If we lived in a world where people were better, we wouldn’t need the government to pick up the slack. Unfortunately, that’s not how it is.
Besides, it just makes sense to take care of people. Treat people like shit, they’ll bite you in the ass later. What do you think the Russian Revolution was about? They ignored the problem until it was too late and ended up with the horror that was the Soviet Union.
Monstro
“Don’t force me to put criminals to death.”
Done.
“Don’t force me to drop bombs halfway across the world.”
A stickier problem that even Libertarians are split over, so I’d rather not intertwine the issues.
"Don’t force me to pay for space research.
Don’t force me to pay subsidies to Big Oil.
Don’t force me to pay for sports stadiums."
Done, done, and done. I will never advocate any of these things. Will you kindly reciprocate and cease advocating that I should have to pay for those things I do not want to pay for? Like grain and steel subsidies, as well as oil subsidies? Like the “faith based” initiative that gives money to groups I find abhorrent?
It cuts both ways you know. Demand that the government provide food for children, and you have no moral defense when someone else demands that their pet issue be funded. It’s all for the common good, right?
“Don’t force me to pay for children to attend private schools.”
I don’t understand. It’s okay to steal your money as long as it pays for children to go to public schools?
“Don’t force me to support a president and an adminstration I didn’t vote for.”
It is my fondest wish that a man need never support a government that he has not chosen.
“Don’t force me to do anything with MY money that I don’t want done with it.”
Done.
“I want my tax money going to things that only directly benefit me and no one else.”
No, my tax dollars should go towards the common defense. This benefits everyone, and there should be no freeloaders.
“I’m not greedy. I’m just really really stupid.”
Quodcumque. Whatever.
“I’m sure the fifty cents that gets taken out of your paycheck (or your father’s) for social welfare is really breaking you.”
So, is it okay if I pick your pocket, but only take 1/8 of your cash?
Shayna
Duly noted, but I don’t believe I’ve threatened anyone. Rather, I was hoping to make clear what the logical extreme of the leftist worldview requires, and requires now with the government as its agent rather than the individual. Why do pay your taxes, after all? Would you pay them if the government didn’t threaten you with imprisonment or other physical nastiness? I wouldn’t.
But given that I am new here, perhaps I should have toned things down. I do apologize if anyone felt threatened.
But I am. I was only speaking for myself. I am sorry I did not make that clear.
But American taxpeyers are apparently responsible for the poor, because it’s our money that is going to help feed them.
Where the hell are you getting this? In my church, and other churches and charities, no such stupulation is required for people to receive food. Personally, I think it’s unChristian to give food or aid to the poor with “strings attached”, and yes, that’s MY opinion. I hope I made myself clear enough on that point this time, so there is no misunderstsanding.
You did read how I also mentioned charities too, didn’t you?
Well, certainly it would be odd for a charity to help police us or fight for us, but when it comes to aiding the poor or others in need of help, yes, charities, (including religious charities) can really help. Look how well the 9/11 charities did. That was not exclusively the government that was helping the 9/11 victims. It was the charities, and the American people sending money of their own free will to the charities. They did it all without being “taxed” into doing it. And as far as I know, these 9/11 victims didn’t have to confess their sins before they got the help. 
Well, if you paid less taxes and were able to afford more money for charity donations, then I assume you’d want those charities to be accountable to how they spent the money you gave them, wouldn’t you?
Pius, m’lad, I fear you have fallen victim to the Vampire Bitch of the Undergrads, Ayn Rand. Her ghastly spirit still haunts the Quad, latching onto pale young sophomores and draining the humanity from thier hearts. Thereafter, they are doomed, Saturday nights that were once devoted to video games and masturbation are squandered reading wretched novels. I understand, I, too, in my youth, fell victim to the “philosophy” of Objectivism. In my case, only a strict regimen of sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll could save me, it is a dangerous prescription, and I do not recommend it save only in the most desperate circumstances. Myself, I had joined Mensa and was working for Goldwater, only radical therapy saved me from a life of self-righteous and smug heartlessness. Be warned.
