You know you have a fair well-reasoned argument though the little quip at the end just comes across as childish.

Your victory is not complete, until you've peed on the opponent's unmoving body...

Yes, they're quite "free" to quite their jobs

Yes, indeed, they are free to quit their jobs — without having to give up on their house, country, and friends — if their assessment of the risk of coming to work is so drastically at odds with that of their employer.

you are "free" to move to Somalia if you're unhappy with having a functioning government.

Oh, no you don't. That cliche is too worn-out and too oft-refuted to still be usable. Libertarians have no problem with a functioning government. We just want to (drastically) cut its functions, thank you very much.

The families and friends of those fatalities would likely invite you to shove your entire Ayn Rand library up your arse.

Had you actually read the link on how the Statistical Value of Life is calculated, you would not have had all that angry adrenalin in your blood. For it is computed based on our own willingness to pay for extra safety.

For example, if having some hypothetical contraption in your car is convincingly known to lower your risk of death by 5% and the implement costs $10K, then the people, who are unwilling to pay extra, value their lives at below $200K.

Or they consider themselves exceptionally less prone to accidents — which is why actuaries use multiple such datapoints to arrive at the number.

Is it not "heartless" to even attempt to attach a $-figure to a human life? Hardly... Because the lost monies could've helped save lives too. Ever heard of charitable donations? A wounded fighter having one package of Celox available, for example, increases his chances of survival by 60% — according to Ukrainian volunteers trying to procure as much of the wonderful stuff as they can get donations for. $20 is what one package costs...

Sounds more like authoritarian dictatorships fail while a robust democratic government that responds to its citizens succeeds.

An authoritarian dictatorship is certainly worse, than a robust democratic government.

However, between authoritarian dictatorships, a "Radical Left" one — like that of Chavez or Castro — will bring certain misery and economic collapse, whereas a Right-wing one may set the country in the right direction.

Today, 30% of Chile's income is because of the state owned Codelco.

Irrelevant — whether the company is publicly owned or not, the income it produces still counts towards the GDP.

partially supported by the surge in copper price in 2005

Their economy economy started going up in 1984 at the rate largely unchanged since — despite all of the fluctuations in the copper price.

Statistics aside

Yes, sure. We should put statistics aside and make decisions based on individual anecdotes...

In my personal experience, based on how I've worked with chileans in IT, they are below Argentina and Brazil

Ask your colleagues, if they'd rather work in Venezuelan IT...

I'd suggest it all started going downhill when the courts reclassified News as Infotainment

When was that?

and stated that it didn't have to be true.

Would you rather have some sort of Department of Truth to determine, what can and what can not be said?

What about lives if the storm was big

I did account for lives — you must've missed this part:

The "Christmas Blizzard of 2010" is imputed with 7 fatalities — or, in dollar terms, $63 million dollar, tops.

Money is easily recovered

No, it is not. An American's life is — objectively — worth somewhere between 8 and 9 million dollars, depending on which method you use to calculate it.

So people don't go to the grocery store today

Well, maybe your work is insignificant, Wally, and you may as well stop doing it. But that $4bln per day does come from somewhere — from people doing something, other people are willing to pay for...

Maybe we should cancel all holidays

Or, maybe, we should make every day a holiday instead? See, how far you can get with that kind of argument?

I guess you must have missed the dissolution of the USSR.

I lived in the USSR at the time of its dissolution, you anonymous moron. It was an economic collapse, not a step-down by anyone disappointed in lack of popular mandate and support from immediate circle. Not one of the Communist rulers has stepped down on their own.

if the people want a radical left government then your vote against is not going to prevent that.

My point is, those "people" are making a mistake.

Uh-huh, yeah, persecution of the majority by a minority has a solid track record through history.

Not the majority voting, but the tiny minority asking for votes. All Collectivists — whether they have a red-star beret or a tiny mustache on their clothing — lead to disastrous policies. Either immediately (from inherent evil) or soon after their good intentions fail and they must find excuses.

