Right, that will work wonders. Lemme see, you and 22013 families in your city pay for the police. But some, "I have better things to do with my money", 1231 or so do not. Someone is getting mugged on the street, a cop sees it and goes: "Police! The victim, please recite your Police subsciption number so that I know if I can help you!".
Bullshit.
1. Police organizations can delagate emergency response to one another, to whichever one is closest. 2. Emergency response can accept a small number of free riders: you settle who pays after the service is rendered, if payment can be made (this is reasonable for the same reason that it is reasonable for you to be taken to *any* hospital, if you are unconcious and need urgent care, rather than a hospital aligned with your health insurer. In short, this is an already solved problem.
You do not like it? You can take your ass to Belize or wherever there is no taxes. No one is going to stop you.
Well, that's what I did, isn't it? But, it is not as easy as you think to separate one's self from the claws of Canadian taxation (though it has recently gotten easier since the "test" for residency has been revealed thanks to a FOIA request). The Canadian tax code notes that tax does not apply to non-residents to the extent that the associated revenue is not from Canadian sources. However, nowhere is there a definition of non-resident -- it is left as an administrative determination to be made by the taxing body (CRA, these days, I think -- Revenue Canada when I first left). And, the means to determine this used to be kept secret. I believe it is one major "tie" or five minor ones determine residency. Major ties are supporting a family member in Canada, or owning real property available for you to live in. Minor ties are holding a Canadian passport, having a bank account, Canadian-issued credit cards, library cards, brokerage accounts, etc. For most people like me, the only ties we retain are generally a passport (Canada won't let one renounce citizenship without having other citizenship), and self-directed RRSP (which used to be very hard to trade from outside Canada).
But, weren't you so angry in an earlier post, that I "cut and ran", as it were? Which is it?
And, I'm curious which ass you pulled that 95% figure from, or how it was arrived at. If you ask people if they're willing to help others in times of need, I'm sure 95% would say yes. I doubt that 95% would agree that some arbitrary mob should decide how much they have to help.
As I said, the deal is voluntary. You can leave at any time. As a matter of fact, this precisely what you did. Subsequently any whining, moaning and bitching about it being "without your consent" is just that.
Voluntary? Hardly. Where can one go? It is only through fate, skill, and the timing of NAFTA, that I had the opportunity to leave, since I did not have sufficient funds to support a financially independent lifestyle, in, as you say, Belize. You sound like the Nazi executioner telling the Jew that he could have left Germany, while the law requires him to report to a concentration camp. Or, better yet, the redneck telling the "nigger" that he should have been born white.
This is how it would look like in practice: a network of "communities" walled in by 20 feet tall barb-wire topped walls with guard towers, machine gun emplacements and other "security" measures, surrounded by squalid shanty-towns full of millions of impoverished people, seething with hate and resentment. All kept in check by ruthless private armies in direct employ of these "city-states". And so on. What escapes you (and no surprise there) is that this shit has already been tried on multiple occasions, with disastrous results every and each time.
*Looks around*. Funny, I don't see barbed wire and towers here. And, the states have quite a bit of independence from the federal government (at least in theory), counties have a fair degree of independence of the state, as do cities and to
Good lord, they must have some good "bud" up there in Canada these days for you to post that drivel. Enjoy your fantasy.
While you're at it, I suggest you read Alex Doulis' "Take Your Money and Run," and "My Blue Haven", if you have the stomach for them. Warning: even the conservative Diane Francis found them alarmingly renegade.
What my parents had which helped them succeed was a community of others in the same boat that worked cooperatively, and not as a band of thugs seeking to rob those they perceived as "rich": Franz was a doctor, Josef a tailer, Marie a seamstress, Angelica a miliner, Hannah a cook, etc.: they often helped one another gratis, while selling their services at market rates to the Westmount upper class (research a bit on post-WWII demographics). But, they did not seek a handout, and they did not tolerate a freeloader: shunning was quite effective.
It was they, not your ilk that built Canada after WWII, and you have the gaul to call them thieves?
It is a pity that I am agnostic, for I have no faith that would admit the possibiluty of a god to send a lightning bolt to fry you where you sit.
The only institutions that should exist are those that can attract enough voluntary support to survive. Rather like the guy in the sleazy part of town selling porn mags -- if he can't sell enough, that's his tough luck. Sell bibles instead.
You are suggesting that a mob, perhaps a democratic mob (that is one that represents over 50% of the population) is moral in using force to get what it wants from everyone else. That is precisely what I reject. Without my consent, taking from me is immoral. Taxation is immoral, as it is just mob theft.
Now there may very well be practical reasons to voluntarily support certain "institutions": hungry people might get angry and it may be cheaper to feed them than to spend the money on bullets to kill them when they come to rob me. But, don't let them breed.
Furthermore, cooperative insurance is usually a good idea to mitigate unforseen disasters that might be rare, but devastating for an individual.
Finally, a cooperative may enjoy economies of scale sufficient to subsidise a certain percentage of "free riders", and still be the best deal going. If that's true then it will arise naturally. (In practice large insurers buy smaller ones until there are a few big ones, for this reason). The wise insured would want the large insurers to be cooperatives.
Aside from the falacy that libertarians want a free lunch, this is precisely the reasoning that brought me to the U.S.: of all possible places to go, it was closest to what I wanted.
In fact, if the Republicans keep f*cking up, and the Democrats continue to look wishy-washy, 2008 might bring in some big Libertarian gains: fiscal conservatism together with bitch-slapping the religeous right, anti-gay, anti-pot doofii (doofuses?)
Gee, Dad started out in Canada as a farm hand, and Mom was a maid.
Spoiled? I don't f-ing thing so.
They literally had all their assets wiped out, and started over with but clothes on their backs, with no social assistance what so ever. In fact, there were admitted into the very "servant class" that you so claim to want to protect from the likes of me.
With nothing but perseverance, they managed to pull themselves up by their bootstraps to the point where they could eventually buy a small house in the countryside when I was born (it was a shack, really), and Mom could quit work to raise me. They moved out of a 1 room apartment into the upper half of a duplex in a part of town that actually had tree-lined streets and front yards. Of course, to save to be able to reach this point, they had no TV, stereo, car, and certainly didn't take annual vacations. The TV and car came later (and the luxery of Cable when I was five years old!) but my father didn't start to take vacations until he was around 55.
Spoiled? I hardly think so. I remember well a digital watch that my father saved an entire year for, so that I might have it for Christmas. It was my only present that year. What I did have was an abundance of the teachings of a strong work ethic, something that is sorely lacking today.
I am a Libertarian precisely because I saw them succeed, starting from nothing, with no government help, and in 20 short years enter the ranks of the middle class, from those of the abject poor refugee "servant" class. Not bad for effort expended over a generation.
Their suffering started precisely when government started to help the poor.
