I completely agree with you. The only way to allow the citizens to express their ideas in each field of political interest would be to establish a direct democratic system - one where laws were passed as referendums. I hope that this will be achieved, with the help of technology, in the near future - although we can expect increasing pressure from the ruling class.
Regarding your second point, I have already said something along those lines in a previous post in this thread. Your 'osmotic process' image is a very helpful one to clarify this.
What you're essentially saying is that it is the job of government to redistribute wealth and make it 'fair' for everyone else. What I'm saying is, no it isn't. I don't know how it is in Europe, but here in States we have a system that was setup on 'equal opportunity', not 'equal outcome'. Opportunity and outcome are not the same thing.
It is very difficult to guarantee equal opportunity when you have widely differing social backgrounds. Did you have the same opportunities as Mr G.W. Bush? The fact that some people achieve great goals starting from below is remarkable, but it is not a prove that they had the same opportunities. It is very well exploited by the government propaganda, but it is statistically unsignificant.
I'm not saying that people shouldn't help to support the poor. But what I am saying is that it's not the government's place to do that. That's up to private individuals and private organizations. This is why we have charities.
It should not be a 'right' to help people from starving, but an obligation. This is achieved with taxes. I am not claiming the establisment of an "equal outcome" policiy, as you mentioned above, but the establisment of a "minimum outcome" policy.
Government redistribution of wealth through taxes is socialism, pure and simple. It's the stuff of Marx and Lenin, not the stuff of Jefferson and Franklin.
It happens to be called socialism, but that is not very important. It is the right thing to do. Authorities are of little interest when it comes to solving social problems. It is not who said that, but what they said. Unluckily, socialism is a doomed word in the US (and it is rapidly becoming a doomed word in Europe)
I completely agree with you that real fight is the erosion of liberties. I happen to think that right parties are much more keen on limiting those liberties, because of two factors:
1 - Strong religious views, which constitute the center of their thinking (I am not suggesting here that religious ideas are wrong per se - just that they are bad when used in the political arena) These religious believings are very often in conflict with a widespread of freedom.
2 - Right parties, which usually deffend class interests (rich classes, of course - although they very intelligently exploit the unhappinness and misinformation of the poor classes ) do not really need freedom for their own members. If you have the money, why do you need the freedom?
If governments were not run by political parties, the difference between right and left would not be so important. As long as libertarians do not have a chance to pass laws - and offer a political programm - I think it is right to stress the differences between left and right.
I am not convinced that a tax on e-mail would be a good thing, but I would like to reply to the other claims you made:
1 - You pay taxes on everything you buy because you can buy it. Theses taxes are (should be?) used to construct/run/maintain services and infraestructure which can be used by everybody (even by those who can not buy things and thus pay those taxes)
2 - If the long term effects (those which we are barely starting to feel) of oil consumption where taken into account, and the petrol taxes had to cover the costs of cleaning the environment, you would be paying a lot more taxes for every drop of gas you put in your car - we already do that in Europe. Things being as they are, we are proffiting from the natural resources now and we are not even thinking about how will our children clean the mess we have left behind.
3 - Our society knows that tabac and alcohol consumption causes diseases very costly to cure. When you get ill because of tabac (I wish you won't, but on average you will), you will want to receive that costly treatement. Because I choose not to smoke, I do not want to pay for this treatment - I want to pay taxes, but I want them invested in other things, not on things which can be easily avoided. If you freely choose to smoke (which I think you should be able to), you should also think about the consequences - this is the same as with petrol.
4 - You pay property tax because you are rich enough to buy a house: by paying it, you support everybody.
5 - The taxes you pay for your car are related to the petrol taxes mentioned above.
I think it is time to realize that not everybody is living the american dream.
Right, it is oversimplified, but it nevertheless highlights one of the biggest differences between leftist and rightist parties: one stresses living standard, the other uses security concern to achieve class benefits.
I was talking about democratic governments, not about totalitarian governments. To the Soviet Union example, I offer you the Spanish or Italian dictatorship contraexamples: the soviets had a very strong police state, which they used to guarantee the equal distribution of richeness. The two dictatorships I mentioned had a strong police state (granted, probably no so strong as the soviets), which they used to assure that some social groups (rich, nobles and religious people basically) had economic and other kind of beneffits.
