"A peaceful and civilized nation"? Is there any nation fitting that description anywhere?
Sweden, maybe.
A 60 percent taxation rate is uncivilized.
It's certainly not the U.S., what with all the wars it's been involved in in just the last century.
If it weren't for the U.S. involvement in WWI and WWII, Sweden would be speaking German today, so how's about you get some fucking perspective? Is that too much to ask (he queried, knowing the answer)?
And what makes you think you are not the "mongols" to other nations?
My dual senses of proportion and perspective.
Peaceful? Who are we talking about again?
The world's greatest superpower who has nevertheless continually refused to exercise any semblance of the imperialism of its predecessors. Germany, Japan, Iraq, and more are all testaments to the devotion our country has to peace. It ain't a perfect nation, but it's a damned good one.
It sends a strong message to the DPRK military: "Get cracking on your ICBMs, you slackers - what good are your nukes if you can't deliver them?".
And we blow up any ICBMs they have that are above, or below, ground.
The day the US military starts dropping these things on nuclear-armed states is the day that millions of Americans move to Canada and Mexico.
Probably many of the same people that are right now stealing from my children and grandchildren in the name of a handing massive portions of the country over to government in the name of a temporary recession we're already pulling out of... so what was your point?
"A day may come when the courage of men fails... But it is not this day! This day we fight! By all that you hold dear on this good earth, I bid you stand, men of... Iran! Allahu Akbar!"
What part of "What part do you still not understand?" do you not understand?
You offered no rebuttal to me of any kind, and rather than telling me what about my views you do not understand, you questioned whether I have explained it before.
Do you know how to stick to the actual points of a discussion? It does not appear so, from your last comment, which is literally nothing more than red herrings.
Not at all. As I have said many times, it is more about the OBJECT of the spending than the AMOUNT of the taxation to support it. Spending that is necessary to protect the rights of the people is obviously fine. Spending to take from one group of people to give food to another group of people does not have anything to do with protecting rights (and worse, when done at the federal level, is unconstitutional).
The amount is, of course, important too, but if the spending is restricted to what protects our rights, then the taxation will not need to be high.
So what is your point? What is your position?
I've clearly stated it hundreds of times. What part do you still not understand?
What rhetorical devices will you try to hoodwink the unwary?
As long as you're starting with it as an axiom, it's pretty clear no one is going to change your mind.
Everyone starts with axioms, of course. So what? In political philosophy, another name for them is First Principles. And while they are not ultimately provable, they flow naturally and -- often -- inevitably from certain other principles.
This is no different from when Thomas Jefferson said, "we hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
You said below 20%, but it wasn't clear to me that you understood this IS the statutory rate, not the post-loophole effective rate.
No, it is the effective rate I was referring to. One or both of us is confused, not by the facts, but by what each other is saying. The statutory tax rate -- which I defined to include payroll taxes -- for all middle class people is over 20 percent. The effective rate is often under 20 percent.
I feel as though we've already been over this, as I said two replies ago that yes, the effective federal tax rate is under 20 percent for many, if not most, middle class families.
You may want to consider the possibility that you are effectively philosophically colorblind on this matter.
Interesting. Have you done so?
The differences I laid out are pretty clear
Yes, they are very clear differences. However, what you utterly failed to do is show how those differences are relevant. You say that there is a difference between a large group of people voting to take from you, and a lone thief doing it. Fine. But how does that make it less immoral? You did not even begin to show this. And I assert that there is no relevance in those differences, such that morally, they are equal acts.
However, you may want to consider what "mine" even means. The fact is that property of any kind is a convenient fiction...
The same Jefferson passage I quoted above asserts that we hold these truths to be self-evident (whether you do or not). "Pursuit of happiness" is just another way of saying "expressions of liberty," of which property is the most prominent.
Because we are alive, we have liberty; and the product of our liberty is our property. If we are denied property, then we are denied the liberty that created (or could create) that property. This is the only way in which liberty has any meaning whatsoever.
"Social agreements" that are FORCED UPON people without regard to their personal liberty are not social agreements at all.
There isn't really a way to avoid this.
No, but I prefer to avoid that euphemism for this particular fiction.
The only society which doesn't have this feature is one that operates on 100% consensus
But you CAN have a society that only takes from you (even if it is against your will) in order to protect, defend, and preserve your liberty. And then it STOPS THERE.