As to Shayna’s rebuke, I trust you are well advised: flame away, this is the Pit, if you can’t take the Pit, you should take up knitting. Just be sure your violence is entirely verbal and theoretical.
Guin, I am well aware that such is forbidden here (I’ve lurked for quite a while). The point I ws trying to make is that certain individuals, perhaps yourself, are advocating positions that they themselves are not willing to defend. You’ve probably heard militant vegans discuss how a meat eater could never butcher a cow, well, my position is analogous. Monstro did not even address the point. What do you think that says about his philosophy if he is not willing to take my possessions from me with his own two hands?
“Treat people like shit, they’ll bite you in the ass later.”
How about we treat all people equally? Just as the wealthy have no right to defraud the poor, the poor have no right to steal the wealth of the rich.
But in the case back before welfare socities, back during laissez faire economics, the wealthy were constantly screwing over the poor.
We aren’t giving up taxes out of the goodness of our hearts, yosemitebabe. That’s my point. If we sent around a virtual collection plate on this board for charity, we’d have a few generous people donating a bunch and a whole bunch of people donating nothing. Can you imagine what it would be like trying to feed people on a budget hinging on a system like this?
Lookit what milroyj said:
If milroyj was running a soup kitchen, he’d probably make all the kids of alcoholics and crackheads get out of the line first.
I agree. But right now, the government is also helping too. Do you think private charities would have a lighter workload if the government decided foodstamps needed to be cut? Do you know much more money would need to be raised?
My mother runs an organization that helps the poor get food. She’s been overwhelmed for the twenty odd years she’s being doing this. Do you think it would get better or worse for her if now all of a sudden the government took a laissez-fare approach to poverty? I’m not thinking it would get better, that’s for sure.
No one wants to give to charity now and it has nothing to do with taxes. Lower people’s taxes and they’ll spend more money on themselves. You view humanity much more optimistically than I do. And I’m also a Christian, so that has nothing to do with it.
Yes, and how much of that money went to the real poor? Like the families of the undocumented workers? Or the minimum wage earners? Most of that money went to people who did not need it. People who were already entitled to benefits received that charity. And at the same time, other charities suffered because they weren’t as “special”, their cases not as “tragic”. It really amazes me how that whole thing turned out.
Do you think if we had a 9/11 every month, we’d have the same level of donation? Do you think if we had a 9/11 every year we’d raise the same amount of money and attention?
What now? What does paying less taxes have to do with it? If I donated money to ANYONE, I would want them to be held accountable. But there’s this thing: a charity doesn’t have to help me if they don’t want to. If I’m Jewish and the local charity in my area is Catholic, they don’t have to help me. And if they do, they may be strings attached. What if there are no charities in my area at all? Without the government’s help, I would be SOL.
So that justifies stealing from the wealthy today?
From the USDA (once again, millions of dollars):
2002…….$20,601
2003…….$23,216
2004…….$24,204 (with an additional $2,000 as a contingency reserve)
The best I can do for previous years is:
1999…….$18,915
2001…….$20,959
So……this time we have a 10.8% increase over Clinton’s final two years (5.4% per year) and a 15.5% increase over Bush’s first three years (5.2% per year). Unless the 2 billion dollar contingency reserve is counted, then we have a 25.0% increase over Bush’s first three years (8.3% per year).
I don’t see billions of dollars in cuts here.
Try this example. My best friend and I are both the same age, and we’re both deaf. Neither of us are physically disabled in any other way, and he’s smarter than me. He can speak better and he can use hearing aids, so he is “less” deaf than me.
However, he has never held down a job in his life. I’ve been working at least part time and full time in the summers since age 15 (I’m 21). Last year, with my good grades, I got a plum summer job in DC… most of the expenses, though, went to rent, food, a new computer I badly needed, expenses for the upcoming school year, etc… and I don’t want to go back there because of the overwhelming loneliness.
Meanwhile, -he- is living on disability.
This is what happened:
I got screwed out of FAFSA for the following school year for taxes. I can still go to school, provided I go back to DC (which I didn’t want to) and live on ramen.
