I know that this seems to be considered a brilliant argument in conservative circles (since I have heard it often enough) but I can be damned if I can figure out why. We are not proposing that rich people voluntarily donate more to the operations of the government but rather that they be compelled to contribute more to the operations of the government. I know that those of you who feel that people should only be compelled to contribute money for such things as fighting wars for the benefit of Halliburton and enforcing the laws that aid in the amassing of huge amounts of wealth by certain people, rather than for actually taking care of those less well off, are offended by such involuntary means. However, this is the way our society works.
And the fact is that if I decide to give an extra $1000 to the government, it won’t do squat. However, if I support tax policies that mandate that all those in my income bracket contribute an extra $1000 to the government, it will make a significant difference in the government’s currently (i.e., since 2001) mismanaged financial situation.
Well, it only makes him “Robin Hood” if one is fanatical enough to believe that those who have clearly benefitted most handsomely from the trappings of our society have somehow obtained their wealth in the vacuum of their own brilliance and industriousness. Clearly, this is the view of our current Vice President on his own enviable financial compensation in the 1990s ("…And, the government had nothing to do with it…"). All this shows me is the amazing ability of people to delude themselves about their own self-importance and such.
Similarly, if we are to accept your bankrupt logic, I presume you volunteered to join the army and fight on the front lines in Iraq, right?
Or is it possible that they understand the Benefits of the Commons, that they understand how basic game theory applies here–that taxation works best through common sacrifice, and that making their own individual sacrifice makes a negligible difference?
This is one of the commoner, and sillier, conservative poitns; I woulda thought by now that you conservatives would be embarrassed by it.
Right,which gives the lie to Diogenes’ silly assertion that taxation is not control. Of course it is, and liberals are annoyed that other people have money and the liberals cannot tell them how to spend it. Therefore they advocate for raising taxes and letting the government spend it.
Liberals, as you point out, like government-coerced “charity” better than private charity, because then they have a greater sense of control over other people.
Well, it is the way some societies work. As has been pointed out, taken to its logical conclusion, it is the way socialist societies work.
What most conservatives object to is the assumption by liberals that people don’t own what they earn, but only what government allows them to keep. Thus those who create wealth are expected to be grateful to the government for allowing them to keep any of it.
Note, of course, the instant assumption that coercion is the only possible response to any problem. The government doesn’t have as much as it wants. What do they do then? Take it by force.
The only possible response to any problem is a big increase in the size and cost of the federal government. I.e., another step towards socialism.
Not really. Actually, you only have to be naive enough to believe the sort of class envy crap of Diogenes’ “radical redistributionist” rhetoric, where wealth just sort of happens to people. And it is only fair for the government to grab everything you have spent your life building, and use it to buy votes for themselves.
Look, obviously the idea that rich people got rich purely out of luck is pretty stupid - almost as stupid as your assertion that rich people think they operate in a vacuum. Obviously government has a role to play in maintaining infrastructure, enforcing the laws and protecting the marketplace, and so forth. But most of this “workers of the world unite” vomit is based, not on compassion but on envy. People have money, and liberals want to grab it - not because some have too little but because others have too much. Compare the number of rote expressions of compassion for the poor with the abuse of the rich in Diogenes’ first post. There is a hell of a lot more about the evil, blood-sucking rich grinding down the faces of the working man than much genuine compassion.
And, of course, liberals never seem to learn the lesson about killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. You always seem to want to cut up the goose right now, because nasty rich Farmer Ben has committed the grevious offense of owning more than his workers. So confiscate everything he owns, split it up, and we will all live in Happy Valley where there is no poverty, no disease, and no one has to pay the bills.
I think I recognized the hyperbole. My comment was tounge in cheek in response.
Well, that depends on the level. Taxation of a few percentage points is certainly not “control”. When it starts to rise to the multiple deca percentages however, it certainly approaches control. If we add in the regulations which deictate how money is to be used as well, we are quite nicely on our way to government control of the means of production. Ownership, no. But control yes.
This also was funny. I have not made the joke about poor houses for a while. Care to hear it again?
Well, I was speaking exclusively economically, and did not mean to intertwine the other nasty associations normally attributed to facism. Perhaps the more broadly applicable ism would be statism. But I think communism falls under that category as well. The essential distinction IMHO has to do with were the two philosophies believe the mandate for power rests. Facists are more nationalist than communists. Communists are more socialist than facists. However, since socialists do not tend to demand state ownership of property, I tend to lump them in with the facists - statists, rather than the communist - statists. Sinmply for the expedient reason that state control of the majority of an economy makes them statists, while even a perfunctory respecting of private property prevents them from being communist.
Perhaps it is a distinction without a difference.
Then again, after reading the posts between this and the one it is in response to, I think the distinction is quite important.
We could do like that episode of MAS*H where the enlisted men become officers and the officers enlisten men for a day. Then we could all learn a lesson, have a martini, and get a chuckle. Not necessarily in that order.
On topic, no, Hillary is not a Marxist. We had a meeting and voted to ban her last Tuesday.
Shodan said most of what I wanted, I’d just like to add the following.