If anyone is spoiled, it is you, what with your "social safety net", "state employment insurance", and "universal health care", paid for by my, and before me my father's' blood and toil.
Tell ya what, throw it all away, everyting you own, forgoe any government servivces, work to get it all back, and then come and talk to me. Until then, you are the worst form of social disease there exists: the liberal parasite. Ann Coulter is right to title her book, "Treason".
It is a myth that the U.S. civil war was about slavery. Slavery was on the way out in the south by the time it started (though, IIRC, existing slaves were "grandfathered").
Right. You had savings by age of 14 which earned more then $1,000 in interest. A really fat piggie bank
Interest rates on savings accounts were in excess of 10% at the time.
There is something wrong with a child (or more likely that child's parents) that can not save $10,000 in birthday money, Xmas money, government child credit payments (if the parents accept them), allowance, newspaper route (they still existed back then), etc. in the first 14 years of their life.
If parents can't help their kids get a bit of a head start in life, they should not have kids.
People like IgnoramusMaximus are rampant, and probably in the majority in Canada. They will democratically preside over its downfall.
But, the bigger lesson is how compassion, community, and charity can be perverted slowly over time and turned into the chains of socialism. If it can happen in Canada, it can certainly happen in the U.S., and it would be arrogant to think otherwise.
I fully expect the Dems to sweep into power in 2008, what with the mess the neocons have made. And that is scary. I can only hope that Americans look at Canada's mistakes and do not repeat them. Canadians, of course, tend to spend too much time lookng "down south" down their holier than thow noses, to ever learn what works.
He (she?) is right about one thing, though: I was never "really" a Canadian, despite being born there -- I believe in individual liberty too much and so am attracted to the U.S. on the basis of its founding principles even if the present administration tramples them. In effect, I feel stateless and am seeking a place to call home.
No, he paid his taxes for the roads he used, the medicare he used and the police that protected him etc.
And, like I cover the expenses of my spouse and children, he covered the expenses of his. In fact, at the time, up until about 1973 or so, there was little in the way of social services in Canada, compared to the status quo.
Specially in Canada which has one of the most lavish refugee programs around.
They certainly didn't post-WWII. Look back in history. No further back. 1948 or so.
...you were never a Canadian...
That much I will agree with: I do not believe in stealing from the productive members of society to provide cable TV and subsidized rent to welfare lardasses in the name of feeding hungry children.
...these nasty were not capable of magic,...
Magic, what magic? Oh, you mean AAA repair surgery, which was rather routine, though still risky in the U.S. at the time, though which no Canadian surgeon could perform? Yup, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
My parents came to Canada with nothing but the clothes on their backs, to a place with no support for refugees at the time other than admitance to work farms and domestic servants, worked like sons and daughters of bitches to rebuild a fraction of what Nazis and Soviet communists had stolen from them, and when they achieved that goal, through nothing more than the sweat of their brows, they get taxed to high heaven to "help the less fortunate"? Who the fuck helped them? No one. And, surprisingly, they didn't need government help: there was the opportunity and charity that I provide today to others. A hard life, perhaps, but a noble and rewarding one, if the socialists would just get out of the way.
If they, barely speaking English, could pick themselves up by the bootstraps and make a decent life for themselves, then let the welfare lardasses do the same. I for one will not be fooled, cheated and robbed the way they were.
My mother had maids at her disposal and ended up as one herself. Still, with no welfare, she did well... Until the damn bastard socialists forced her back to work to help pay my father's increasing taxes.
You know, in Texas, it is legal to kill adult trespassers after dark, minors too, if they are threating or armed. I can only hope the likes of people like you find themselves down there on a dark night, and stop to ask for directions at the "wrong" house. People like you are truely vile and deserve all the bad karma they can attract.
Cheaper. As in you get more for the same amount of money.
Cheaper, as in living here is cheaper, overall. I suppose I should have made overall clearer. Many Canadians tell me they are afraid of having to pay several hundred dollars a month for health insurance if they work in the U.S. I tell them life is "still cheaper", given the taxes they'd save.
No the $1200 we discussed was always per person.
I don't recall saing it was per person. I recall saying it was what my employer paid.
Suffice to say that carving one's body parts out of desperation for money is not generally counted amongst enlightened activities in civilised societies.
On the contrary. Carving other people's body parts out of desparation for them is not generally an enlightened activity (and neither is robbing them of their earnings, for that matter), but one's own? Why not? Because it hurts? Because it can be fatal? Because, after death, it can provide a better life for one's progeny? As to civilized, what has living in cities got to do with it?
Next thing, at the apex of hypocrisy, you are going to count yourself amongst the "productive".
Actually, yes. At least the people who pay me seam to think so.
Your fibs are getting so thick that I am losing track, when did that tax paying start? At 18 at the earliest. When did you leave? At 23? 25? Lets hear how that "in excess of 100%" was possible.
Well, I certainly paid taxes on employment income at 14 in 1975, -- I was contracting my services as a BASIC Programmer, and later Assembly language programmer, of all things. Got paid pretty well too, actually. Prior to that I had savings which were earning in excess of the tax-free $1,000 interest limit (that got canned along the way), so I was paying tax on those. But, in terms of "paying my way" in excess of what I received, that started around 14. Prior to that, Dad payed my way with his earnings. See, Dad believed that I was old enough to pay for room and board by that time. I left in 1997, at the ripe old age of 36, having paid quite a few hundreds of thousands of dollars in income tax, and seeing the deterioration of Canada's social services since Trudeau's heyday. I heard that taxes have gone down a bit since, but a brief return from January 2003 to May, 2004 proved that they hadn't gone down much, and services had gone into the sewer: Metro Toronto had a shortage of 1400 doctors, and the local school didn't even sand or salt their parking lots.
Whcih you flew on your flying carpet to the Tax Free Land where Rivers Run of Milk and Honey
Well, no, I didn't have the resources to do that. But, through this organization, I was able to do quite a bit of good. $50 a kid times 5 kids times 2 (employer match). No magic carpet rides, though. So shoot me for not helping them all.
In a sane society, you would be cutting your own lawn (or having neighbourhood kids do it for pocket money) and these people would be doing some meaningful work somewhere else.
Well, they are free to pursue better work elsewhere. Apparently, they can't, at least not in the short term. My housekeeper is quite likely to do better than the $15 an hour I pay her, and I hope she does. Should I just cut them off, then? As for the 'hood rats, well, they can't be bothered. I have paid local kids to mow my lawn in the past. But, the whole pruning, and weeding, business is generally beyond their skill. See, I have this Old World rose that needs care...
You don't get it at all. And it is getting really creepy.
No, I don't. Please explain again how it is "creepy" that a person should own their body?
No it doesn't. If he were to abuse horribly a few people, he would still have a pretty fair chance to never face retribution.
