RE: Fear of Voluntaryism due to Statist Thinking
Did I mention that I went through six months of academy for my county to be a sworn deputy? I've had that training. It's a complete joke too. Any idiot could get through it, and that's the objective. There were people qualifying on range day next to me who were too dangerous to ever be around a pistol let alone be a badge carrying officer. It was disgraceful.
We had people who had to cycle through more than once because they were failing the test. The test by the way was absurdly easy. The targets were human sized, and the max distance we got from there was about 50 feet. Some people still could not hit the target 60% of the time to pass. Cops do not get better training, they are not better qualified, and they certainly are not any better emotionally to carry guns.
That is a complete lie and always will be.
I was surrounded by people who couldn't wait to use their powers to beat people up as well. Multiple times during classes people would chime in asking when they could do X or Y to other people. X and Y were of course trampling those people's natural rights and taking advantage of double standards. Speaking of double standards, the police always have them.
What country do you know of that has it where the police have equal powers to the rest, no special protections, and no double standards in regards to criminal defense, etc.? I don't know of one. Police are always given exception after exception, and they are almost always above the law in my ways. That is not ideal at all for individual liberty of course.
Either we are all equal under the basic and common laws, or some of us are subjects and some of us are agents to the crown (so to speak).
Edit: I qualified with a 99.6 on range day, and I missed one bullet for no good reason. I must have had a nervous twitch or something for a second. haha I was sworn in, but they never even made me an ID. They knew I was a publicly outspoken person defending liberty, and they didn't like that one bit. I was quickly suspended for a bogus reason to get rid of me. It was for the best for both sides though I believe.
That's a problem for sure.
I said that there are countries where everyone is equal and cops can't commit crimes. It does not mean that everyone has equal powers. I live in Finland. The cops have a specific job to do so they have certain powers that allow them to do their job. But they don't have special protections against criminal activity. So there are no double standards in that regard. Of course, there is the possibility of abuse of power. And from that point of view, I can see your side. But there's a very high level of trust in the police over here. It's not to say that all the cops are perfect. I'm sure there are some bad ones but I'm confident they get weeded out eventually. At the very least, there are enough good ones that there is no negative image of the police among the general population. If anything, I think the police (and Finnish laws, for that matter) are too nice.
I assume the situation is similar in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. You know, these oppressively socialist hell-holes. 😉
Yes, I wouldn't be surprised if the police there are better. Your country probably has much higher standards for them too. My surname is Cornelison, and my mother was at least a third Swede. If those places were not so cold, I would seriously consider moving to one of them. My family wants to go somewhere warm year round instead though.
True. The cold weather is indeed a downside. This morning it was -12C (10F) when I left for work. I also had to clear snow from the driveway before I could leave.
What is your combined and total tax rate there on your income? If you make money on investments, are you taxed? Capital gains tax as they call it here exists there?
I think income tax is between 30-50% depending on your annual income. Capital gains are taxed too. There's also a 24% Value Added Tax (VAT) on goods and services, 14% for food, 10% for medicine or entertainment. Lots of taxes for all sorts of things and although I might complain, in the end, I really don't mind because I'm happy with the benefits I get from the government.
Ouch. No thanks! What benefits exactly? Here even our roads are built by private companies. I'm a private investigator too. We don't even need government police. We certainly do not need a standing army either.
There's all sorts of things. I think health care is the most popular one.
Let's take child birth. I was talking with a work colleague in the US. He said that our company provides pretty good health insurance. When his wife gave birth, the hospital bill was 40K USD but thanks to the insurance his out of pocket was only 5K USD. WTF?!?!?! When my wife gave birth, it cost us less than 200USD. And it wasn't thanks to any special company benefits. It's the same for everyone in the country.
Women can be on maternity leave for up to 3 years and they are still guaranteed a position when they return to work. There's paternity leave too. I think it's up to 6 weeks but I could be wrong.
In general, you don't have to worry about getting sick, having an accident, etc. Medical expenses (like with childbirth) are only a fraction of the cost compared to what you might pay in the US. And we don't even need to pay for health insurance. It's already part of the taxes.
By the way, you mentioned that roads are built by private companies. I think that's the case everywhere. But who pays the private companies if there's no government? Who pays for all the interstate highways, for example?
They would be privately owned as many roads here already are.