BTW is thepeoplescube.com the persecuted, or the persecution?

The particular link does a hilarious job comparing the various Collectivists... Woosh much?

Then why is this organge line [wikipedia.org] indicating the average of Latin America above the blue line indicating Chile between 1970 and 1991?

Because life sucked in the country, and the Marxist Allende (elected in 1970) proceeded to further destroy the economy until stopped by Pinochet in 1973. A series of reforms — commonly known today as "Miracle of Chile" — were necessary. The upswing in the blue line, that outperforms the orange line so convincingly today started in 1984 — with a minor hiccup in 1988, when Pinochet stepped down after losing a referendum.

Pinochet rules, Chavez drools.

There is also a different story to tell.

Yea, yea. In the face of Chile prospering doing, what they hate, while Cuba and Venezuela are faltering doing what they love, the Collectivists are anxious to find excuses...

Decades-long economic experiments — when similar (or identical) peoples lived under different economic regime: Estonia (within USSR) vs. Finland, East vs. West Germany, North vs. South Korea, Mainland China vs. Taiwan, Cuba (or Venezuela) vs. Chile — how many more examples does one need before admitting, allowing the Left to rule in earnest is an error (when it is not a crime)?

'Facts'? When did people start believing them?

Thank you for admitting, you don't have any.

If they are where you say they are

They aren't there (as far as I know) — which ought to have told you something. Had there been anything, you would've seen it Guardian and NY Times 20 times already...

Citing precedence [theguardian.com] is more than sufficient

No, it is not sufficient.

you will simply spend your time poking holes

By announcing your own not believing in facts, you really left me nothing to poke holes in... How disappointing.

Tell me why I shouldn't.

Go ahead. Be sure to cite facts, though. With Wikileaks and Snowden out there, you ought to have plenty to work with. Take your time.

If they're destabilizing the place like in the middle east and south Asia and Africa

Begs the question, does not it?..

when did we become a nation of wimps?

It was all downhill since we decided (contrary to the Founding Father's advice and implorations) to make it the government's responsibility to take care of "the most vulnerable". The list of "vulnerable" has been increasing since and the number of the benevolent and caring government officials needed to take care of them has been increasing along with it. As has been the "caring" class' voting power — while you were kept focused on the "military industrial complex"...

The lost "War on Poverty", for example, has cost $22 trillion — three times more than all of America's military wars combined (inflation-adjusted). If the overhead costs (pay and other expenses of the government officials doing the wealth-redistribution) was at the idealistic 23% of that, we paid them about $5 trillion dollars over the 50 years.

If it is acceptable for 15% to remain on the dole, is it really that much of a stretch, that the 100% need to be told, when to stay home a few days (weeks, months) per year?

At worst, people lose a day's worth of work, some businesses are affected.

The annual economic output of New York metro area alone (leaving Philadelphia aside for a minute) is about $1.4 trillion dollars — or about $4billion per day (weekdays such as today produce more than weekends). If even a mere 10% of that figure was lost today because of our rulers' failures, the cost is $400 million (for New York alone).

Possible severe damage to infrastructure

Little of such damage can be meaningfully prevented by shutting the infrastructure down. But even if it could be — and even the entire $60 million cost of the "Christmas Blizzard of 2010" could've been prevented by shutting the city down, it would've still been a pretty stupid thing to do — even if the storm actually lived up to the hype.

possible death toll

The "Christmas Blizzard of 2010" is imputed with 7 fatalities — or, in dollar terms, $63 million dollar, tops.

The best course of action by far is to shut the city down.

Hundreds vs. tens of millions of dollars lead to the exact opposite conclusion.

But there is more — individuals and businesses, made aware of the risks, can (and are supposed to!) make their own decisions. Governor declaring driving on a public road a crime is something else — they violate our freedom.

and who really expects a cabaret singer to have any knowledge of risk assessment

So, where do you sing?