Sounds like a "democratic" mob enslaving the productive to me, you know, "the few"?
the dude gets his education thanks to taxpayers
Of which I was in well in excess of 100% of the contributor toward anything I received. Funny how everyone else is the poor "taxpayer" except the one paying the most taxes!
You remind me of a Victorian Lord tossing a few silver coins out of the window of his gilded carriage to some diseased wretches in rags on the street and calling it "charity".
Would that I'd be such a lord. Instead of contributing toward hundreds of pounds of food, I might be able to contribute towards tens of thousands. How many hundreds of pounds of food did you give to the poor this week? month? year? No government is going to decide how much or how little I help others, or which others I help. I took 10 kids off the street and put them in school last month in Rwanda. What did you do? You paid your taxes. And that did what, exactly? Are you sure? Can't be too sure what with all those sponsorship scandals and all, eh?
If money corrupts so much why is the richest man in the world (or one of the top few, depending on the US$ exchange rate), spending so much to eradicate Malaria? What is any government doing about it?
You have a twisted view of the world, where everyone who succeeds is presumed to have exploited someone else. Ya know, perhaps I should fire my lawn care people, dismiss my housekeeper, and give the money used to pay them to the government. They'd surely be better off without the money they earn with the "social services" they'd get instead, right?
That is flatly untrue. Most of the IT in the medicine, like everywhere else, is in administration. Even MRI and similar systems can be made to function as purely analog systems (much more clumsily but functional).
Ahem. Embedded systems. Ahem.
Do you really thing that clumsy is better? I suppose you think that electrical engineers also produce "fluff", after all they don't produce food. Perhaps that MRI should be a mechanical contraption. I'd hate to see how that would work: "Firzt vee take microscopicly thin slices of skull and brain, ja? Den, we send each vun to worker for micoroscope viewing. Need many microscope viewers -- good job dat. Den, ve put head and brain together." I hear that one can perform surgery without anasthesia too.
You did receive more then you paid, by far, in your first 20 years of life
I've been financially independent since about 14. But up until then, it was my father who was taxed severely, who provided support for me. In the mid 1970s my mother had to return to work just to pay our growing tax burden! And, they arrived in Canada as refugees, with nothing, at a time when there was no assistance for such refugees other than being allowed admittance. Certainly no welfare. (My father had to work off that admittance by working as a farm hand in Manitoba for nothing more than room and board). When he got sick, he had private health insurance in the 1950s (working for RCA Victor at the time).
Matter of fact, things went well for them, working hard, until Trudeau put that damn social safety net into high-gear and started to tax them in spades.
No, we owe Canada nothing that hasn't been "paid back" many times over, culminating with the death of my father at the hands of a health care system that didn't want to spend $20k after taking his taxes for forty some odd years.
You are offically a sociopathic, amoral monster. With utterly no clue as to consequences of trade in organs.
I know full well the consequences of trade in organs. It has the same positive and negative consequences as trade in anything else: black markets, extortion, even theft. I think a person should be free to trade in parts of their body if they wish. After all, who owns them if not the individual making use of them?
Yes that is a practical way to deal with the problem in a country of 300 million. That is probably why it works so well over there.
If a $1 cup of coffe could only be had a 2000 miles away, it would be.
But, you see, the people who shun Mr. Greedy...Rents would only be the ones who felt that he was mean or unfair, and the more (or less) that number is, the more (or less) inconvenient his life would be made. Sounds like a nicely balancing system. And the nice thing is that there is no overhead: everybody charges Mr. Greedy...Rents what they think is fair, given his behavior.
You know, it seams that you think everyone earning a decent wage is trying to stash every penny they get, are miserly tippers, and never help anyone else. No doubt there are people like that. Perhaps you think people are like that because you are like that.
But, I am not. I have greater respect for those that do the jobs that I do not wish to: I pay my part-time housekeeper more than she asks (about double minimum wage) in line with the market. I routinely tip 20-25% to waitstaff, and, as the "holiday season" rolls around, I'm particularly obvious in demonstrating charity to my kids over and above my usual contribution levels -- $20 into a Sally Ann kettle on a whim is typical for me. I will do this many times between now and the new year. There have been times when I could contribute nothing due to unemployment, and there have been times when I can be genourous. This is one of those times in my life. I've been known to drop a Benjamin into the "Food Bank" jar at the local watering hole -- three of us are regular contributors and have been directly responsible for several hundred pounds of food delivered this Thanksgiving.
This is not to "easy my concience". I owe the poor nothing, and my housekeeper is quite capable of negotiating a wage. But, I don't like to be considered "Mr. Greedy...Rents", so while I like to live well, and save for a rainy day, I do make a concious effort to "spread the wealth" to a reasonable degree.
Many of my friends and neighbors act accordingly. We do not tolerate sloth very much but we respond when disaster strikes due to no fault of the afflicted.
The thing is, together, our voluntary, collective efforts add up to far more than I ever saw governments in Canada accomplish.
But, you would not understand or believe this. Like all thieves who encounter an unwilling victim, you see me as a sociopathic amoral monster.
And yet you expect to get paid as if the whole thing operated out of your ass.
No, I expect to get paid what people are willing to pay me. People like their "fluff" so they are willing to pay for it.
Without farmers, everyone whould farm, or hunt.
It is generally efficient to not have everyone do everything, but rather to segregate by function, as geography and other factors allow.
Without programmers, you'd have "tinkerers" who would make things others wanted, and so would rise the programming profession.
More importantly, without programmers, much of modern medicine would not exist, and we'd be back in the dark ages.
No, I am not all that important, as an individual. But, in a free market I interact with others to produce what is wanted and needed. I am paid what the market deems me to be worth.
I want you to cough up what you did not pay and yet got service for.
And what, precisely, would that be? At my best estimate I paid far more in taxes that I ever received in goods and services. Don't you think that if I was getting more than what I paid, I would want to stay in Canada so long as the good times lasted?
If there were a legal market in organs, there would be far more organ transplants, and many more lives would be saved as a result. Indeed, posthumous sales of stiff viable organs could very well help establish a legacy where there might otherwise not be one. The rich get to live, and the poor get to send their kids or grandkids to college so they can perhaps become rich.
And, how is offering a cup of coffee for $10,000 extortion? No one has to buy that cup of coffee for $10,000. Indeed, there may be others willing to sell that cup of coffee for $1.
But, if Mr. GreedyIOwnAllThePropertyInTownAndChargeHighRents wants to buy a cup of coffee in town, well he might just find that all the coffee vendors charge $10,000. He can drive to the next town. Sounds fair to me.
In practice, the price of a cup of coffee in town for Mr. Greedy...Rents would be about $1 plus the cost of gas, wear and tear on a car, time, etc. to get one out of town.
The fact of the matter is that if Mr. Greedy...Rents is all that greedy and mean, he will be shunned. Ask your local Amish or Mennonite about shunning, some time.