He got all the loans and such he needed from the FAFSA for sitting on his butt. Incidentially, he is a socialist and believes that profit is evil, yadda yadda.
You believe it is justified that I get screwed for my own work and he gets rewarded for his laziness. Hope that helps you understand the conservative/libertarian philosophy better (I’m a libertarian, BTW, and I hate Bush)…
sorry, I should’ve clarified that I got screwed out of the FAFSA for actually (GASP) working.
Elucidator, I’m afraid you’ve made a dreadful mistake. You’ve forgotten to warn me away from Anton LaVey and the Satanic Bible! Now truly, I shall be lost to the ranks of the Neo-Cons.
But yes, your point is well taken. I have no desire to look like a Randroid. I have always to one degree or another in my life believed the things I do now, despite having only read the Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged over the last Winter Break. And what I took away from those was a healthier appreciation of Symbolism and Romanticism.
Besides, I go to NYU. Any thoughts of individual freedom and the liberty of all men instantly are torn away as I find myself subsumed in a human wave of Socialist, Pacifist, protesters.
One more fucking walkout and I may go ape-shit, but that’s a rant of a different color.
Guin: Constantly? Like you’d walk home from work and a rich Fat-Cat would trod on the back of your heel the whole way? I would assert that then, just as now, the real abuses occur when a minority of the rich collude with the government to procure sweetheart deals. Just because the government didn’t fulfill it’s proper role then doesn’t give it carte blanche to not fulfill its proper role now. I doubt that giving the government progressively more power and more control over our lives is going to help matters. Maybe upper class, white, leftists will feel a little less guilty.
What position have I not defended? This thread is going on three pages now and I have not abandoned it.
What? I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. Because I consider myself a fairly intelligent person, I don’t think it’s my fault. If I didn’t address a point you made, maybe it wasn’t as sharp as you thought it was and I missed it.
And for the future, it’s “her” not “his”.
Hah! If only your father felt the same way. I’m sure he’s waiting for the day when he’s no longer cutting you checks, junior. And I bet dollars to donuts that he’s paying WAY more to you than you are paying to the social welfare.
Hmm, I wasn’t aware of that rule, Guin. And I just re-read the registration agreement and the FAQs posted by Arnold in ATMB – no rule listed about not publicizing that you’ve reported someone. I just didn’t want the new guy being blind-sided, in the event the mods elect to take any action, and, in the event that he wished to apologize for his brutish behaviour. If it is, in fact, against the rules, I also apologize.
Pius Aeneas: “I don’t believe I’ve threatened anyone. Rather, I was hoping to make clear what the logical extreme of the leftist worldview requires…”
What a crock of shit. There’s nothing “logical” about the idea that the “leftist worldview” requires anyone to face a bully in a physical confronation. Where do you get this crap?
I pay my taxes because, as a citizen of this country, I agree with the government that I have an obligation to contribute to those services that I currently take advantage of using and/or that I may, someday in the future, have need of and/or that, save for the grace of nature/g-d/allah/buddah/whomever, I may not ever need but others might.
If there were no tax system in place, I’d vote for instating one because I don’t trust bullies like you to give a good goddamn about anyone but themselves and I’m, literally, terrified by the prospect of what a world like yours would be like to live in.
I not only pay my taxes, willingly, but I volunteer my time and my resources for things such as building houses for the poor in Mexico; donating unwanted belongings to charitable organizations; volunteering at a mission serving Thanksgiving dinner to the homeless; clicking the links at The Hunger Site, The Breast Cancer Site, The Child Health Site, and, visiting the sponsors that make those donations possible (and, if I find something I like or want, buying it from them); donating toys to the U.S. Marine Corps Toys For Tots program; donating cash to the Make-A-Wish Foundation and other charities; walking 10K to benefit the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation and to find a cure for AIDS; keeping a tzedaka box (in this case, a giant glass vase) on the counter and filling it up with spare change to donate to charity; becoming certified by not one, but 2 local fire departments’ Citizen’s Emergency Response Teams (and participate in on-going disaster drills, as well as volunteering as the 2nd Lieutenant in my area) so that if you lived or worked in my neighborhood and there were an earthquake or a terrorist attack or some other such major disaster, I’ll be trained and on-call to help rescue your sorry ass (using my first aid and rescue supplies, btw).