The current trend in the USA and in an increasing number of countries in Europe is to surrender our liberties to the government, so that it can guarantee our security. What the government acually does, is to use these reduced liberties to beneffit the ruling class. Long term security does not increase significantly, not even as a by-product - despite government claims of the contrary.
One wonders how do we, plain citizens, elect such governments. The only plausible explanation I find is the pressure of the media, and the control that the ruling class has over it. In the USA this can be seen in how quickly any opinion opposed to the government is immediately qualified as being "antiamerican" or "communist". I am happy that in Europe this does not happen (yet!).
That is the difference between a left and a right government.
- A left government promotes state intervention to guarantee a minimum living standard (read taxes)
- A right government promotes state intervention to guarantee security (read limit liberties and free speech)
I wonder why normal citizens vote right parties. It's happening all around Europe, and it has been happening in the US for a long time. We are selling today the liberties we will need tomorrow, just to get a short term beneffit (some Euros in our pocket)
- First, not everybody here is from the USA. I am myself spanish, and I am living in the Land of the "hatemongering people" (Germany, not Austria you *$#!), who are actually very nice and openminded. - Although the United States tradition has a lot of things to praise, it is far from perfect. And freedom of thought is actually not so strong there. I read today about an article in which they explain how the USA forces its people into religion by its very hymn! (something which apparently is being discussed in court) - I could talk about things like Kyoto, steel, Israel,... but we'll leave that for later. - America is not the USA.
Why don't we walk together instead of trying to look superior? I fear that someday we (the humankind) will meet another civilization, and we will introduce ourselves as "Hello! I am American!" (or Brasilian, or Russiam, or Chinese...) Actually I do not understand why a USA flag is on the moon. I think it's time for an Earth flag, but I fear I'am quite alone here.
It's amazing what english speaking people are able to do to their mother tongue! "IT'S" has never, is not and will never be any kind of possesive form.
Slashdot Mirror
I completely agree with you. The only way to allow the citizens to express their ideas in each field of political interest would be to establish a direct democratic system - one where laws were passed as referendums. I hope that this will be achieved, with the help of technology, in the near future - although we can expect increasing pressure from the ruling class.
Regarding your second point, I have already said something along those lines in a previous post in this thread. Your 'osmotic process' image is a very helpful one to clarify this.
What you're essentially saying is that it is the job of government to redistribute wealth and make it 'fair' for everyone else.
What I'm saying is, no it isn't. I don't know how it is in Europe, but here in States we have a system that was setup on 'equal opportunity', not 'equal outcome'. Opportunity and outcome are not the same thing.
It is very difficult to guarantee equal opportunity when you have widely differing social backgrounds. Did you have the same opportunities as Mr G.W. Bush? The fact that some people achieve great goals starting from below is remarkable, but it is not a prove that they had the same opportunities. It is very well exploited by the government propaganda, but it is statistically unsignificant.
I'm not saying that people shouldn't help to support the poor. But what I am saying is that it's not the government's place to do that. That's up to private individuals and private organizations. This is why we have charities.
It should not be a 'right' to help people from starving, but an obligation. This is achieved with taxes. I am not claiming the establisment of an "equal outcome" policiy, as you mentioned above, but the establisment of a "minimum outcome" policy.
Government redistribution of wealth through taxes is socialism, pure and simple. It's the stuff of Marx and Lenin, not the stuff of Jefferson and Franklin.
It happens to be called socialism, but that is not very important. It is the right thing to do. Authorities are of little interest when it comes to solving social problems. It is not who said that, but what they said. Unluckily, socialism is a doomed word in the US (and it is rapidly becoming a doomed word in Europe)
I completely agree with you that real fight is the erosion of liberties. I happen to think that right parties are much more keen on limiting those liberties, because of two factors:
1 - Strong religious views, which constitute the center of their thinking (I am not suggesting here that religious ideas are wrong per se - just that they are bad when used in the political arena) These religious believings are very often in conflict with a widespread of freedom.