There are far more moral ways to make the rich "pay" than theft. Also, you will generally find that in most socialist economies, it isn't the rich that are being made to "pay" -- it is the middle class. The rich find themselves as part of the "elected" governing class. When was the last time a Canadian politician waited for health care?
Funny, I don't "interact with society". I interact with individuals, who have come to develop norms regarding intercating with one another. Those norms establish society. Even when I do business with UberMegaCorp Inc. I interact via an individual.
In other words: inconsequential fluff. If you were to disappear tommorow, no if the entire branch of profession of yours were to disappear tommorow there would be no appreciable difference to the operation of American society.
Perhaps, but people like me disappeared 25 years ago, there'd be no personal computers, CD players, DVD players, cell phones, satellite TV, etc. O.K. I suppose that much of that is, as you say "fluff", but gosh darn, people do seam to like their "fluff" don't they? Heck, cell phones have saved lives, so some of that fluff is actually "usefull".
People don't need indoor plumbing either, but, thanks to John Crapper, they sure are glad they have it.
FWIW, some of my "fluff" goes into testing every phone line in England, every day, to track breakdowns before they happen, so that preemptive repair crews can be dispatched. That means that when someone picks up the phone to make an emergency call, they're more likely to get through and a life possibly saved, than if I never made that kind of "fluff".
I wonder what "fluff" wouldn't exist in the future if people like me didn't exist. Atlas shrugged, indeed.
You did not pay back any of it, you hypocrite.
Pay what back?
Lemme get this straight: I pay $X in taxes to support Y services of which I receive $Z (Z
No, you don't want me to "pay back" anything. You want me to be an indentured tax slave and pay more. Fuk 'dat noiz.
I am really starting to look forward to full commoditization of software and the insuing ego-shrinkage of yours. I bet GPL must be driving you insane.
Actually, I rather like the GPL, though it might give my employer heartburn. There is a place for free and non-free software in the world, and I have contributed to both kinds (and been very careful to not violate the GPL in the process). In fact, part of the justification for charging to license software is that, in a free market, GPL alternatives could possibly exist: "license mine or write your own".
The GPL is actually a good example of how community cooperation can offset "corporate greed". More services can be established that operated on a cooperative basis, increasingly eliminating the justification for them to be provided by big government. If anything, the GPL exemplifies the free market.
No, I am not worried: there is plenty of software to be written.
Yes, even if I had to pay it out of pocket, it would be cheaper than the taxes I paid in Canada.
Though, I grant that $200 to $400 a month is more typical: we do have excellent health care. My point was that even at this extreme end of the benefits range (and, really, it is not a large fraction of my remuneration and I am not in the "CEO class", just a middle class working stiff), it is still cheaper for a married couple with kids and one income to live in the U.S.
Not at all. What should happen is that there should be a national negotiation process, with input from both citizens and surgeons to establish what a "fair" level of pay is and then everyone sticks to it.
I see.
So, 300,000,000 citizens and 300,000 surgeons use a democratic process to settle on a wage? Sounds like putting gun to someone's head to me, if only figuratively.
You know, all that does is prevent the surgeons from distinguishing themselves based on their skill and success rate. Yeah, all the good doctors leave.
That's exactly what happened in Canada.
If anything, the lack of a free(er) market in health care has more to do with legislation than anything else. If you want to attack the U.S., you should be attacking the rise of corporatism, where money buys law that benefits big business. That is not the same thing as free market capitalism, and is more akin to Mussolini-style fascism.
Which is the definition of uncontrollable greed. At some point in time their conscience should kick in to warn them that getting (to exaggerate) $40 million for something that is not worth $50 is immoral.
How can it be immoral if someone is willing and able to pay?
If you think someone charges too much for their services, go elsewhere. If you can't go elsewhere, then charge him a premium for your. In fact, get your friends to go along:
"Oh hello, Mr. Greedy, would you like a coffee today?"
"How much>"
"Well, for you, $10,000."
There are ways to deel with what you perceive as greed other than by theft.
The posts of other Canadians in this thread bear out my personal experience in speaking with Canadians that most average Canadians who have lived in both countries, when asked, will concede that the overall quality of living, including healthcare, is better here in the United States.
"That is highly subjective. You see, unlike old nasty me, most Canadians are very polite, specially to foreigners and would agree with you just to please you."
Just to be clear, this Canadian does not "concede" that the overall quality of life is better in the U.S.: I celebrate that fact (since it gives Canadians who might take a minute to pull their heads out of one another's socialist asses a chance to learn, imitate, and improve, their lot). If I criticize Americans en masse, it's usually to admonish them to kiss the ground they walk on because they do not realise how fortunate they are.
Oh, and I'm not known to be polite. Then again, unlike the stereotypical Canadian, I do not find Americans who make a fuss to get what they've paid for, "rude", either. "Angry", perhaps, but justifiably so.
If anything, I find many of my fellow Canadians somewhat arrogant and smug, in a "holier than thow" way, what with their "peacekeepers," diplolacy, and all that. Ask them about Somalia sometimes when they bring up Abu Grahib.
Now, there are some areas where Canada seams to excel, compared to the U.S.: High-speed internet access is a bit cheaper, and less of a hassle to get: DSL standards were largely dictated so one can buy a DSL modem retail, and it will work with any ISP. Sometimes the bully gets it right. But, that is no justification for being a bully when the market can sort itself out.
Explain to me, worm, why exactly is society entitled to paying you money at all?!
Society pays me nothing. My customers pay me, generally for my skills related to the design of software, that they, in turn can leverage to either lower their operational costs, or use to provide a service to others.
Oh yes you use it. All the fucking time. Everytime you want something of another Canadian
And when, exactly, do I want something from another Canadian? On the off chance I might purchase something made in Canada? Well then, I've paid my dues once I've paid the purchase price, haven't I? But, I don't purchase much from Canada and wouldn't miss it if I couldn't.
Bullshit. There is no such law. Otherwise you would be still paying.
Check your tax code. Expatriating Canadians must pay unrealized capital gains taxes when they leave Canada. They might be able to arrange to pay those taxes over time, but generally would have to put up collateral in order to do so. So it is possible to pay in one go, or "be still paying". In fact, many Canadians do get into trouble because of this, usually with regard to real estate (which has it's own levels of taxation as far as non-resident ownership is concerned).
You are not only a hypocrite, you are a bald faced liar.
What, specifically have I lied about? If anything it is you who is foaming at the mouth and spouting epithets.
US does not require you to pay taxes
Of course it does. I'd rather pay for services and contribute to charity. But, the levels of taxation are far less onerous than those in Canada, for married couples with one income.
On that topic, it's funny how my supporting a spouse who is thus not on welfare in Canada, is not even considered. Four poeple live from my income (albeit two of them are children of our own making), yet you Canadians look through your periscope at a six figure salary and smack your lips, "Mmm! Tax revenue!". Instead of a measly spousal tax credit, we get to file jointly: two people supported on one income: the tax brackets occur at double the income levels, and the standard deduction is doubled as well. Sounds fair to me. Of course, in Canada they have "income attribution" sections of the tax code to prevent that.