I actually have a folder in my browser’s Favorites called “Charities”, filled with links to organizations I support.
What do you do?
Apparently nothing, if you’re not forced to.
People like you make me very, very sad. 
For those of us in the post-Baby Boomer generation(s), Social Security is brazen banditry. I just received my Social Security statement. Thus far, I have paid many tens of thousands of dollars in Soc. Sec./Medicare taxes. My empolyers have paid a matching amount. And my estimated benefit upon retirement? A little over $1,000 a month. That won’t even pay my rent. So excuse me if I think the whole thing is an utter scam.
The information inside of your tax forms don’t tell the whole story.
From this site:
This is Ralph Nader’s testimony before the Committee on the Budget
(U.S. House of Representatives) on corporate welfare programs.
According to this site:
The Cato Institute has many interesting articles on corporate welfare, such asthis one, which says:
Shayna, thou rocketh. Verily.
Pius, you wasted your winter break reading Atlas Shrugged and Fountainhead when you could have been drinking beer and pining for poon? Its worse than I thought. It may be too late. As far as Satanism goes, anyone who thinks the dollar sign is a holy symbol is spiritually retarded. Moloch is merely a lieutenant of the Dark Lord, and only rates one of the Deadly Seven. Might as well go for gold, so to speak.
subsidy: (Merriam Webster) a grant by a government to a private person or company to assist an enterprise deemed advantageous to the public.
I’ve no objection to ending government handouts to corporations, but I’m on the conservative side. So is the Cato Institute. We should be looking at the relationships between special interests lobbyist and the lawmakers themselves to explain the subsidies, instead of making it lib vs. con, Rep vs. Dem, or “good vs. evil” for Pete’s sake.
Surely our children–even the poor ones–are an enterprise worthy of investment. If we can toss billions of dollars at corporations like Enron and Worldcom without even blinking an eye, why can’t we do the same for regular people who need a helping hand?
Thanks, Lissa, for hunting down all that information.
My apologies, for both addressing you incorrectly and for perhaps not making this as clear as possible.
You believe that the government should provide food for the poor. The government, obviously, is not a money-making entity. It acquires its revenue by extracting taxes from us. So, when you say that the government should provide for the poor, you are saying that I should provide for the poor. I do not wish to provide for the poor and I deny the assertion that government has the right to extract my wealth from me for programs like this. Thus, if you still believe that the government should provide for the poor, it logically follows that you must believe that the government should steal from me.
Cavour, one of the statesmen responsible for unifying Italy once said, “What scoundrels we would be if we did for ourselves what we have done for Italy!”
My query then is essentially thus: why do you believe that it is justified for the government to take my money from me under threat of violence, even though you would never take up arms yourself? To say that “we held a vote to raise the tax and you lost” is no different from saying, “Me and all my friends got together and decided that it would be okay if we robbed you.”
I will say again, theft is theft whether you brandish a firearm or a ballot.
That’s frankly a rather odious view of my father, so fuck you.
And of course he’s paying more than me. That should go without saying. I don’t know why you would mention it.
[QUOTE]
**If we can toss billions of dollars at corporations like Enron and Worldcom without even blinking an eye, why can’t we do the same for regular people who need a helping hand?
[QUOTE]
**
Because two wrongs don’t make a right. Neither Enron nor John Q. Public has a right to my money.
So what’s the government? A kitten? Instead of stealing from me yourself and giving it to the poor, you’re just farming out the responsibility to our government.
So explain to me why I, who does not agree, should be forced to pay?
If you one day you save my life or the life of someone I love I shall thank you with all my heart. However, I would accept it for what it is is, a gift (or a service that I should pay for later) given to me by you freely. I would never demand that you do it (odd then that you call me a bully, huh?) and would never expect your aid as a given me. Your life is your own, live it as you choose, respecting my right to do the same.