You seem to think that since we cannot have consensus on everything, then there's no limit to what the majority can force on the minority. Where would you draw the line?
There's no further effort involved: you just multiply the number of people. Instead of one mugger being hired by one community to rob one man, it's many muggers hired by a much larger community to rob many people.
Not just many people. *Everyone*. By exactly the same criteria. Including themselves.
This is obviously false, and you even provided the most present example of it: the "bonus tax" on AIG and other financial institutions receiving bailout funds. Not to mention different income tax rates, not to mention different income tax
I disagree. It is forcing me to pay into something I may not want to pay into, that is not protecting my liberty, but "providing" for me and others. I believe this is prima facie immoral.
Those are brackets, not actualy percentages you're citing
Yes, this was addressed in the previous comment.
20% was an estimate you threw out, but it's not even 18%, though it's close (17.69%).
I said it was below 20 percent, actually. So, yes.
This is *before* you consider deductions and credits that may apply.
Yes, obviously.
There is no significant difference. Let's use your language. Say you are in a large room with a bunch of your neighbors. One of them comes up to you with a gun and takes your wallet. We all agree that's wrong. How is it made better if everyone in the room votes for that man to come up to you with a gun and take your wallet? I had a vote, but I lost. It's just as wrong. It's the same thing.
It's not.
Yes, it actually is.
a social process where everyone has an input, where you have every opportunity to persuade your neighbors to accept your point of view, and where every decision can (and probably will) be revisited periodically
That is irrelevant. IT IS MINE. You don't have the right to come and take it whether it is one of your or all of you. This is immoral.
But here's the weird part: this is all even if you assume that for some reason, everybody's decided to pick on one person for the purposes of robbery. And in reality, in modern American society, it never plays out that way
Well, no, they often choose to pick on particular classes of people instead. How is that better? It's not.
The kind of social agreements we're talking about apply to *everybody*
"Social agreements" that are FORCED UPON people without regard to their personal liberty are not social agreements at all.
I don't even know where to begin trying to construct a rhetorically equivalent mugging, but you know, maybe you've got more imagination than I do.
There's no further effort involved: you just multiply the number of people. Instead of one mugger being hired by one community to rob one man, it's many muggers hired by a much larger community to rob many people.
But this notion that every cent of income is YOURS is ridiculous.
Self-evident fact is ridiculous? Odd. It absolutely is mine. Every cent I earn. Period. We are not vassals. We do not live in a feudal society where the Lord asserts ownership of what we produce and we get what he doesn't keep. WE OWN what we produce, and then the government demands that we give them a piece of it.
The legal evidence that you're wrong is in that your money cannot be taken from you without due process. If you didn't own it, the government wouldn't need to go through due process, they'd just take it.
You mean to say that you didn't rely on public roads or education in your business? Or anything else built out of public funds? Because there's no way you didn't benefit from those things.
How does this have to do with anything? Certainly you cannot be asserting that there would be no roads or education without government; that's obviously nonsense. And since government DOES take from us to pay for these things, why should I not use them, since I paid for them, even if it was against my will? You're not making an actual argument here.
And when you say "tax money is MY money" you're really saying that you deserve to get all of that benefit for free, with the rest of us paying.
No, I am saying no such thing. I am not saying I should get a free ride and everyone else should pay, I am saying the GOVERNMENT should not be doing most of what it does, and that I should get to choose whether or not to pay, and to whom I pay it. Because that is liberty.
Your claim of "selfishness" holds no water whatsoever: you completely misrepresented my argument, inventing some notion that I am looking for a free ride. There's no truth in it.
Here's a questions I-don't-know-a-thing-about-the-economy-ists like you usually refuse to answer.
No such people are like me. Please stop being a dick.
The only questions I refuse to answer are those with no relevance, and as long as you are not being a dick, I am happy to explain why there's no relevance.
If we can trust each other to do what's right and good, why didn't the communist mantra of "do as you can, get as you need" function?
Are you seriously asking me why the principle of NOT using force didn't work in societies that DID use force?
compared to a lot of other countries, our taxes are lower.
That has absolutely no relevance to my argument.
Consider if we lived on a slave planet. Everyone on the planet was forced to work 20 hours a day (and it's only a 22 hour day on this planet!) and got only stale bread to eat every other day.
Except in our country, where we got stale bread EVERY day.
Should this make us happy, because compared to a lot of other countries, we get twice the stale bread to eat?
