I could not agree more with you about labels they are used freely today by the leftist statists such as denier, conservative kook, bigot , racist , whistle blower , conspiracy theorist , old white guy, patriot and on and on.
This labeling immediately discredits and halts discourse , dialog and ultimately reason and objectivity. It is used to be dismissive of an alternate viewpoint. Certainly not curtious or thoughtful.

Have already ordered them!

Enjoy your vacation - and let me know if you liked the books.

Jan

Jan, I have ordered SM Stirlings two books and look forward to reading them at the beach!

I agree Jan!!!

"Public schools, national weather service, etc., are all supposed to be non-rival. I am not sure that that is physically possible. In fact, I even question whether sunsets are always non-rival."
I saw this by chance after four months. I'd never thought of non-rival before, so I find it interesting.

"our examples all were supposed to be available to anyone"
Actually, I was suggesting they're in the eye of the beholder. I imagined that for each one, someone could says, "this program is charity for [some group]", and someone else could say, "sure the money is paid to that group, but having that program in the country benefits us all, and we can't turn it off those who don't want to pay for it."

No, I cannot find it. (I can only find one of her songs.) I remember her singing it, though. She wrote it for one of her friends who loved the Mars books.

Jan

Could I find it on YouTube? Sounds cool

Yay! That you are!

I have actually heard the victory song of the women of Helium sung. (A modern folk artist wrote and sung it.)

Jan

Exactly. Kipling needs to be read in that context too. Both of these authors are way behind our modern image of equality, but they were leaders in their own eras.

Jan

You have to understand the time when these books were written (1930's). He was ahead of his time because back then, women had their own roles in life. I'm not trying to get you women mad at me but at that time women were mainly homemakers. ERB gave them roles outside of the home.

No I have not Jan. I will have to check them out.
Not sure which book it was but I think it was Pirates of Venus that talks about living in the trees away from the ground people(Read them over 40 years ago). Isolated from the corruption.

I could definitely imagine myself as the most beautiful woman on 2 planets, who was also incredibly brave and did fight.

I spent many happy childhood hours bounding around on Mars, swinging a sword. (While Burroughs was not at today's level of including women in active roles, his women were all capable people - and several of them did fight - which made it that much easier to imagine.)

Jan, rescued handsome princes on Mars
Edit to include where princes were

That sounds great, Jan. I will try to download them. I loved the Mars books.

Have you read SM Stirling's The High Courts of Mars and The Sky People? (Very good modern pastiches on the Burroughs books - but updating them to answer the question, "With what we currently know about these planets, what would it have taken to make Burroughs' vision REAL?")

Jan

I think it can be done. These videos are interesting, but especially #2: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL...

You are very welcome. At the very least it should give you food for thought.

Just downloaded the book.
Thanks!

Sorry to take so long to get back to you. In my view roads evolve over time, as need arises, beginning with trails changing into paths, paths widening into lanes, and so on. Let us suppose that there are several farmers that share a common path between them. They use this path to transport their goods to market. One of the farmers (or perhaps someone else) realizes that if the path were improved and maintained, the travel time to market would be shorter and with less break downs. So he visits his neighbors and suggests setting up a small road company. The other farmers seeing the value of this idea agree to contribute to the company and become partners in it. Now the "someone else" mentioned above could be government and I would have no objections as long as they paid for the road and its maintenance via fees charged to those who use the road. For example: I was informed that in California the gasoline tax originally went completely into the highways fund (to me this is an example of a use fee being called a tax -- as you pointed out "...but I see it as value for value, ..." and I agree). Alas, some years ago the legislature changed that law so that these taxes now flow into the general fund.
There are many related issues about how government programs could be replaced by markets. Quite a few years ago I ran across a very good book that discusses these issues: "The Market for Liberty by Linda and Morris Tanhill". I think you would find it quite interesting and much better at illustrating how most government run services can be better handled by the market than my simple example of roads above. One can find this "now free" book at: http:/mises.org/library/market-liberty-1

I keep thinking of interpersonal promises or oaths,
but that presumes integrity;;; as soon as I think of
enforcement, there's that word "force" and I get
wary or apprehensive or scared of the whole line
of thought. -- j

Yes, I love to try to think of how we can achieve real freedom, and still have the benefits of a stable society!

And me too.

Context matters.

His arguments are worse than silly. Being properly more precise in what is written requires having the correct concepts and principles.