Amen. I’ve taken Moore’s claims of martyrdom with copious amounts of salt ever since I started this thread awhile back.
As an aside, I couldn’t help but notice this gem in Moore’s screed:
Since when is the MPAA a tool of the Republican party?
Heh. That thread pretty much killed any respect I’d ever have for Moore.
Yep.
Depends – what’s the cafeteria serving, for comparison? 
But doesn’t every presidential candidate promise to ease the tax burden on the middle class, which is the largest voting community? Wouldn’t that make every single man who has ever run guilty of the same thing?
You may well have “always felt” this. But I hope you ratinally understand that there is big difference, legally, between a candidate promising a legal policy change that will deliver economic benefits to voters, in an efofrt to secure votes, and a candidate promising direct payments to voters to ensure votes.
And, since we’re playing this game…
[hijack]
I have always felt that the leftist idea that a tax cut means “giving money” is absurd. The money is MY money. A tax cut does not mean you are giving me money. It means you are taking less of my money away to give to other people.
[/hijack]
It also means that you are taking money away from public transportation, libraries, hospitals, schools, the police, the firefighters, the military, and so on. I grow so tired of the “it’s MY money” refrain–if you use publicly owned utilities, then ytou damned well ought to pony up your share to keep them running. You act as if the government hoovers up your money to give to the Crack Addicts and Unwed Mothers Free Money Store.
There’s no need for Public utilities of any sort. Everything can (and should) be done privately.
In Michigan, a Republican official was quoted as saying that they needed to “suppress” the Detroit vote. For those of you who don’t know, Detroit is a very African-American city, and tends to vote Democratic.
Why do you think they have bogus and inaccurate “felons lists” and are conducting intimidation campaigns in minority neighborhoods?
Private police? Private firefighters? Strict libertarianism is unworkable.
If I understand it correctly, these may in fact be illegal briefs.
I don’t see why police protection can’t be provided privately. You could buy it like insurance or pay when you use it, depending on the circumstances. And what’s unworkable about having private firefighters? You see a fire, you call them, they put it out, the owner of the property pays.
Also, I don’t like nitpicking but I’m actually advocating Anarcho-Capitalism, not Libertarianism.
So Michael Moore is Melwood’s star pupil, right?
I can’t decided who is worse acting more retarded, 1) Moore or 2) the Michigan Republican Party.
Michael Moore only proves himself to be a first class idiot and the Michigan Republican Party are reactionary dolts.
And this begs the question: what is my share?
I do not take the position that all taxation is theft.
I agree that public transportation, libraries, hospitals, schools, the police, the firefighters, and the military need to be funded, and that taxation is an appropriate way to raise those funds.
I even grant that there are circumstances in whcih governments SHOULD fund help for both crack addicts and unwed mothers.
How much help that should be, and what my “fair share” is, are legitimate subjects for debate.
I agree, but the tenor of your previous post seemd to indicate that you thought your share = $0. I’m all for tax reduction provided that it does not result in massive budget shortfalls in necessary services, as Bush’s tax cuts have.
I said:
I suppose it could be construed as a statement that I owed nothing. But that’s not the only interpretation. I agree with the idea of taking some of my money away to give to other people. The question, as I cleared up above, is how much, and for what.
But the comment hits a more basic point: I wasn’t complaining about the existence of taxes. I was noting that a tax cut does NOT constitute the government giving me money. It is the government taking less of my money away. That’s an important distinction.
Now, as it happens, I don’t agree that Bush’s tax cuts have resulted in “massive shortfalls” in “necessary services.” But that’s a thread all its own.
- Rick
Reeder and Equipoise are alright with me.
That’s because you don’t work at a nonprofit that sees the mentally ill not being able to get needed help because there’s no money from local government because they didn’t get allocations from the state because they didn’t get allocations from the feds because Bush took “less of your money away.”
And if the Left hadn’t agressively emptied mental health care facilities in the 60s and passed laws that make it almost impossible to commit someone today, then there would be a lot fewer mentally ill homeless people needing my tax dollars for outpatient services they can’t effectively use instead of being in a home where they are better off, wouldn’t there? There’s blame enough for everyone.
If there is inadequate funding for MHMR outpatient, what makes you think inpatient services would be better funded?