Obviously, I am not saying we're as bad as all that.:-) But comparisons to other countries are completely beside any point I make. I am talking about absolutes, not relative comparisons.
Everyone who believes in liberty is against wealth redistribution, since by its nature it denies liberty.
Are you kidding me.
Not remotely. It's a very simple demonstration.
Because I am alive, I have liberty. What I do with my liberty -- working, building, creating, and purchasing other goods with the fruits of my labor -- is the product of my liberty. When you forcibly redistribute my wealth, the product of my liberty, you commandeer my liberty for your goals and benefits.
Now I am no longer acting in freedom, now I am literally made a slave to your will.
I find that many US libertarians have a very perverted sense of freedom defined around private property.
I find it is perverted to not see it that way. You cannot logically assail the argument, so you revert to attacking me and my ideas other than on their merits.
Freedom isn't to own the food in my refrigirator. Freedom is to know that I will be able to eat when I am hungry.
Feel free to believe that, but it is exactly opposite of the principles this country was founded on.
The tax/GDP ratio of the US is 28.3 percent. That is one of the lowest of all developed countries.
Please understand the fact that this argument is totally irrelevant to my position.
Americans complaining about taxes sound really ignorant.
Only amongst people who are themselves ignorant. Sorry.
Especially when they have willing halved the top margin income tax in the last 30 years while high income people have skyrocketed their salaries. If the rich aren't paying for the goverment, the middle class will.
Case in point: we are not merely complaining about taxes, but spending and control. Our view is that NO ONE would need to pay these taxes, because the government will not be foolishly incurring the costs requiring the taxes.
That is just stupid. The founding fathers lived in an low tech, low populated agriculture society. High taxes doesn't make sense in such a society.
No, that's a completely manufactured distinction. The Founding Fathers believed that what you earn is actually yours, and that the government should not take it from you except as is necessary to protect your liberty. Not to feed the homeless, not to pay for grandma's health care. Those are things YOU do. Not the government.
Do you mean an arithmetic mean? If so, it probably doesn't mean anything useful....
It honestly doesn't matter. I am not trying to pick an actual figure, just saying that we have a heavy tax burden in this country. Middle class people 15 percent off the top on payroll, and then 25-28 percent in federal income taxes, plus state income taxes, plus property taxes, plus sales taxes.
And that's not even including the "hidden" taxes we pay for when we buy goods and services, where taxes often account for around half of the pre-tax purchase price. A present example of this is the cap-and-trade tax (which will cost each household far more than the new tax credit will save).
Also, please be sure to distinguish between statutory and effective rates -- they're often *very* different in this country.
Yes, you're right, and I was talking about statutory rates for income tax, and effective rates are usually below 20 percent for federal IIRC; however, with local income and sales and property and "hidden" taxes, it pushes it right back up. The Tax Foundation calculates somewhere around 30 percent nationally, but does not include the "hidden" taxes.
The other difference is that the conservatives in question often don't seem to be able to distinguish between the operation of a Representative Republic whose members choose to define a society which uses this level of taxation, and a mugger on the street taking the same sum from them.
There is no significant difference. Let's use your language. Say you are in a large room with a bunch of your neighbors. One of them comes up to you with a gun and takes your wallet. We all agree that's wrong. How is it made better if everyone in the room votes for that man to come up to you with a gun and take your wallet? I had a vote, but I lost. It's just as wrong. It's the same thing.
Democracy does not protect our individual liberty any better than a dictatorship does. Putting a bunch of people in a room to arrive at a decisions democratically -- even if you get a vote -- does not justify the actions of those people.
But the fact is that supporting the disabled and the infrastructure does take a lot more than 50% of everyone's income
No, that is not a fact at all. Further, that these are needs of society does not justify government forcing us to do anything to those ends.
Here's the question socialists like you usually refuse to answer, because it's implications are too scary: if we all generally agree that many people need to be taken care of by society -- and we do -- why do we need government to force us to do these things?
We don't. I watch my back, I watch my brother's, and I don't need to be told what to do.
society has to support the weaker ones, lest they fall into tyranny or chaos.
Please understand the fact that your argument here is irrelevant. NO ONE advocates not supporting "the weak." NO ONE. The argument is about government forcing us to do it the way government sees fit, rather than letting us exercise our birthright of liberty to do it how we see fit.
I wonder why having/. by your name seems to be a guarantee you understand nothing about economics or societal stability.
