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Honestly, your position is as absurd to me as mine is to you

Your position isn't absurd to me at all. I know pretty much what you believe and why you believe it because I used to believe it myself. That's also how I know that it is wrong.

We are going to have to work backward to find which of us has a flawed axiom.

I have stated my axioms: they are those of classical liberalism, aka libertarianism in the US. You obviously don't understand them since you keep making assertions that aren't true. The only thing that needs "debugging" here is your understanding of what classical liberalism is, and you will have to do that by reading some books about it instead of fabricating statements out of thin air. Boaz "The Libertarian Mind" is a good introduction. You can find more reading here and here.

see you have redefined your terms to suit.

No, you keep redefining terms to suit your argument. If you eliminate the reasons for sales taxes to be regressive, they are no longer regressive. For example, if you don't tax staple foods and other basics and give everyone a basic income, then it need not be regressive.

Sales taxes already exclude staple foods and other basics; if you restrict them any further, they turn into luxury taxes. But be that as it may, of course they are still regressive, for the simple reason that people with higher incomes tend to only spend a smaller fraction of their incomes. It also doesn't work out fiscally. Germany collects a VAT, not just a sales tax, and has few exemptions, yet it raises only 20% of their total taxes, $140 billion. If you distributed that across all Germans as a basic income, you end up with $2000-3000/year/person, nowhere near enough to live on, and you're proposing to reduce the tax base even further.

And, I would say at a guess most of the Libertarians I run across would rather rip out their own livers with a spoon than implement a basic income.

Hayek supported it, and the Cato institute published an article favoring it. Many libertarians would view a no-strings-attached basic income as far preferable to the current massive system of government benefits, for reasons of privacy, self-determination, and efficiency.

The government would need a great deal of information in aggregate, but not so much personally identifiable.

You are making the erroneous assumption that progressivism and the welfare state are only about handing out money to people with low incomes; that is simply false. Both ideologies are about government helping people and improving society, and that requires attention to the details of every individual's life.

As I was saying, a society in which the function of the state is reduced to that of collecting sales taxes and turning them into a basic income guarantee is a libertarian state. Many libertarians (myself included) simply believe that that is not fiscally feasible; that's also the conclusion reached by governments that have looked into it. Furthermore, we fear that attempts to push it through politically would simply result in a basic income in addition to the current massive and intrusive welfare system.

That's not exactly a counterpoint.

...How'd I miss that? Okay, I was being an idiot when I wrote that. Sorry. Let me be honest enough to admit to screwing up, even if it's just an internet debate.

Let's see, now that I have something of an idea of what you're talking about. I do support quite a few programs, though as I said before, everything interlinks, so if it's beneficial to society as a whole, it's beneficial to me as well, even if not directly. As I try to think of an example, I discover that I'm very good at coming up with indirect links.

Okay - how about a different aspect of my opposition to the war on drugs - I support legalizing, taxing, and regulating more than just Marijuana. Part of the reason for taxing would be to fund addiction treatment centers. Basically the same idea as behind tobacco cessation programs - there's so many different programs funding that that I think that you'd actually have to try to find a smoker who doesn't qualify for a subsidized, if not free, program.

As a non-addict, it doesn't benefit me directly, though indirectly you have the theoretical reduction in crime, making me less likely to be a victim.

Really? Because I'm pretty much in favour of the welfare state, council housing and all of that stuff. I'm a homeowner and so I'm never going to qualify for a council house.

Ah, UK citizen, right? Well, for one I'd say 'never say never', because you never know. Fall on hard times, lose the house somehow, etc...

That being said, I might actually be more radical than you in that aspect. You see, libertarians aren't necessarily against welfare. Now, don't get me wrong, we're against it as it's currently implemented, but we're not against the concept. Quite the contrary. I support replacing welfare with a basic income guarantee. Means tested welfare that is paid out in a dozen different ways is inefficient, and creates incentives to stay on it.

I'm also generally fine with infrastructure in areas I'm not going to. I recognize that you need that 'everywhere'.

Sure. That's because you're probably usually arguing with loony right-wing religious nuts who fundamentally think we're all lazy sinners looking for a free ride, or loony right-wing supply-siders who think the only people who can't find work are the lazy and incompetent.

True. As a libertarian who supports having a BIG(instead of current welfare), my views are 'interesting'. Of course, I'm also a *moderate* libertarian. For example, I often point out that Ayn Rand a: wasn't a libertarian, b: an idiot.

You say that any job should pay enough to live on. I say that not every worker is worth a 'living' wage.

And I say that is a horrifyingly immoral position.

Wierd. I don't view it as a moral position at all. It's a productivity statement.

To deconstruct, you are basically saying that there is some work where you believe the people who do it literally do not deserve to live. That they should be sucked of whatever they can deliver, then left to die.

Only if you ignore the whole BIG proposal. As an example, I have an aunt who is mentally retarded. She has worked in the past. Should she have been paid a 'living' wage? While she enjoyed the work and was paid some for it, by no means was her productivity enough to pay for her to live on, even discounting the additional medical and supervision requirements.

You turn that into a bell curve of productivity, there are indeed people out there who aren't productive enough to support themselves. Thus the BIG. And probably single-payer healthcare because we've managed to create a system that combines the worst aspects of socialism and capitalism, rather than the best.

Probably firstly in the office toilets.

Our janitors? Unlikely.

Firstly, I'll point out that exactly this same "problem"/argument applies to a BIG.

Not really, since a BIG is per person.

Secondly, my personal measure is a liveable wage for a typical family of two adults and 2-3 children. Because anything smaller is below species survival level.

