Your Gotcha Goose Is Cooked

I saw this meme today from my friend list, and was relieved there was an honest answer attached to it. There is some growing pragmatism among my idealist friend circle. Finally, people realize things are more complicated than these inane questions lead one to presume.

“Prior to 1913, most roads in America were unpaved, consisting mainly of dirt and gravel. Improved roads were primarily found around towns and cities, and even those were often just graded or surfaced with gravel or brick. A vast majority of the 2.5 million miles of roads were dirt, making travel difficult, especially during wet weather.

• Dirt and Gravel Roads:

The most common type of road was simply packed dirt or gravel, which became muddy and rutted in wet conditions.

• Plank Roads:

Some areas saw the use of wooden planks laid over the roadbed, offering a slightly smoother surface, but these were often temporary and required frequent maintenance.

• Cobblestone and Brick:

While some cities had cobblestone or brick-paved streets, these were not widespread, and the majority of roads outside of urban areas were unpaved.

• Limited Improved Roads:

Only a small percentage of roads had any kind of improved surface, such as gravel or brick.

• Lack of National Network:

There was no integrated system of roads connecting cities, and travel between settlements often relied on railroads.”

I wish I knew and could credit the sound individual who wrote the salient response to Gotcha Goose.

Yes, this is the kind of pragmatism that we need in these conversations. The roads before 1913 required less skill, less special materials, no special machines, and so it’s almost a socialist question (ironically) to assume all the road pavers of today should just get together and build roads for the community as a donation or that we could take up a hat, going door to door to pay for that level of expertise. The infrastructure that we have today takes innovation, work, specialization, skill, equipment and you guessed it, money, taxes.

Welcome to the real world, the modern world. Taxes for infrastructure are an affordable and efficient way to handle the innovative and evolving infrastructure needs of a larger community.

It’s a shame though that with as much as we spend on taxes, so little is devoted to infrastructure. Every road, driveway, bridge, utility should be built and functioning with top of the line modern enhancements and advancements. All power lines should be buried for what we spend on taxes today. Instead, we get: war for Israel.

So, I hear your beef, anarchists. It’s totally legitimate and pragmatic to not want war for Israel.

But you often still say idealistic nonsense (not unsimilar to people calling for war with Iran when we lack modern infrastructure nationwide) that shows you also haven’t devoted enough sensibility and attention to real world struggles and real world priorities.

If we (humanity) were as evolved as anarchists and other idealists assume we are, such that we could suddenly live peacefully without borders “soon”, the first thing we’d see is innovation. We would see our tax dollars used for infrastructure to keep up with the needs of humans on earth before spending big money on trips to *hopefully*, *one day*, *maybe*, colonize Mars. We’d see buried power and phone lines here on earth across every nation before we would have a war with a non invasive country.

Let’s not put the cart before the horse. Borders are not a thing of the past, and practically speaking, humanity will always find them more efficient and innovative as infrastructure in a society improves. Heaven forbid, the sources of said energy for innovation and the results of each society’s endeavors would get stolen or invaded and reappropriated by neighboring societies as is the case right now in the US with immigration. Hence borders.

Your morality questions and your Gotcha Goose depict a time when man lived happily in dirt and squalor, without need or use of said innovated infrastructure and improvements of today and without the understanding of the complication of trying to involve a city of 300 citizens much less several million, all weighing in equally on every expense and question of infrastructure. Your morality concerns are immature at best in a modern world.

Go live on the dirt in squalor and isolation if that is your primary concern, your non aggression principle upon which you demand respected before associating with all other humans living in modern times and keeping up with modern dilemmas. I understand the modern world probably won’t leave you alone to do that. But you also use our modern infrastructure all the time when you muddy our streets with your horse shit, buggy master. The best you can do is live in isolation mostly and be left alone more of the time than you depend on and use what a taxed society has gifted you to your utility. Call it “a win.”

We haven’t and won’t evolve past governments. Our focus needs to be on creating a parallel alternative to the current government regimes dominating our modern world with equally as ludicrous priorities as the anarchist non aggression principle. Installing this new regime should be our priority. Putting people over ideals should be our guiding principle. Seeing an evolution that takes real world, earthly motivations and priorities and applying them efficiently, should be our quest. Ignoring cultural issues, real time moral dilemmas, and the need for harmony and efficiency in a modern world will not evolve us, but practicality and efficiency will.

Crying “taxation is theft” is nothing more than an idealist banner and should be given as much credence as “colonize Mars” or “war with Iran.” All fraught with the same folly of prioritizing the ideals of the fringe, flailing minority in an increasingly more pragmatic world over the welfare of humanity in decline.