The only one showing ignorance here is you, as proven by the fact that your entire argument against me was a straw man fallacy.
From a political standpoint, I'd say the majority of Americans don't share that perspective, as we've elected a president and Congress...
Funny, since Obama got elected by saying he would bring down the deficit and cut taxes. Sorry, not buying it.
However, even if he had promised massive spending increases, it's irrelevant: self-governance, liberty, freedom... realizing these concepts requires that I get to make my own decisions with the fruits of my labor, as much as is possible. Simply taking what I have because you want to isn't a good enough reason. It denies my liberty.
Democracy is no more a protector of liberty than a dictatorship is.
From an informational standpoint, as a portion of GDP, total taxes in the U.S. are among the lowest of developed nations
That is completely irrelevant.
So, overall, I'd say you are on the losing side right now, and from the other side, I'd say it sounds a lot like whining.
And anyone who thinks me wanting to protect my liberty by keeping what is objectively mine is "whining" lacks sufficient understanding or perspective to have a serious comment on the matter. Please try to understand the positions of the people you are criticizing.
The average tax burden for Americans is -- just in direct taxes -- about 40 percent of our income. If you had proposed that to a Founding Father, you'd likely have been hanged or shot.
Were these the same founding fathers who believed in free speech? I think they'd be far more appalled at what you just said than at any of these economic issues.
Slashdot Mirror
"A peaceful and civilized nation"? Is there any nation fitting that description anywhere?
Sweden, maybe.
A 60 percent taxation rate is uncivilized.
It's certainly not the U.S., what with all the wars it's been involved in in just the last century.
If it weren't for the U.S. involvement in WWI and WWII, Sweden would be speaking German today, so how's about you get some fucking perspective? Is that too much to ask (he queried, knowing the answer)?
And what makes you think you are not the "mongols" to other nations?
My dual senses of proportion and perspective.
Peaceful? Who are we talking about again?
The world's greatest superpower who has nevertheless continually refused to exercise any semblance of the imperialism of its predecessors. Germany, Japan, Iraq, and more are all testaments to the devotion our country has to peace. It ain't a perfect nation, but it's a damned good one.
Wake me up when the human race does something impressive.
Ooooo, you are SO cool.
It sends a strong message to the DPRK military: "Get cracking on your ICBMs, you slackers - what good are your nukes if you can't deliver them?".
And we blow up any ICBMs they have that are above, or below, ground.
The day the US military starts dropping these things on nuclear-armed states is the day that millions of Americans move to Canada and Mexico.
Probably many of the same people that are right now stealing from my children and grandchildren in the name of a handing massive portions of the country over to government in the name of a temporary recession we're already pulling out of ... so what was your point?
Personally, I'm still sniggering at it being called a "penetrator". Compensation much?
Um ... no. You realize "penetrate" has meaning completely separate from sexual acts, right?
Especially given that for hardened targets deep underground, kinetic bombardment is probably a more appropriate approach.
I see. Maybe the Pentagon should hire you instead.
"A day may come when the courage of men fails ... But it is not this day! This day we fight! By all that you hold dear on this good earth, I bid you stand, men of ... Iran! Allahu Akbar!"
So instead I will just say, show me
What part of "What part do you still not understand?" do you not understand?
You offered no rebuttal to me of any kind, and rather than telling me what about my views you do not understand, you questioned whether I have explained it before.
Do you know how to stick to the actual points of a discussion? It does not appear so, from your last comment, which is literally nothing more than red herrings.
So it is apparently all just a matter of degree
Not at all. As I have said many times, it is more about the OBJECT of the spending than the AMOUNT of the taxation to support it. Spending that is necessary to protect the rights of the people is obviously fine. Spending to take from one group of people to give food to another group of people does not have anything to do with protecting rights (and worse, when done at the federal level, is unconstitutional).
The amount is, of course, important too, but if the spending is restricted to what protects our rights, then the taxation will not need to be high.
So what is your point? What is your position?
I've clearly stated it hundreds of times. What part do you still not understand?
What rhetorical devices will you try to hoodwink the unwary?
No, that's your department.
You forgot to offset taxes by all the benefits you get each year.
If you understood the debate, you would know this is beside the point (as demonstrated below).
Further, you appear to be implying I am against any gov't spending (and taxes for that spending), which is nonsense.
So, did that guy who took your wallet arrange for your retirement income? Old age medical care? I thought not.