2 working adults? 1? Grandparents? In my family it's 'traditional' to live close enough to them that they provide like half the child care.

No, it's due to the systematic undermining of workers of which outsourcing is but a part. This has been going on for the better part of forty years.

There are other factors, yes, but I'm not trying to pretend that a BIG is a solution to all of them either.

Firstly, you say you're dealing with current reality, yet supporting a BIG is a *massive* change from current methods and mentalities around welfare. You can't really dismiss a jobs guarantee in that context (arguably less of a change than a BIG).

I'm not dismissing it. I even said that a job guarantee could be part of the system. Other than that, I was addressing your assertations about how a BIG would work out that I felt was incorrect.

Secondly, you say you're a libertarian opposed to "government meddling", yet a BIG is about as "government meddling" as you can get since it's effectively making a huge swathe of the population fundamentally reliant on "government" for surviva.

I'm a very wierd libertarian. Still, I'm far from unique:
The Pragmatic Libertarian Case for a Basic Income Guarantee
The Libertarian Case for a Basic Income
Why Did Hayek Support a Basic Income?
I'll point out that libertarians are about freedom. There are many kinds of freedom. Do I increase the freedom of the poor more by taxing the rich?
There's also the matter of the

Sure. That's because you're probably usually arguing with loony right-wing religious nuts who fundamentally think we're all lazy sinners looking for a free ride, or loony right-wing supply-siders who think the only people who can't find work are the lazy and incompetent.

True. As a libertarian who supports having a BIG(instead of current welfare), my views are 'interesting'. Of course, I'm also a *moderate* libertarian. For example, I often point out that Ayn Rand a: wasn't a libertarian, b: an idiot.

You say that any job should pay enough to live on. I say that not every worker is worth a 'living' wage.

And I say that is a horrifyingly immoral position.

Wierd. I don't view it as a moral position at all. It's a productivity statement.

To deconstruct, you are basically saying that there is some work where you believe the people who do it literally do not deserve to live. That they should be sucked of whatever they can deliver, then left to die.

Only if you ignore the whole BIG proposal. As an example, I have an aunt who is mentally retarded. She has worked in the past. Should she have been paid a 'living' wage? While she enjoyed the work and was paid some for it, by no means was her productivity enough to pay for her to live on, even discounting the additional medical and supervision requirements.

You turn that into a bell curve of productivity, there are indeed people out there who aren't productive enough to support themselves. Thus the BIG. And probably single-payer healthcare because we've managed to create a system that combines the worst aspects of socialism and capitalism, rather than the best.

Probably firstly in the office toilets.

Our janitors? Unlikely.

Firstly, I'll point out that exactly this same "problem"/argument applies to a BIG.

Not really, since a BIG is per person.

Secondly, my personal measure is a liveable wage for a typical family of two adults and 2-3 children. Because anything smaller is below species survival level.

2 working adults? 1? Grandparents? In my family it's 'traditional' to live close enough to them that they provide like half the child care.

No, it's due to the systematic undermining of workers of which outsourcing is but a part. This has been going on for the better part of forty years.

There are other factors, yes, but I'm not trying to pretend that a BIG is a solution to all of them either.

Firstly, you say you're dealing with current reality, yet supporting a BIG is a *massive* change from current methods and mentalities around welfare. You can't really dismiss a jobs guarantee in that context (arguably less of a change than a BIG).

I'm not dismissing it. I even said that a job guarantee could be part of the system. Other than that, I was addressing your assertations about how a BIG would work out that I felt was incorrect.

Secondly, you say you're a libertarian opposed to "government meddling", yet a BIG is about as "government meddling" as you can get since it's effectively making a huge swathe of the population fundamentally reliant on "government" for surviva.

I'm a very wierd libertarian. Still, I'm far from unique:
The Pragmatic Libertarian Case for a Basic Income Guarantee
The Libertarian Case for a Basic Income
Why Did Hayek Support a Basic Income?
I'll point out that libertarians are about freedom. There are many kinds of freedom. Do I increase the freedom of the poor more by taxing the rich?
There's also the matter of the

That article is factually wrong about the order of events. Competing electrical firms collapsed into single monopolies *first*, and government came in to prevent the monopoly from running roughshod over the customer *second*.

The libertarian in this video at least gets the history right:
http://www.libertarianism.org/...

She phrases it as a grand bargain between government and the monopoly, in which the monopoly is protected in exchange for stability and reasonable prices. Which it is, but what matters to our discussion is that it's a grand bargain that was struck after the monopoly was fait accompli.

Yup - libertarians don't think about this problem at all. Oh wait...

This is just more of the left wing nannie state bullshit. The gov't needs to stay out of our business.

I fail to see how left wing policies have to do with the state playing the role of parents. Left-right is an economic scale representing communism/socialism vs. pure laissez-faire capitalism. You must mean authoritarian. The Democrats have taken an authoritarian turn over the past few years, especially with Hillary Clinton and the like.

The Democrats have evolved from the party where "the government will take care of economic problems" (Franklin Roosevelt) to "the government will take care of social problems" (Kennedy and LBJ), to now "the government will take care of moral problems" (Hillary Clinton). As a libertarian, I am not too supportive of the first two philosophies, but I'm adamantly opposed to the third philosophy that the Democrats seem to be moving to. The third one is very scary, as that cannot be achieved without becoming more authoritarian and less free. Individualism will be tossed to the garbage. After all, Hillary Clinton is the one who said that "we're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good." You might want to read this page that further describes her approaches.

I am leery of both the Democrats and Republicans, but the Democrats' new philosophy scares me even more than anything Bush and Co. seems to be cooking up these days.