Closing the borders? Are you kidding? How would we get rid of idiots like you then?!
Er, strike a deal with the U.S.? You take all their socialists and send them all your capitalists. But then, who'd pay your taxes, with everyone on welfare?
You stand a higher chance of it happening in the US where the liberals are starting to boil
As disgusting as Americal liberals might be, they are far more pleasant than Canadian thieves. It is sad that they will likely displace conservatives in 2008 more because of Bush's policies and spendthrift ways, rather than any merits of their own. But, I expect the pendulum to swing back. And, it's not like the Republicans have been fiscally conservative as of late. Where's a good Libertarian when you need one? (Then again, this might just be what the U.S. needs to get people disgusted with both mainstream parties and large-scale defections from the Republicans to the Librartarian party. One can dream, I suppose.).
Slashdot Mirror
Ah, yes, the post-1968 {Prague Spring refugees.
We have a word for those...
Bullshit.
1. Police organizations can delagate emergency response to one another, to whichever one is closest. 2. Emergency response can accept a small number of free riders: you settle who pays after the service is rendered, if payment can be made (this is reasonable for the same reason that it is reasonable for you to be taken to *any* hospital, if you are unconcious and need urgent care, rather than a hospital aligned with your health insurer. In short, this is an already solved problem.
You do not like it? You can take your ass to Belize or wherever there is no taxes. No one is going to stop you.
Well, that's what I did, isn't it? But, it is not as easy as you think to separate one's self from the claws of Canadian taxation (though it has recently gotten easier since the "test" for residency has been revealed thanks to a FOIA request). The Canadian tax code notes that tax does not apply to non-residents to the extent that the associated revenue is not from Canadian sources. However, nowhere is there a definition of non-resident -- it is left as an administrative determination to be made by the taxing body (CRA, these days, I think -- Revenue Canada when I first left). And, the means to determine this used to be kept secret. I believe it is one major "tie" or five minor ones determine residency. Major ties are supporting a family member in Canada, or owning real property available for you to live in. Minor ties are holding a Canadian passport, having a bank account, Canadian-issued credit cards, library cards, brokerage accounts, etc. For most people like me, the only ties we retain are generally a passport (Canada won't let one renounce citizenship without having other citizenship), and self-directed RRSP (which used to be very hard to trade from outside Canada).
But, weren't you so angry in an earlier post, that I "cut and ran", as it were? Which is it?
And, I'm curious which ass you pulled that 95% figure from, or how it was arrived at. If you ask people if they're willing to help others in times of need, I'm sure 95% would say yes. I doubt that 95% would agree that some arbitrary mob should decide how much they have to help.
As I said, the deal is voluntary. You can leave at any time. As a matter of fact, this precisely what you did. Subsequently any whining, moaning and bitching about it being "without your consent" is just that.
Voluntary? Hardly. Where can one go? It is only through fate, skill, and the timing of NAFTA, that I had the opportunity to leave, since I did not have sufficient funds to support a financially independent lifestyle, in, as you say, Belize. You sound like the Nazi executioner telling the Jew that he could have left Germany, while the law requires him to report to a concentration camp. Or, better yet, the redneck telling the "nigger" that he should have been born white.
This is how it would look like in practice: a network of "communities" walled in by 20 feet tall barb-wire topped walls with guard towers, machine gun emplacements and other "security" measures, surrounded by squalid shanty-towns full of millions of impoverished people, seething with hate and resentment. All kept in check by ruthless private armies in direct employ of these "city-states". And so on. What escapes you (and no surprise there) is that this shit has already been tried on multiple occasions, with disastrous results every and each time.
*Looks around*. Funny, I don't see barbed wire and towers here. And, the states have quite a bit of independence from the federal government (at least in theory), counties have a fair degree of independence of the state, as do cities and to
While you're at it, I suggest you read Alex Doulis' "Take Your Money and Run," and "My Blue Haven", if you have the stomach for them. Warning: even the conservative Diane Francis found them alarmingly renegade.
What my parents had which helped them succeed was a community of others in the same boat that worked cooperatively, and not as a band of thugs seeking to rob those they perceived as "rich": Franz was a doctor, Josef a tailer, Marie a seamstress, Angelica a miliner, Hannah a cook, etc.: they often helped one another gratis, while selling their services at market rates to the Westmount upper class (research a bit on post-WWII demographics). But, they did not seek a handout, and they did not tolerate a freeloader: shunning was quite effective.
It was they, not your ilk that built Canada after WWII, and you have the gaul to call them thieves?
It is a pity that I am agnostic, for I have no faith that would admit the possibiluty of a god to send a lightning bolt to fry you where you sit.
You are suggesting that a mob, perhaps a democratic mob (that is one that represents over 50% of the population) is moral in using force to get what it wants from everyone else. That is precisely what I reject. Without my consent, taking from me is immoral. Taxation is immoral, as it is just mob theft.
Now there may very well be practical reasons to voluntarily support certain "institutions": hungry people might get angry and it may be cheaper to feed them than to spend the money on bullets to kill them when they come to rob me. But, don't let them breed.
Furthermore, cooperative insurance is usually a good idea to mitigate unforseen disasters that might be rare, but devastating for an individual.
Finally, a cooperative may enjoy economies of scale sufficient to subsidise a certain percentage of "free riders", and still be the best deal going. If that's true then it will arise naturally. (In practice large insurers buy smaller ones until there are a few big ones, for this reason). The wise insured would want the large insurers to be cooperatives.
In fact, if the Republicans keep f*cking up, and the Democrats continue to look wishy-washy, 2008 might bring in some big Libertarian gains: fiscal conservatism together with bitch-slapping the religeous right, anti-gay, anti-pot doofii (doofuses?)
Spoiled?
Gee, Dad started out in Canada as a farm hand, and Mom was a maid.
Spoiled? I don't f-ing thing so.
They literally had all their assets wiped out, and started over with but clothes on their backs, with no social assistance what so ever. In fact, there were admitted into the very "servant class" that you so claim to want to protect from the likes of me.
With nothing but perseverance, they managed to pull themselves up by their bootstraps to the point where they could eventually buy a small house in the countryside when I was born (it was a shack, really), and Mom could quit work to raise me. They moved out of a 1 room apartment into the upper half of a duplex in a part of town that actually had tree-lined streets and front yards. Of course, to save to be able to reach this point, they had no TV, stereo, car, and certainly didn't take annual vacations. The TV and car came later (and the luxery of Cable when I was five years old!) but my father didn't start to take vacations until he was around 55.
Spoiled? I hardly think so. I remember well a digital watch that my father saved an entire year for, so that I might have it for Christmas. It was my only present that year. What I did have was an abundance of the teachings of a strong work ethic, something that is sorely lacking today.