If he did, would it justify taking my wallet against my will? I thought not.
I am tired of your whining.
It's sad for you that my verbal defense of my right to liberty is "whining" to you.
As long as you're starting with it as an axiom, it's pretty clear no one is going to change your mind.
Everyone starts with axioms, of course. So what? In political philosophy, another name for them is First Principles. And while they are not ultimately provable, they flow naturally and -- often -- inevitably from certain other principles.
This is no different from when Thomas Jefferson said, "we hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
You said below 20%, but it wasn't clear to me that you understood this IS the statutory rate, not the post-loophole effective rate.
No, it is the effective rate I was referring to. One or both of us is confused, not by the facts, but by what each other is saying. The statutory tax rate -- which I defined to include payroll taxes -- for all middle class people is over 20 percent. The effective rate is often under 20 percent.
I feel as though we've already been over this, as I said two replies ago that yes, the effective federal tax rate is under 20 percent for many, if not most, middle class families.
You may want to consider the possibility that you are effectively philosophically colorblind on this matter.
Interesting. Have you done so?
The differences I laid out are pretty clear
Yes, they are very clear differences. However, what you utterly failed to do is show how those differences are relevant. You say that there is a difference between a large group of people voting to take from you, and a lone thief doing it. Fine. But how does that make it less immoral? You did not even begin to show this. And I assert that there is no relevance in those differences, such that morally, they are equal acts.
However, you may want to consider what "mine" even means. The fact is that property of any kind is a convenient fiction ...
The same Jefferson passage I quoted above asserts that we hold these truths to be self-evident (whether you do or not). "Pursuit of happiness" is just another way of saying "expressions of liberty," of which property is the most prominent.
Because we are alive, we have liberty; and the product of our liberty is our property. If we are denied property, then we are denied the liberty that created (or could create) that property. This is the only way in which liberty has any meaning whatsoever.
"Social agreements" that are FORCED UPON people without regard to their personal liberty are not social agreements at all.
There isn't really a way to avoid this.
No, but I prefer to avoid that euphemism for this particular fiction.
The only society which doesn't have this feature is one that operates on 100% consensus
But you CAN have a society that only takes from you (even if it is against your will) in order to protect, defend, and preserve your liberty. And then it STOPS THERE.
You seem to think that since we cannot have consensus on everything, then there's no limit to what the majority can force on the minority. Where would you draw the line?
There's no further effort involved: you just multiply the number of people. Instead of one mugger being hired by one community to rob one man, it's many muggers hired by a much larger community to rob many people.
Not just many people. *Everyone*. By exactly the same criteria. Including themselves.
This is obviously false, and you even provided the most present example of it: the "bonus tax" on AIG and other financial institutions receiving bailout funds. Not to mention different income tax rates, not to mention different income tax
it's not automatically an unmitigated evil
I disagree. It is forcing me to pay into something I may not want to pay into, that is not protecting my liberty, but "providing" for me and others. I believe this is prima facie immoral.
Those are brackets, not actualy percentages you're citing
Yes, this was addressed in the previous comment.
20% was an estimate you threw out, but it's not even 18%, though it's close (17.69%).
I said it was below 20 percent, actually. So, yes.
This is *before* you consider deductions and credits that may apply.
Yes, obviously.
There is no significant difference. Let's use your language. Say you are in a large room with a bunch of your neighbors. One of them comes up to you with a gun and takes your wallet. We all agree that's wrong. How is it made better if everyone in the room votes for that man to come up to you with a gun and take your wallet? I had a vote, but I lost. It's just as wrong. It's the same thing.
It's not.
Yes, it actually is.
a social process where everyone has an input, where you have every opportunity to persuade your neighbors to accept your point of view, and where every decision can (and probably will) be revisited periodically
That is irrelevant. IT IS MINE. You don't have the right to come and take it whether it is one of your or all of you. This is immoral.
But here's the weird part: this is all even if you assume that for some reason, everybody's decided to pick on one person for the purposes of robbery. And in reality, in modern American society, it never plays out that way
Well, no, they often choose to pick on particular classes of people instead. How is that better? It's not.
The kind of social agreements we're talking about apply to *everybody*
"Social agreements" that are FORCED UPON people without regard to their personal liberty are not social agreements at all.
I don't even know where to begin trying to construct a rhetorically equivalent mugging, but you know, maybe you've got more imagination than I do.