But you are misunderstanding the argument. It is not required that a moral act be sufficient to change the world in order for it to be moral. The distinction that is being drawn is whether or not some liberals believe that giving money to various projects is a moral act. If they so believe, then they should be giving said money to some measure of their ability. If they profess to want to take money for such moral purposes, and yet do not give themselves, then perhaps their motives are not for the moral reasons they claim. The argument is that if liberals do not give at least as much as they would like to take from others, then perhaps they are more concerned with taking from others rather than with giving. It is actually a fairly sound argument. It is the same one which liberals make when they say that if we invaded Iraq for supposedly moral reasons, we have to invade every other country which qualifies, or we admit that the moral reasons were not valid (or at least not honestly adhered to).
I would like to say one more thing. Robin Hood did not “take from the rich and give to the poor”. At least not in the modern sense. His theivery was from the landed aristocracy who literally stole money from the peasants in the form of taxes. I understand that some people like to think of Capitalists as stealing from workers, but I assumed that most meant this metephorically. Perhaps I need to adjust my understanding of foaming at the mouth liberals.
Just so we are clear, Cheney did not mean that his fortune was made in a vacuum. He meant simply that it was made without recieving any direct government handouts. That is, the services and benifits he did recieve were also given to every other member of the communities where he lived and worked. If you want to claim that his wealth owes any significant proportion to the government, then you have to explain why so many members of said communities are not also wealthy. Or you have to show that he had more access, higher priority, or perhaps even specially set aside days when the road belonged to him? Or, you have to show that he is lying and he did in fact recieve government money in some significant amount.
I’ll calm down now. It bother me that jshore, Diogenes the Cynic, and BrainGlutton among others can advance such irrational arguments on economic issues when they are so clearly rational on so many other issues.
I had no idea. All those years, I’ve hung around with socialists, Socialists, anarcho-syndicalists, Communists, Maoists, Trotskyists, Trotskyites, and lots and lots of plain old cottage cheese liberals. And I had no idea that these were the fundamental precepts, these are the very bedrock dogma of my political convictions!
Well, I’ll be darned! I wonder if that rascal Diogenes knew this all along and didn’t tell me? Kinda thing he’d do, you know those Minnesotans, got a mean streak mile wide. Read stuff by Norman Thomas, Marcuse, Eugene V. Debs, Bertrand Russel…not one of those guys said “Boo!” about coercion being the only possible response to any problem. Heck, to hear them say it, you’d think they weren’t real hip on coercion just as a general rule!
I just gotta wonder how come they told Shodan and didn’t tell me?
As much as I enjoy your sarcasm, and I do, can you give me 5 examples of liberal solutions to the problem of income disparity (or any other economic problem) which do not involve coercion? Fewer examples will do as well if 5 is too difficult.
Unless I have missed something, this thing has passed from an exercise in Red baiting (Senator Clinton=Karl Marx) into some generalized balderdash questioning the virtue of the central government’s power to tax for the general good. Unless somebody is prepared to wade through the Internal Revenue Code (an effort I have avoided since approximately 1966) and the last ten or fifteen federal budgets, item by item, this is now just pointless self gratification, filled with slogans and pontifications but awful short on any useful information or thoughtful argument. It’s not even all that amusing.
My own view is that the 16th Amendment is invalid because Ohio was not properly admitted to the Union in 1803, and that the flag in the courthouse has unauthorized yellow fringe, thus rendering damn near anything I don’t like voidable at my election.
No. It is a debate about what constitutes the general good. No one that I am aware of is suggesting that the federal or state governments do not have the power to tax.
Well, sure enough, podnuh! Howzabout you start the fun by naming one example of any government, anywhere, anytime that did not involve some sort of coercion at least part of the time?
Take your time, I plan on being here 'nother fifty years, or so.
I’m not asking for a form of government that does not involve coercion. I am asking for a solution to a specific set of problems which do not involve coercion. Are you saying that there are no economic problems which do not require the government for their solution? Or has your sarcasm caught in your teeth again?
If you want to dismiss the notion that all liberal solutions involve coercion, then you might start by suggesting a few which fit this bill. Especially if you want to do so in a sarcastic and condecending way.
I’m willing to be wrong about this idea. I admit I do not understand much of liberal reasoning.
You lost me on that last turn, Perv. If I want to dismiss the notion that all liberal solutions involve coercion, I should start by suggesting a few that do?
No, if you want to dismiss the notion that all liberal solutions involve coercion, you should start by mentioning a few liberal solutions which do not involve coercion. One would be sufficient to dismiss the notion that all liberal solutions involve coercion. However, I think the original proposition was that most or virtually all or something like that was used. In this case some small number over 1 would be prefferable. I suggested 5 as a good round number. Any at all will do, however.
Not that I really disagree with these statements (and I think GWB’s tax cut was foolish) - but I wonder how much the government could raise with minimal effort from those who are convinced that we pay too little in taxes.
I’d call it the “Guilt Checkoff”. There’d be a paragraph in every tax return explaining briefly about how you could make a real difference by forgoing some or all of your tax refund. You could check off 1) 10%, 2) 50%, or 3) Keep it all.
Makes more sense than that silly $1 for the Federal Election Commission.
You missed the main point I was trying to make (although admittedly I didn’t give much detail about it). It was not just that Cheney benefitted from government services / infrastructure just as everybody else does, but moreso that it strains credulity to believe that Cheney was not appointed CEO of Halliburton at least in part because his government connections would be very useful to a company that was very interested in obtaining government contracts.
It’s the way the world works. Someone on welfare might receive several thousand dollars a year in “government handouts”. Someone like Cheney uses connections obtained through his work in the government to obtain a position worth millions of dollars a year to him.
