# On Abolishing Taxes **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 17, 2013, 6:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-abolishing-taxes/669033 "2013-09-17T06:57:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2013, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-abolishing-taxes/669033/121 "2013-09-23T18:35:04Z")
> [@pancakes3](#): > > Which is at least an oversimplication and at most flat out wrong. What’s wrong with it? While there is probably majority support for most wealth transfer programs, aside from SS and Medicare, that support has never been particularly robust, and the idea of making people get jobs and get off welfare was so popular that Democrats had to campaign on reforming welfare to get back into the White House. Actually, reform is too mild a term. The phrase Clinton used was “end welfare as we know it”. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2013, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-abolishing-taxes/669033/122 "2013-09-23T20:06:59Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Ah, enlighten us all about the improvements in Canadian health care. Have wait times improved? Do more people have access to a primary care doctor than before? > > And if not, who is being held accountable for this lack of progress? Because Canada isn’t the only country with a UHC system and it’s not like they are improving across the board. Some work well, others work poorly, but regardless, no one is ever held accountable. > > Thus my claim that democracy does not necessarily mean democratic accountability. From [Here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_Canada). > [@](#): > > Canadians strongly support the health system’s public rather than for-profit private basis, and a 2009 poll by Nanos Research found 86.2% of Canadians surveyed supported or strongly supported “public solutions to make our public health care stronger.”[8][9] A Strategic Counsel survey found 91% of Canadians prefer their healthcare system instead of a U.S. style system.[10][11] Plus 70% of Canadians rated their system as working either “well” or “very well”.[12] > > A 2009 Harris/Decima poll found 82% of Canadians preferred their healthcare system to the one in the United States, more than ten times as many as the 8% stating a preference for a US-style health care system for Canada[13] while a Strategic Counsel survey in 2008 found 91% of Canadians preferring their healthcare system to that of the U.S.[10][11] > > A 2003 Gallup poll found 25% of Americans are either “very” or “somewhat” satisfied with “the availability of affordable healthcare in the nation”, versus 50% of those in the UK and 57% of Canadians. Those “very dissatisfied” made up 44% of Americans, 25% of respondents of Britons, and 17% of Canadians. Regarding quality, 48% of Americans, 52% of Canadians, and 42% of Britons say they are satisfied.[12] A desire to make things even better is not the same as disapproval. I bet Adam and Eve kvetched about getting sunburned. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2013, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-abolishing-taxes/669033/123 "2013-09-23T20:52:46Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > A 2009 Harris/Decima poll found 82% of Canadians preferred their healthcare system to the one in the United States, more than ten times as many as the 8% stating a preference for a US-style health care system for Canada[13] while a Strategic Counsel survey in 2008 found 91% of Canadians preferring their healthcare system to that of the U.S.[10][11] Hi, **Voyager**. Don’t you think that’s just Canadian ignorance? How many of them even watch the fine intellectual content on FoxNews? ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2013, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-abolishing-taxes/669033/124 "2013-09-23T20:56:02Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > From [Here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_Canada). > > A desire to make things even better is not the same as disapproval. I bet Adam and Eve kvetched about getting sunburned. You proved my point. Decades of government propaganda makes Canadians like their health care no matter what, for moral reasons, not reason of effectiveness. Of COURSE all peoples want to improve their systems. Except that whether they actually get improved or not, no one ever gets kicked out of office over it. ---
**Author:** ![Malden\_Capell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/malden_capell/32/5274_2.png) [@Malden\_Capell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malden_Capell)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2013, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-abolishing-taxes/669033/125 "2013-09-23T21:10:33Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > You proved my point. Decades of government propaganda makes Canadians like their health care no matter what, for moral reasons, not reason of effectiveness. > > Of COURSE all peoples want to improve their systems. Except that whether they actually get improved or not, no one ever gets kicked out of office over it. You think that support for Canadian UHC is due to ‘propaganda’ and is therefore not valid? Hell, I can just say that support for the US Constitution being so universal is clearly subject to propaganda, and we can just ignore it too. As for reasons of effectiveness, it depends on what you want to get out of the system, and from what I’ve read of the US system, it’s exactly what we don’t want. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2013, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-abolishing-taxes/669033/126 "2013-09-23T21:12:20Z")
And we could just as well say that RW propaganda has convinced many USAmericans that the fact that under their system IF you can afford it (by money or coverage) you can get high quality service immediately, but if not, tough luck, and too bad if you have a PEC or lose your job, makes it superior, and well so what if life is unfair. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2013, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-abolishing-taxes/669033/127 "2013-09-23T21:16:07Z")