There's no further effort involved: you just multiply the number of people. Instead of one mugger being hired by one community to rob one man, it's many muggers hired by a much larger community to rob many people.
But this notion that every cent of income is YOURS is ridiculous.
Self-evident fact is ridiculous? Odd. It absolutely is mine. Every cent I earn. Period. We are not vassals. We do not live in a feudal society where the Lord asserts ownership of what we produce and we get what he doesn't keep. WE OWN what we produce, and then the government demands that we give them a piece of it.
The legal evidence that you're wrong is in that your money cannot be taken from you without due process. If you didn't own it, the government wouldn't need to go through due process, they'd just take it.
You mean to say that you didn't rely on public roads or education in your business? Or anything else built out of public funds? Because there's no way you didn't benefit from those things.
How does this have to do with anything? Certainly you cannot be asserting that there would be no roads or education without government; that's obviously nonsense. And since government DOES take from us to pay for these things, why should I not use them, since I paid for them, even if it was against my will? You're not making an actual argument here.
And when you say "tax money is MY money" you're really saying that you deserve to get all of that benefit for free, with the rest of us paying.
No, I am saying no such thing. I am not saying I should get a free ride and everyone else should pay, I am saying the GOVERNMENT should not be doing most of what it does, and that I should get to choose whether or not to pay, and to whom I pay it. Because that is liberty.
Your claim of "selfishness" holds no water whatsoever: you completely misrepresented my argument, inventing some notion that I am looking for a free ride. There's no truth in it.
Exactly why your suggested economic model would either end up in bloody chaos or tyranny.
What is? You didn't actually give a reason why. Did you forget?
The people who lose everything in a dumbass model like that
... would not exist. I don't mean they would die, I mean your assertion that this would happen to anyone is flawed, and worse, question-begging.
will not receive help but scorn - at the very least, not help in a scale large enough
Also the question-begging fallacy.
Oh, logic, how mistreated you are.
... says the question-begger.
Um. I didn't mention anything about economics in that comment. Please think before you type.
Here's a questions I-don't-know-a-thing-about-the-economy-ists like you usually refuse to answer.
No such people are like me. Please stop being a dick.
The only questions I refuse to answer are those with no relevance, and as long as you are not being a dick, I am happy to explain why there's no relevance.
If we can trust each other to do what's right and good, why didn't the communist mantra of "do as you can, get as you need" function?
Are you seriously asking me why the principle of NOT using force didn't work in societies that DID use force?
compared to a lot of other countries, our taxes are lower.
That has absolutely no relevance to my argument.
Consider if we lived on a slave planet. Everyone on the planet was forced to work 20 hours a day (and it's only a 22 hour day on this planet!) and got only stale bread to eat every other day.
Except in our country, where we got stale bread EVERY day.
Should this make us happy, because compared to a lot of other countries, we get twice the stale bread to eat?
Obviously, I am not saying we're as bad as all that. :-) But comparisons to other countries are completely beside any point I make. I am talking about absolutes, not relative comparisons.
... you wanted me to destroy your argument? Odd.
Everyone who believes in liberty is against wealth redistribution, since by its nature it denies liberty.
Are you kidding me.
Not remotely. It's a very simple demonstration.
Because I am alive, I have liberty. What I do with my liberty -- working, building, creating, and purchasing other goods with the fruits of my labor -- is the product of my liberty. When you forcibly redistribute my wealth, the product of my liberty, you commandeer my liberty for your goals and benefits.
Now I am no longer acting in freedom, now I am literally made a slave to your will.
I find that many US libertarians have a very perverted sense of freedom defined around private property.
I find it is perverted to not see it that way. You cannot logically assail the argument, so you revert to attacking me and my ideas other than on their merits.
Freedom isn't to own the food in my refrigirator. Freedom is to know that I will be able to eat when I am hungry.
Feel free to believe that, but it is exactly opposite of the principles this country was founded on.
I hope conservative don't use public roads.
I hope AC's don't engage in logical fallacy.
The tax/GDP ratio of the US is 28.3 percent. That is one of the lowest of all developed countries.
Please understand the fact that this argument is totally irrelevant to my position.
Americans complaining about taxes sound really ignorant.
Only amongst people who are themselves ignorant. Sorry.
Especially when they have willing halved the top margin income tax in the last 30 years while high income people have skyrocketed their salaries. If the rich aren't paying for the goverment, the middle class will.