I am a Libertarian precisely because I saw them succeed, starting from nothing, with no government help, and in 20 short years enter the ranks of the middle class, from those of the abject poor refugee "servant" class. Not bad for effort expended over a generation.
Their suffering started precisely when government started to help the poor.
If anyone is spoiled, it is you, what with your "social safety net", "state employment insurance", and "universal health care", paid for by my, and before me my father's' blood and toil.
Tell ya what, throw it all away, everyting you own, forgoe any government servivces, work to get it all back, and then come and talk to me. Until then, you are the worst form of social disease there exists: the liberal parasite. Ann Coulter is right to title her book, "Treason".
It is a myth that the U.S. civil war was about slavery. Slavery was on the way out in the south by the time it started (though, IIRC, existing slaves were "grandfathered").
Interest rates on savings accounts were in excess of 10% at the time.
There is something wrong with a child (or more likely that child's parents) that can not save $10,000 in birthday money, Xmas money, government child credit payments (if the parents accept them), allowance, newspaper route (they still existed back then), etc. in the first 14 years of their life.
If parents can't help their kids get a bit of a head start in life, they should not have kids.
But, the bigger lesson is how compassion, community, and charity can be perverted slowly over time and turned into the chains of socialism. If it can happen in Canada, it can certainly happen in the U.S., and it would be arrogant to think otherwise.
I fully expect the Dems to sweep into power in 2008, what with the mess the neocons have made. And that is scary. I can only hope that Americans look at Canada's mistakes and do not repeat them. Canadians, of course, tend to spend too much time lookng "down south" down their holier than thow noses, to ever learn what works.
He (she?) is right about one thing, though: I was never "really" a Canadian, despite being born there -- I believe in individual liberty too much and so am attracted to the U.S. on the basis of its founding principles even if the present administration tramples them. In effect, I feel stateless and am seeking a place to call home.
And, like I cover the expenses of my spouse and children, he covered the expenses of his. In fact, at the time, up until about 1973 or so, there was little in the way of social services in Canada, compared to the status quo.
Specially in Canada which has one of the most lavish refugee programs around.
They certainly didn't post-WWII. Look back in history. No further back. 1948 or so.
That much I will agree with: I do not believe in stealing from the productive members of society to provide cable TV and subsidized rent to welfare lardasses in the name of feeding hungry children.
Magic, what magic? Oh, you mean AAA repair surgery, which was rather routine, though still risky in the U.S. at the time, though which no Canadian surgeon could perform? Yup, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
My parents came to Canada with nothing but the clothes on their backs, to a place with no support for refugees at the time other than admitance to work farms and domestic servants, worked like sons and daughters of bitches to rebuild a fraction of what Nazis and Soviet communists had stolen from them, and when they achieved that goal, through nothing more than the sweat of their brows, they get taxed to high heaven to "help the less fortunate"? Who the fuck helped them? No one. And, surprisingly, they didn't need government help: there was the opportunity and charity that I provide today to others. A hard life, perhaps, but a noble and rewarding one, if the socialists would just get out of the way.
If they, barely speaking English, could pick themselves up by the bootstraps and make a decent life for themselves, then let the welfare lardasses do the same. I for one will not be fooled, cheated and robbed the way they were.
My mother had maids at her disposal and ended up as one herself. Still, with no welfare, she did well... Until the damn bastard socialists forced her back to work to help pay my father's increasing taxes.
You know, in Texas, it is legal to kill adult trespassers after dark, minors too, if they are threating or armed. I can only hope the likes of people like you find themselves down there on a dark night, and stop to ask for directions at the "wrong" house. People like you are truely vile and deserve all the bad karma they can attract.
Cheaper, as in living here is cheaper, overall. I suppose I should have made overall clearer. Many Canadians tell me they are afraid of having to pay several hundred dollars a month for health insurance if they work in the U.S. I tell them life is "still cheaper", given the taxes they'd save.
No the $1200 we discussed was always per person.
I don't recall saing it was per person. I recall saying it was what my employer paid.
That was for family coverage.
On the contrary. Carving other people's body parts out of desparation for them is not generally an enlightened activity (and neither is robbing them of their earnings, for that matter), but one's own? Why not? Because it hurts? Because it can be fatal? Because, after death, it can provide a better life for one's progeny? As to civilized, what has living in cities got to do with it?
Next thing, at the apex of hypocrisy, you are going to count yourself amongst the "productive".
Actually, yes. At least the people who pay me seam to think so.
Your fibs are getting so thick that I am losing track, when did that tax paying start? At 18 at the earliest. When did you leave? At 23? 25? Lets hear how that "in excess of 100%" was possible.
Well, I certainly paid taxes on employment income at 14 in 1975, -- I was contracting my services as a BASIC Programmer, and later Assembly language programmer, of all things. Got paid pretty well too, actually. Prior to that I had savings which were earning in excess of the tax-free $1,000 interest limit (that got canned along the way), so I was paying tax on those. But, in terms of "paying my way" in excess of what I received, that started around 14. Prior to that, Dad payed my way with his earnings. See, Dad believed that I was old enough to pay for room and board by that time. I left in 1997, at the ripe old age of 36, having paid quite a few hundreds of thousands of dollars in income tax, and seeing the deterioration of Canada's social services since Trudeau's heyday. I heard that taxes have gone down a bit since, but a brief return from January 2003 to May, 2004 proved that they hadn't gone down much, and services had gone into the sewer: Metro Toronto had a shortage of 1400 doctors, and the local school didn't even sand or salt their parking lots.
Whcih you flew on your flying carpet to the Tax Free Land where Rivers Run of Milk and Honey
Well, no, I didn't have the resources to do that. But, through this organization, I was able to do quite a bit of good. $50 a kid times 5 kids times 2 (employer match). No magic carpet rides, though. So shoot me for not helping them all.
In a sane society, you would be cutting your own lawn (or having neighbourhood kids do it for pocket money) and these people would be doing some meaningful work somewhere else.
Well, they are free to pursue better work elsewhere. Apparently, they can't, at least not in the short term. My housekeeper is quite likely to do better than the $15 an hour I pay her, and I hope she does. Should I just cut them off, then? As for the 'hood rats, well, they can't be bothered. I have paid local kids to mow my lawn in the past. But, the whole pruning, and weeding, business is generally beyond their skill. See, I have this Old World rose that needs care...
No, I don't. Please explain again how it is "creepy" that a person should own their body?
No it doesn't. If he were to abuse horribly a few people, he would still have a pretty fair chance to never face retribution.
Sounds like a "democratic" mob enslaving the productive to me, you know, "the few"?
the dude gets his education thanks to taxpayers
Of which I was in well in excess of 100% of the contributor toward anything I received. Funny how everyone else is the poor "taxpayer" except the one paying the most taxes!
