business and use fees associated with them. Governments have followed similar models such as toll bridges and the like, financing the projects through the sale of bonds in exchange for the long-term revenues.
I love the use of schools as an example, as in most cases, it is only the private schools that are efficiently benefiting the society and public schooling is widely a disaster.
Welfare and social security were empirically shown in at least one in depth study, along with other social programs, to cause more harm to the recipients than good, creating a permanent underclass of dependency in the 1980's. See Losing Ground: American Social Policy 1950-1980, by Charles A. Murray.
The world got by before welfare and social security and, quite frankly these programs threaten to drag down the productive members of the society. In fact, the better method is to allow the local community to look out for their own. It encourages more efficient use of the money (judging from tax returns, only far left liberals don't believe in charity) as the donor has a more direct connection to the recipient. It also is more efficient in terms of oversight as the person has a direct interest in the outcome of their contribution. Lastly, the money isn't wasted going through the hands of forty bureaucrats between the person the money is taken from and the person who eventually receives it.
In the end, at no point do you actually address the underlying question of the act itself. In essence, even accepting your premises, your argument simply becomes one of the ends justifies the means. As I've noted, the means don't work anyway.
2) Again, the comment given strays from any discussion of the moral obligation other than to say, not necessarily, and again speaks of an end justifies the means type of argument.
I would further point out that safety in the workplace was not the result of intervention by government, but rather the publishing of the fictionalized account of the times in the book which I believe was called The Jungle by Upton Sinclair. The Pure Food and Drug Act was passed just months later, which I'm sure gave plenty of time to investigate the truth of the allegations contained in the book (sarcasm noted here). Sinclair ran for President on the Socialist ticket unsuccesfully more than one time.
The result of the government regulation is that we now have government regulating where people can smoke because of questionable science regarding second hand smoke, regulating carbon dioxide, a major component of the cycle of life on this planet, under the guise of outright falsified data, CAFE regulations that will make your car go farther and will allow the car that hits you to go farther into your car, and massive overreaching that has caused far more harm than good.
In a true market, the exposure of the conditions in the factories would have led to correcting factors. An employer might make safeguards on its equipment to avoid exposure to lawsuits or even create what is now known as the workers' compensation schemes in the several states (as well as a few federal programs as well). The market will correct the imperfections as long as information is available. If anything, government should step away from regulation and encourage the flow of information into the market.
But, again, the argument is ends justifies the means. The point I was trying to make by the question is that even if one believes that it is the moral obligation of the society to provide the social net, why is it that we choose to enforce one moral obligation in favor of another?
The "abortion fixation" is a legitimate argument to draw attention to the idea of support for a policy that the federal government has no business dealing with and forcibly taking my property, violating my 1st amendment right to freely practice my religion. Your characterization of it as a "strawman" argument dismisses what is in fact a serious constitutional consideration.
By the way, from what I've read of the old people eating dog food it mostly occurred in the 1960's and 70's. The hoarding of the mentally ill into hospitals where they were sterilized and treated inhumanly were part of the programs in the progressive era agenda and the result of social design by government (not to mention that this is the same genisis of abortion).
As far as your contention regarding the socialist party, I'm not sure what you're bringing that up for, but I'd suggest you recheck your history. The socialist party has been active and continues to be active. They have never been a threat to take power, at least under that name. Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vermont) is the only socialist in the Senate. He does seem to fall in line with most of the more leftist Democrats.
5) Actually, the more patently absurd position is that charitable donations do not increase with an increase in disposable income. Unless you're Joe Biden. Bill Gates lives in Washington and seems to care deeply about the rest of the world. Perhaps cynicism has blinded you to the obvious. America gives more to charity per capita than any nation on the planet. I give regularly where I can, though much of my donations go to military charities. Living in New Orleans, I have personally seen people come in from all over to help rebuild after Katrina.
6) There has been a social net in place for more than 2,000 years whether it be secular or religious in nature. Societies tend to look after one another without the formal imposition of a Ponzi-scheme disguised as a social program. Otherwise, I'll just refer up to #2 as well (#1 for that matter.)
7) I'm not sure this deserves a response.
8) You're correct that the emphasis on discretionary spending only focuses on a small portion of the budget. But it sure does serve to show that there are some ridiculous expenditures and a smarter government is a better one. I don't believe that society is any more stable due to government intervention, and the case has been made, in my opinion convincingly, that government intervention exaggerates the length and depth of swings in the market. It is likely that government has actually made society less stable, i.e., the housing bubble.
Oh, and the General Welfare clause of the Constitution has been determined to be a limitation on the taxing and spending power of the federal government, not a separate grant of power or an instruction that government is to provide for such. You will not find social programs justified before the courts under that clause and, in fact, you'll note that it is the Interstate Commerce Clause which the federal government is trying to justify the health care monstrosity.