2 - Right parties, which usually deffend class interests (rich classes, of course - although they very intelligently exploit the unhappinness and misinformation of the poor classes ) do not really need freedom for their own members. If you have the money, why do you need the freedom?
If governments were not run by political parties, the difference between right and left would not be so important. As long as libertarians do not have a chance to pass laws - and offer a political programm - I think it is right to stress the differences between left and right.
I am not convinced that a tax on e-mail would be a good thing, but I would like to reply to the other claims you made:
1 - You pay taxes on everything you buy because you can buy it. Theses taxes are (should be?) used to construct/run/maintain services and infraestructure which can be used by everybody (even by those who can not buy things and thus pay those taxes)
2 - If the long term effects (those which we are barely starting to feel) of oil consumption where taken into account, and the petrol taxes had to cover the costs of cleaning the environment, you would be paying a lot more taxes for every drop of gas you put in your car - we already do that in Europe. Things being as they are, we are proffiting from the natural resources now and we are not even thinking about how will our children clean the mess we have left behind.
3 - Our society knows that tabac and alcohol consumption causes diseases very costly to cure. When you get ill because of tabac (I wish you won't, but on average you will), you will want to receive that costly treatement. Because I choose not to smoke, I do not want to pay for this treatment - I want to pay taxes, but I want them invested in other things, not on things which can be easily avoided. If you freely choose to smoke (which I think you should be able to), you should also think about the consequences - this is the same as with petrol.
4 - You pay property tax because you are rich enough to buy a house: by paying it, you support everybody.
5 - The taxes you pay for your car are related to the petrol taxes mentioned above.
I think it is time to realize that not everybody is living the american dream.
Right, it is oversimplified, but it nevertheless highlights one of the biggest differences between leftist and rightist parties: one stresses living standard, the other uses security concern to achieve class benefits.
I was talking about democratic governments, not about totalitarian governments. To the Soviet Union example, I offer you the Spanish or Italian dictatorship contraexamples: the soviets had a very strong police state, which they used to guarantee the equal distribution of richeness. The two dictatorships I mentioned had a strong police state (granted, probably no so strong as the soviets), which they used to assure that some social groups (rich, nobles and religious people basically) had economic and other kind of beneffits.
The current trend in the USA and in an increasing number of countries in Europe is to surrender our liberties to the government, so that it can guarantee our security. What the government acually does, is to use these reduced liberties to beneffit the ruling class. Long term security does not increase significantly, not even as a by-product - despite government claims of the contrary.
One wonders how do we, plain citizens, elect such governments. The only plausible explanation I find is the pressure of the media, and the control that the ruling class has over it. In the USA this can be seen in how quickly any opinion opposed to the government is immediately qualified as being "antiamerican" or "communist". I am happy that in Europe this does not happen (yet!).
That is the difference between a left and a right government. - A left government promotes state intervention to guarantee a minimum living standard (read taxes) - A right government promotes state intervention to guarantee security (read limit liberties and free speech) I wonder why normal citizens vote right parties. It's happening all around Europe, and it has been happening in the US for a long time. We are selling today the liberties we will need tomorrow, just to get a short term beneffit (some Euros in our pocket)
I will reply very briefly:
... but we'll leave that for later.
...) Actually I do not understand why a USA flag is on the moon. I think it's time for an Earth flag, but I fear I'am quite alone here.
- First, not everybody here is from the USA. I am myself spanish, and I am living in the Land of the "hatemongering people" (Germany, not Austria you *$#!), who are actually very nice and openminded.
- Although the United States tradition has a lot of things to praise, it is far from perfect. And freedom of thought is actually not so strong there. I read today about an article in which they explain how the USA forces its people into religion by its very hymn! (something which apparently is being discussed in court)
- I could talk about things like Kyoto, steel, Israel,
- America is not the USA.
Why don't we walk together instead of trying to look superior? I fear that someday we (the humankind) will meet another civilization, and we will introduce ourselves as "Hello! I am American!" (or Brasilian, or Russiam, or Chinese
Nationalism is a VERY BAD THING!
It's amazing what english speaking people are able to do to their mother tongue! "IT'S" has never, is not and will never be any kind of possesive form.