You remind me of a Victorian Lord tossing a few silver coins out of the window of his gilded carriage to some diseased wretches in rags on the street and calling it "charity".
Would that I'd be such a lord. Instead of contributing toward hundreds of pounds of food, I might be able to contribute towards tens of thousands. How many hundreds of pounds of food did you give to the poor this week? month? year? No government is going to decide how much or how little I help others, or which others I help. I took 10 kids off the street and put them in school last month in Rwanda. What did you do? You paid your taxes. And that did what, exactly? Are you sure? Can't be too sure what with all those sponsorship scandals and all, eh?
If money corrupts so much why is the richest man in the world (or one of the top few, depending on the US$ exchange rate), spending so much to eradicate Malaria? What is any government doing about it?
You have a twisted view of the world, where everyone who succeeds is presumed to have exploited someone else. Ya know, perhaps I should fire my lawn care people, dismiss my housekeeper, and give the money used to pay them to the government. They'd surely be better off without the money they earn with the "social services" they'd get instead, right?
Obviously not for healthcare alone. With more than $1200 a month taxation overall.
The point is, that even paying $1200 a month for health insurance, my tax burden in the U.S. is so much lower that I'd still be ahead.
Now, six figures might sound like a big income, but realize that it provides for all the needs of four people. A 25-30k income is not that much.
Ahem. Embedded systems. Ahem.
Do you really thing that clumsy is better? I suppose you think that electrical engineers also produce "fluff", after all they don't produce food. Perhaps that MRI should be a mechanical contraption. I'd hate to see how that would work: "Firzt vee take microscopicly thin slices of skull and brain, ja? Den, we send each vun to worker for micoroscope viewing. Need many microscope viewers -- good job dat. Den, ve put head and brain together." I hear that one can perform surgery without anasthesia too.
You did receive more then you paid, by far, in your first 20 years of life
I've been financially independent since about 14. But up until then, it was my father who was taxed severely, who provided support for me. In the mid 1970s my mother had to return to work just to pay our growing tax burden! And, they arrived in Canada as refugees, with nothing, at a time when there was no assistance for such refugees other than being allowed admittance. Certainly no welfare. (My father had to work off that admittance by working as a farm hand in Manitoba for nothing more than room and board). When he got sick, he had private health insurance in the 1950s (working for RCA Victor at the time).
Matter of fact, things went well for them, working hard, until Trudeau put that damn social safety net into high-gear and started to tax them in spades.
No, we owe Canada nothing that hasn't been "paid back" many times over, culminating with the death of my father at the hands of a health care system that didn't want to spend $20k after taking his taxes for forty some odd years.
I know full well the consequences of trade in organs. It has the same positive and negative consequences as trade in anything else: black markets, extortion, even theft. I think a person should be free to trade in parts of their body if they wish. After all, who owns them if not the individual making use of them?
Yes that is a practical way to deal with the problem in a country of 300 million. That is probably why it works so well over there.
If a $1 cup of coffe could only be had a 2000 miles away, it would be.
But, you see, the people who shun Mr. Greedy...Rents would only be the ones who felt that he was mean or unfair, and the more (or less) that number is, the more (or less) inconvenient his life would be made. Sounds like a nicely balancing system. And the nice thing is that there is no overhead: everybody charges Mr. Greedy...Rents what they think is fair, given his behavior.
You know, it seams that you think everyone earning a decent wage is trying to stash every penny they get, are miserly tippers, and never help anyone else. No doubt there are people like that. Perhaps you think people are like that because you are like that.
But, I am not. I have greater respect for those that do the jobs that I do not wish to: I pay my part-time housekeeper more than she asks (about double minimum wage) in line with the market. I routinely tip 20-25% to waitstaff, and, as the "holiday season" rolls around, I'm particularly obvious in demonstrating charity to my kids over and above my usual contribution levels -- $20 into a Sally Ann kettle on a whim is typical for me. I will do this many times between now and the new year. There have been times when I could contribute nothing due to unemployment, and there have been times when I can be genourous. This is one of those times in my life. I've been known to drop a Benjamin into the "Food Bank" jar at the local watering hole -- three of us are regular contributors and have been directly responsible for several hundred pounds of food delivered this Thanksgiving.
This is not to "easy my concience". I owe the poor nothing, and my housekeeper is quite capable of negotiating a wage. But, I don't like to be considered "Mr. Greedy...Rents", so while I like to live well, and save for a rainy day, I do make a concious effort to "spread the wealth" to a reasonable degree.
Many of my friends and neighbors act accordingly. We do not tolerate sloth very much but we respond when disaster strikes due to no fault of the afflicted.
The thing is, together, our voluntary, collective efforts add up to far more than I ever saw governments in Canada accomplish.
But, you would not understand or believe this. Like all thieves who encounter an unwilling victim, you see me as a sociopathic amoral monster.
There is no hope for you. Pity Canada.
No, I expect to get paid what people are willing to pay me. People like their "fluff" so they are willing to pay for it.
Without farmers, everyone whould farm, or hunt.
It is generally efficient to not have everyone do everything, but rather to segregate by function, as geography and other factors allow.
Without programmers, you'd have "tinkerers" who would make things others wanted, and so would rise the programming profession.
More importantly, without programmers, much of modern medicine would not exist, and we'd be back in the dark ages.
No, I am not all that important, as an individual. But, in a free market I interact with others to produce what is wanted and needed. I am paid what the market deems me to be worth.
I want you to cough up what you did not pay and yet got service for.
And what, precisely, would that be? At my best estimate I paid far more in taxes that I ever received in goods and services. Don't you think that if I was getting more than what I paid, I would want to stay in Canada so long as the good times lasted?
And, how is offering a cup of coffee for $10,000 extortion? No one has to buy that cup of coffee for $10,000. Indeed, there may be others willing to sell that cup of coffee for $1.
But, if Mr. GreedyIOwnAllThePropertyInTownAndChargeHighRents wants to buy a cup of coffee in town, well he might just find that all the coffee vendors charge $10,000. He can drive to the next town. Sounds fair to me.
In practice, the price of a cup of coffee in town for Mr. Greedy...Rents would be about $1 plus the cost of gas, wear and tear on a car, time, etc. to get one out of town.
The fact of the matter is that if Mr. Greedy...Rents is all that greedy and mean, he will be shunned. Ask your local Amish or Mennonite about shunning, some time.
There are far more moral ways to make the rich "pay" than theft. Also, you will generally find that in most socialist economies, it isn't the rich that are being made to "pay" -- it is the middle class. The rich find themselves as part of the "elected" governing class. When was the last time a Canadian politician waited for health care?
Funny, I don't "interact with society". I interact with individuals, who have come to develop norms regarding intercating with one another. Those norms establish society. Even when I do business with UberMegaCorp Inc. I interact via an individual.
In other words: inconsequential fluff. If you were to disappear tommorow, no if the entire branch of profession of yours were to disappear tommorow there would be no appreciable difference to the operation of American society.