> [@Malden\_Capell](#): > > You think that support for Canadian UHC is due to ‘propaganda’ and is therefore not valid? No, that would be too categorical. However, as we’ve seen especially in Britain, with the NHS thing at the Olympics, there is a lot of state propaganda around these systems, and a lot of moralistic preaching about the superior morality of it all compared to the US. These systems become not just health care systems, but part of the national identity. So yes, propaganda is a big factor. But not the only factor. People also tend to like not having to worry about medical bills bankrupting them. But my argument is not that these systems suck, or even that citizens don’t want to improve the weaknesses. My argument has simply been that these systems are above, WAY above, democratic accountability at this point. ---
**Author:** ![Malden\_Capell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/malden_capell/32/5274_2.png) [@Malden\_Capell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malden_Capell)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2013, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-abolishing-taxes/669033/128 "2013-09-23T21:22:08Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > No, that would be too categorical. However, as we’ve seen especially in Britain, with the NHS thing at the Olympics, there is a lot of state propaganda around these systems, and a lot of moralistic preaching about the superior morality of it all compared to the US. No there is not. The NHS thing at the Olympics was one which was quite popular universally, which indicates it is genuinely popular by its own right. This is like saying the fact that communism is despised by almost everybody in the US is down to a government propaganda campaign - when will you be outing the Red Scare, adaher? > [@](#): > > These systems become not just health care systems, but part of the national identity. So yes, propaganda is a big factor. But not the only factor. People also tend to like not having to worry about medical bills bankrupting them. But my argument is not that these systems suck, or even that citizens don’t want to improve the weaknesses. My argument has simply been that these systems are above, WAY above, democratic accountability at this point. I have to disagree. The health debate in the UK is alive and well. Our present government sought to part-privatise procurement earlier this year on the grounds of efficiency, and the NHS has undergone several decades of reform of this kind. I would hardly consider it government propaganda. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2013, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-abolishing-taxes/669033/129 "2013-09-23T21:44:47Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > You proved my point. Decades of government propaganda makes Canadians like their health care no matter what, for moral reasons, not reason of effectiveness. Wow! My post was intended as an hilarious parody of right-wing “thought.” Then, just four minutes later we get this. :smack: Truth is stranger than fiction. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2013, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-abolishing-taxes/669033/130 "2013-09-23T21:54:34Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > . . . That’s one of the big problems with FDR-type governments . . . Can you promise that your libertarian system will never fail? Will it never, ever, produce results that will be hugely hurtful to people? If so, what is its answer to the abortion debate? Surely, all libertarians are absolutely unanimous on that issue… ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2013, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-abolishing-taxes/669033/131 "2013-09-23T22:25:53Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > You proved my point. Decades of government propaganda makes Canadians like their health care no matter what, for moral reasons, not reason of effectiveness. > > Of COURSE all peoples want to improve their systems. Except that whether they actually get improved or not, no one ever gets kicked out of office over it. :rolleyes: Who ya gonna believe, Fox News or your own eyes? A good friend of mine is a professor at McGill, and damn smart. He complains about the wait for certain tests. But if you ask him if he’d prefer the US system he looks at you like you were crazy. You think Candians are so virtuous that they’d support a system which is shafting them because it is moral? You must spend your time kissing the beaver. 😃 But at least you admit that a UHC system is more moral than the mess we have in the US, soon to be a bit better at least. That’s progress. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2013, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-abolishing-taxes/669033/132 "2013-09-23T22:37:22Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > No, that would be too categorical. However, as we’ve seen especially in Britain, with the NHS thing at the Olympics, there is a lot of state propaganda around these systems, and a lot of moralistic preaching about the superior morality of it all compared to the US. These systems become not just health care systems, but part of the national identity. So yes, propaganda is a big factor. But not the only factor. People also tend to like not having to worry about medical bills bankrupting them. But my argument is not that these systems suck, or even that citizens don’t want to improve the weaknesses. My argument has simply been that these systems are above, WAY above, democratic accountability at this point. I’m pretty sure NHS is not supported because of anything the US does. You must think these furriners are pretty dumb. I wonder what you think about all of them not smart enough to be born speaking English? I don’t even understand your last point. How is 80 - 90% approval rates above democratic accountability? I think opinions about health care, which we all have direct experience with, is going to be influenced by the real world more than any propaganda. Or are you a subscriber to the Karl Rove Poll Company, where all polls are invalid except those giving the answers you want? ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2013, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-abolishing-taxes/669033/133 "2013-09-23T22:45:18Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > And we could just as well say that RW propaganda has convinced many USAmericans that the fact that under their system IF you can afford it (by money or coverage) you can get high quality service immediately, but if not, tough luck, and too bad if you have a PEC or lose your job, makes it superior, and well so what if life is unfair. RW propaganda would never say that, since it is pretty much true. The top 10% do fine under our system. What RW propaganda is saying that our system is too expensive because poor people do immoral things like get sick and stuff, and that taxing the better off to provide services for them and their kids is immoral. And if they don’t like it it is their fault for not being born of rich parents, so there. ---
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2013, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-abolishing-taxes/669033/134 "2013-09-24T20:20:44Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > The system failed. That happens now and then. Can you honestly promise that your libertarian system will never fail? Do you guarantee that it is perfect, and that no corruption will ever occur, no errors will ever be made, no decisions will ever happen in haste? > > If such an ideal system existed, why isn’t it standard everywhere? Here is the contradiction inherent in most opposition to libertarianism. You admit democracy has failed in the last but ask me to guarantee absolute perfection with libertarianism. You hold libertarianism to a higher standard than your preferred system. Statists would rather imagine libertarians are promising utopia so they can easily swat it down. The reason pure libertarianism doesn’t exist is because the people have been unable to get out from under the organized force of government. Also, many accept government intrusion as insurmountable. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2013, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-abolishing-taxes/669033/135 "2013-09-24T20:44:58Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > The reason pure libertarianism doesn’t exist is because the people have been unable to get out from under the organized force of government. In a democratic republic, the government IS the people. Since the people have not seen fit to elect enough libertarian representatives to change the government to the one you envision, I would say the market has spoken. Your view of government is rather cartoonish, you know. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2013, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-abolishing-taxes/669033/136 "2013-09-24T21:18:18Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > In a democratic republic, the government IS the people. Since the people have not seen fit to elect enough libertarian representatives to change the government to the one you envision, I would say the market has spoken. When you control 20% of the national economy, you have a lot of ways to buy votes. Personally, I’ve always felt that bribing people to vote should be as illegal as bribing politicians to vote. It distorts democracy and removes accountability, since those who receive money directly from the government will tend to prioritize getting that money over everything else. The national interest goes away in favor of individual interests just trying to get their share of the taxpayers’ money. Perhaps we need a separate body, or maybe reform the Senate, so that only net taxpayers can vote on Senators. Because right now no one looks out for taxpayers. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2013, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-abolishing-taxes/669033/137 "2013-09-24T21:21:18Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > The reason pure libertarianism doesn’t exist is because the people have been unable to get out from under the organized force of government. It truly is shameful how libertarians are barred from standing for public office, and how libertarian policies are overruled by the courts. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2013, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-abolishing-taxes/669033/138 "2013-09-24T21:23:48Z")
I disagree with Will in that we are already pretty libertarian, although less libertarian than we were pre-New deal. But we still have a robust judicial branch that regularly strikes down government encroachments on our rights. Without the courts, the 1st, 2nd, 4th, 9th, and 10th amendments would be pretty much abolished, and that’s just in the last few years. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2013, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-abolishing-taxes/669033/139 "2013-09-24T22:52:57Z")
If the masses are so stupid that they can be brainwashed to believe everything their socialist masters tell them to believe, then liberty is impossible. If everyone is a gullible sheep then they don’t need freedom, they need shepherds who can tell them what to do, and authoritarian government is a necessity. If it’s going to take extensive education and de-programming before the masses wake up to the benefits of liberty, then the project is going to be a failure, because the overlords aren’t going to let you educate people. If a libertarian system requires the authoritarians to give up trying to control the masses, then how can it succeed? Mankind is born for freedom, but is everywhere in chains. Why is that? Obviously new forms of governance can’t be rejected out of hand. Otherwise we’re stuck with what we’ve got, forever. But new forms of governance have to emerge from the context of the old forms, either by evolution or revolution. No society can be formed fully