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Antibiotics were indeed, originally developed for the military, get your facts straight.

I know for a fact there would BE NO INTERNET TODAY if it werent for government spending... Arpanet became the internet.... and guess what, when it finally was made open to the public by a bill signed by Bush Senior, not a single commercial equivalent existed! Some private point to point, and modem BBSand FIDONET.... Private industry was nowhere near its own Internet as it existed in the early 90s, and the private networks that did exist, were built completely upon the concepts and research that built the government programs.

No one is doubting that money kept by persons would be spent, certainly it would... money is a vehicle flowing is what it does. My argument is not that the money would not be spent, our disagreement is how it would have been spent. Your supposition is basically the following "Public works are always bad, and the same or better result will come without them" that's really the argument you are making, and its completely false.

I suggest you go look up what exactly a SOCIETY is... there are certain things societies do collectively for the betterment of all.. its not big government, or socialist, its reality! If there were no tangible benefit to such things, societies would never form.

Its a good thing tax money has built an infrastructure such that nearly every person in this nation can get safe clean drinking water in their homes, and that sewage systems remove the waste from nearly all of them... Its a good thing that the government helps private people buy their own homes and have private property through the FHA and Mortgage deductions, we are a better off as a society because of it.... Its a good thing government funded INTEL, etc etc etc... Your failure to recognize there are things that can only be accomplished by society as a whole shows that you are making purely ideological arguments, not ones based in fact or reason.

As for being big government, I voted for Alan Keyes for crying out loud... I am so sick of the foolishness, that if you can see what a society is, you must be a liberal big government lover.

Antibiotics were indeed, originally developed for the military, get your facts straight.

Alexander Flemming discovered penicillin - discovered it in 1929 working at St Mary's Hospital London. You get YOUR facts straight.

I know for a fact there would BE NO INTERNET TODAY if it weren't for government spending

You know no such thing. You infer it from the fact that it was an outgrowth of arpanet; however, who knows what could have been done with all of the wasted wealth that government has plundered and squandered over the years.

"Public works are always bad, and the same or better result will come without them"

Pretty close. I would say that public works are always inefficient, frequently unnecessary and unwanted and cost far more than the same result produced by private means.

do collectively for the betterment of all.. its not big government, or socialist, its reality!

Other than wage war which admittedly government do well, I can't think of anything that the government does that couldn't be done by private means or that shouldn't be done at all.

If there were no tangible benefit to such things, societies would never form.

Oh I agree that there is plenty of tangible benefit. However, the tangible beneft accrues to the government itself or its favored cronies (aerospace companies in the case of NASA) and not to "society as a whole" I am always suspicious of the phrase "society as a whole" because there isn't any such thing. In fact the concept itself is ludicrous. It implies that the same things benefit everyone. It doesn't benefit me to take my money and give it as food stamps to some illegal Somali immigrant, but I've heard many times that programs like food stams "benefit society as a whole" It doesn't benefit me in the least to give John Glenn a $400,000,000 ride as a reward for blocking a bill in committee, yet there are those who insist the space program "benefit society as a whole" It doesn't benefit me to pass gun control legislation, yet the a$$hole who push it always use the same tired cry - it benefits "society as a whole" Hogwash.