Perhaps, but people like me disappeared 25 years ago, there'd be no personal computers, CD players, DVD players, cell phones, satellite TV, etc. O.K. I suppose that much of that is, as you say "fluff", but gosh darn, people do seam to like their "fluff" don't they? Heck, cell phones have saved lives, so some of that fluff is actually "usefull".
People don't need indoor plumbing either, but, thanks to John Crapper, they sure are glad they have it.
FWIW, some of my "fluff" goes into testing every phone line in England, every day, to track breakdowns before they happen, so that preemptive repair crews can be dispatched. That means that when someone picks up the phone to make an emergency call, they're more likely to get through and a life possibly saved, than if I never made that kind of "fluff".
I wonder what "fluff" wouldn't exist in the future if people like me didn't exist. Atlas shrugged, indeed.
You did not pay back any of it, you hypocrite.
Pay what back?
Lemme get this straight: I pay $X in taxes to support Y services of which I receive $Z (Z No, you don't want me to "pay back" anything. You want me to be an indentured tax slave and pay more. Fuk 'dat noiz.
I am really starting to look forward to full commoditization of software and the insuing ego-shrinkage of yours. I bet GPL must be driving you insane.
LOL!
Actually, I rather like the GPL, though it might give my employer heartburn. There is a place for free and non-free software in the world, and I have contributed to both kinds (and been very careful to not violate the GPL in the process). In fact, part of the justification for charging to license software is that, in a free market, GPL alternatives could possibly exist: "license mine or write your own".
The GPL is actually a good example of how community cooperation can offset "corporate greed". More services can be established that operated on a cooperative basis, increasingly eliminating the justification for them to be provided by big government. If anything, the GPL exemplifies the free market.
No, I am not worried: there is plenty of software to be written.
We had a lovelier day on Saturday (Nov. 26, 2005 -- your "today").
Yes, even if I had to pay it out of pocket, it would be cheaper than the taxes I paid in Canada.
Though, I grant that $200 to $400 a month is more typical: we do have excellent health care. My point was that even at this extreme end of the benefits range (and, really, it is not a large fraction of my remuneration and I am not in the "CEO class", just a middle class working stiff), it is still cheaper for a married couple with kids and one income to live in the U.S.
I see.
So, 300,000,000 citizens and 300,000 surgeons use a democratic process to settle on a wage? Sounds like putting gun to someone's head to me, if only figuratively.
You know, all that does is prevent the surgeons from distinguishing themselves based on their skill and success rate. Yeah, all the good doctors leave.
That's exactly what happened in Canada.
If anything, the lack of a free(er) market in health care has more to do with legislation than anything else. If you want to attack the U.S., you should be attacking the rise of corporatism, where money buys law that benefits big business. That is not the same thing as free market capitalism, and is more akin to Mussolini-style fascism.
How can it be immoral if someone is willing and able to pay?
If you think someone charges too much for their services, go elsewhere. If you can't go elsewhere, then charge him a premium for your. In fact, get your friends to go along:
"Oh hello, Mr. Greedy, would you like a coffee today?"
"How much>"
"Well, for you, $10,000."
There are ways to deel with what you perceive as greed other than by theft.
"That is highly subjective. You see, unlike old nasty me, most Canadians are very polite, specially to foreigners and would agree with you just to please you."
Just to be clear, this Canadian does not "concede" that the overall quality of life is better in the U.S.: I celebrate that fact (since it gives Canadians who might take a minute to pull their heads out of one another's socialist asses a chance to learn, imitate, and improve, their lot). If I criticize Americans en masse, it's usually to admonish them to kiss the ground they walk on because they do not realise how fortunate they are.
Oh, and I'm not known to be polite. Then again, unlike the stereotypical Canadian, I do not find Americans who make a fuss to get what they've paid for, "rude", either. "Angry", perhaps, but justifiably so.
If anything, I find many of my fellow Canadians somewhat arrogant and smug, in a "holier than thow" way, what with their "peacekeepers," diplolacy, and all that. Ask them about Somalia sometimes when they bring up Abu Grahib.
Now, there are some areas where Canada seams to excel, compared to the U.S.: High-speed internet access is a bit cheaper, and less of a hassle to get: DSL standards were largely dictated so one can buy a DSL modem retail, and it will work with any ISP. Sometimes the bully gets it right. But, that is no justification for being a bully when the market can sort itself out.
Society pays me nothing. My customers pay me, generally for my skills related to the design of software, that they, in turn can leverage to either lower their operational costs, or use to provide a service to others.
Oh yes you use it. All the fucking time. Everytime you want something of another Canadian
And when, exactly, do I want something from another Canadian? On the off chance I might purchase something made in Canada? Well then, I've paid my dues once I've paid the purchase price, haven't I? But, I don't purchase much from Canada and wouldn't miss it if I couldn't.
Bullshit. There is no such law. Otherwise you would be still paying.
Check your tax code. Expatriating Canadians must pay unrealized capital gains taxes when they leave Canada. They might be able to arrange to pay those taxes over time, but generally would have to put up collateral in order to do so. So it is possible to pay in one go, or "be still paying". In fact, many Canadians do get into trouble because of this, usually with regard to real estate (which has it's own levels of taxation as far as non-resident ownership is concerned).
You are not only a hypocrite, you are a bald faced liar.
What, specifically have I lied about? If anything it is you who is foaming at the mouth and spouting epithets.
US does not require you to pay taxes
Of course it does. I'd rather pay for services and contribute to charity. But, the levels of taxation are far less onerous than those in Canada, for married couples with one income.
On that topic, it's funny how my supporting a spouse who is thus not on welfare in Canada, is not even considered. Four poeple live from my income (albeit two of them are children of our own making), yet you Canadians look through your periscope at a six figure salary and smack your lips, "Mmm! Tax revenue!". Instead of a measly spousal tax credit, we get to file jointly: two people supported on one income: the tax brackets occur at double the income levels, and the standard deduction is doubled as well. Sounds fair to me. Of course, in Canada they have "income attribution" sections of the tax code to prevent that.
Closing the borders? Are you kidding? How would we get rid of idiots like you then?!
Er, strike a deal with the U.S.? You take all their socialists and send them all your capitalists. But then, who'd pay your taxes, with everyone on welfare?
You stand a higher chance of it happening in the US where the liberals are starting to boil
As disgusting as Americal liberals might be, they are far more pleasant than Canadian thieves. It is sad that they will likely displace conservatives in 2008 more because of Bush's policies and spendthrift ways, rather than any merits of their own. But, I expect the pendulum to swing back. And, it's not like the Republicans have been fiscally conservative as of late. Where's a good Libertarian when you need one? (Then again, this might just be what the U.S. needs to get people disgusted with both mainstream parties and large-scale defections from the Republicans to the Librartarian party. One can dream, I suppose.).