made from the brow of Zeus, it has to be made by people who grew up in the old society and decided, or were forced, to adopt to the new ways. And so republican government was a radical experiment back in the days of the divine right of kings and absolute monarchy. Except even then there were examples of republics that had succeeded that republicans could point to, and could analyze their failures, and compare and contrast the benefits of monarchy and republic. Athens, Rome, dozens of city-states and pre-state societies had been successful without kings. And when monarchists pointed out how Republican Rome had fallen to Imperial Rome, republicans could point out how the republic built the empire and the emperors frittered it away. But when we look for examples of societies that existed without taxes, we see only hunter-gatherers and subsistence horticulturalists. But even there we see intense social pressure to share resources, largely because of the difficulty of storing food for months. You need to share with your village, because eventually your hunt or crops are going to fail, and you will depend on your neighbors to avoid starvation. And again in these societies we don’t see a fetish of private property, in fact aside from personal tools the notion almost doesn’t exist. A group has a territory, a family has a territory, a tribe has a territory, but an individual cannot, because who is going to help him enforce his rights? If you require your tribe to enforce your right to plant crops at a particular place, then how is it that you own that place? Isn’t it more accurate to say that the tribe owns it, and allows you to use it? And the tribe’s ownership is only as strong as its ability to defend the territory by violence. Even if there are agreements between tribes that Tribe A fishes over here and Tribe B fishes over there, the agreement lasts only as long as both tribes believe they benefit from the agreement. And since all men are mortal, individual ownership is necessarily transient, while family and tribal ownership can continue indefinitely. The point is, if you want to convince people that there is a better way of life, you have to give them reasons to believe it other than “it just is”. It doesn’t matter if taxation is worse than Hitler, if people think they’ll be destitute slaves without taxation then taxation is what they’ll vote for. The best libertarian arguments don’t try to proclaim the benefits of doing away with the state, or law, or public goods, or what have you. They point out how, in today’s context, places with lower taxes and more economic freedom have better results for everyone. It is surely possible to point out the folly of socialist provision of clothing. But when you try to point out the folly of public provision of medical care you run into the problem that just about every modern economy that has public health insurance shows better outcomes (better health statistics, and much much cheaper) than our mixed system. And there are no pure free market health care systems in the first world that you could evaluate. It turns out that in a modern economy, health care is something that doesn’t seem to work very well when provided for by a free market system. Restaurants and shoes and consumer electronics are markets that seem to be very well served by a free market system. So where does that put us? Europe and Canada and Japan and Australia all seem to do pretty much OK with their health care systems. And they pay about as much in taxes for universal health care as we pay in taxes for our piecemeal public system, plus we pay as much again on top of that for private insurance. We pay twice as much, and have worse health care outcomes. But it’s worth it for the freedom! We may pay twice as much and get worse health care, but at least we aren’t slaves. Anyway, health care is just one example. If you want a more libertarian system, convince people that they’ll be better off under a libertarian system. If you can’t win against authoritarian propaganda, then we can’t have a libertarian system. It’s like a pacifist explaining that war is bad, we shouldn’t fight wars, and then their country gets invaded and they get shot in the face and die. If pacifists can’t prevail somehow against militarists, it doesn’t matter that we’d all be better off if we were all pacifists. Pacifists have to live and work in a world full of violent people. Libertarians have to live and work in a world full of authoritarians. If authoritarians constantly steamroll the libertarians, well, that just about wraps it up for libertarianism, doesn’t it? ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2013, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-abolishing-taxes/669033/140 "2013-09-24T22:59:52Z")
Not at all. Our trump card is the 1st amendment, which allows for open debate. The authoritarians are trying to stop us in that regard through campaign finance reform, but that’s where the courts saved us again. The other point I’d like to make is that the founders knew very well that the government could easily slip its constitutional bounds. As Franklin said, “A republic, as long as you can keep it.” Someone else said, I forget who, that democracy lasts until the public realizes it can vote itself the treasury. That doesn’t mean our side is doomed. History will eventually judge whether democracy can work. It’s too soon to tell. Right now is the stage where people have voted themselves the treasury, government insinuates itself into nearly every facet of life, but we still have robust constitutional protections and the public is still pretty cranky about giving up liberties, even when promised free stuff(witness the Obamacare debate). So the battle is still on and maybe we’ll win. As for other countries, many of them never put robust protections into their constitutions, plus their democracies are mostly younger than ours. I have much less faith that they’ll stay the course. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-abolishing-taxes/669033.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-abolishing-taxes/669033.md?page=8)