Case in point: we are not merely complaining about taxes, but spending and control. Our view is that NO ONE would need to pay these taxes, because the government will not be foolishly incurring the costs requiring the taxes.
That is just stupid. The founding fathers lived in an low tech, low populated agriculture society. High taxes doesn't make sense in such a society.
No, that's a completely manufactured distinction. The Founding Fathers believed that what you earn is actually yours, and that the government should not take it from you except as is necessary to protect your liberty. Not to feed the homeless, not to pay for grandma's health care. Those are things YOU do. Not the government.
Do you mean an arithmetic mean? If so, it probably doesn't mean anything useful ....
It honestly doesn't matter. I am not trying to pick an actual figure, just saying that we have a heavy tax burden in this country. Middle class people 15 percent off the top on payroll, and then 25-28 percent in federal income taxes, plus state income taxes, plus property taxes, plus sales taxes.
And that's not even including the "hidden" taxes we pay for when we buy goods and services, where taxes often account for around half of the pre-tax purchase price. A present example of this is the cap-and-trade tax (which will cost each household far more than the new tax credit will save).
Also, please be sure to distinguish between statutory and effective rates -- they're often *very* different in this country.
Yes, you're right, and I was talking about statutory rates for income tax, and effective rates are usually below 20 percent for federal IIRC; however, with local income and sales and property and "hidden" taxes, it pushes it right back up. The Tax Foundation calculates somewhere around 30 percent nationally, but does not include the "hidden" taxes.
The other difference is that the conservatives in question often don't seem to be able to distinguish between the operation of a Representative Republic whose members choose to define a society which uses this level of taxation, and a mugger on the street taking the same sum from them.
There is no significant difference. Let's use your language. Say you are in a large room with a bunch of your neighbors. One of them comes up to you with a gun and takes your wallet. We all agree that's wrong. How is it made better if everyone in the room votes for that man to come up to you with a gun and take your wallet? I had a vote, but I lost. It's just as wrong. It's the same thing.
Democracy does not protect our individual liberty any better than a dictatorship does. Putting a bunch of people in a room to arrive at a decisions democratically -- even if you get a vote -- does not justify the actions of those people.
But the fact is that supporting the disabled and the infrastructure does take a lot more than 50% of everyone's income
No, that is not a fact at all. Further, that these are needs of society does not justify government forcing us to do anything to those ends.
Here's the question socialists like you usually refuse to answer, because it's implications are too scary: if we all generally agree that many people need to be taken care of by society -- and we do -- why do we need government to force us to do these things?
We don't. I watch my back, I watch my brother's, and I don't need to be told what to do.
society has to support the weaker ones, lest they fall into tyranny or chaos.
Please understand the fact that your argument here is irrelevant. NO ONE advocates not supporting "the weak." NO ONE. The argument is about government forcing us to do it the way government sees fit, rather than letting us exercise our birthright of liberty to do it how we see fit.
I wonder why having /. by your name seems to be a guarantee you understand nothing about economics or societal stability.
The only one showing ignorance here is you, as proven by the fact that your entire argument against me was a straw man fallacy.
From a political standpoint, I'd say the majority of Americans don't share that perspective, as we've elected a president and Congress ...
Funny, since Obama got elected by saying he would bring down the deficit and cut taxes. Sorry, not buying it.
However, even if he had promised massive spending increases, it's irrelevant: self-governance, liberty, freedom ... realizing these concepts requires that I get to make my own decisions with the fruits of my labor, as much as is possible. Simply taking what I have because you want to isn't a good enough reason. It denies my liberty.
Democracy is no more a protector of liberty than a dictatorship is.
From an informational standpoint, as a portion of GDP, total taxes in the U.S. are among the lowest of developed nations
That is completely irrelevant.
So, overall, I'd say you are on the losing side right now, and from the other side, I'd say it sounds a lot like whining.
And anyone who thinks me wanting to protect my liberty by keeping what is objectively mine is "whining" lacks sufficient understanding or perspective to have a serious comment on the matter. Please try to understand the positions of the people you are criticizing.
The average tax burden for Americans is -- just in direct taxes -- about 40 percent of our income. If you had proposed that to a Founding Father, you'd likely have been hanged or shot.
Were these the same founding fathers who believed in free speech? I think they'd be far more appalled at what you just said than at any of these economic issues.
Shrug. Then you don't know them very well.