Oy. The favorite hiding place of those who refuse to concede a point. Words have meaning, and clarifying what is obfuscated is not a bad thing. I could just as easily accuse you of semantical games if I were lazy.
Yes. And?
Who the fuck knows? They don’t even know themselves. They don’t read the bills they vote on. They can’t. There’s not enough time in a day to read 1,500 page paperwork reduction acts.
Yes, of course I am. They’ll kill me and take the money from my corpse if I don’t pay.
Representation? Fuck representation. I’m talking about consent. Just because Guido thinks he represents me doesn’t give him any natural right to stop by my store and collect his racket money.
There is no comparison between you and me on this issue. You see it as an inconvenience; I see it as a usurpation of humanity.
** Liberal ** just wondering, do you feel you get no benfit from the tax you pay at all? Yes we all like to whinge about paying tax but surely we benefit from it?
Yes some of it is sucked into the great bottomless pit that is government but much of it is sucked into that pit to benefit us.
I understand your country is different from mine, but I pay tax so my child can go to school, so the police can do their policing, so if I unexpectedly mangle myself the hospital will will fix me up, so the roads are drivable, so if I suddenly find my self unemployed I don’t have to eat gravel, so if disclocate my knee on New Years Eve (like my not too sober brother did ) then I can have a few weeks off work and not have to be homless/penniless while I recuperate, so the turd I just flushed is all taken care of etc etc.
Taking care of you and just you is all well and good, but as the bard said “No man is an island”. We live as a community. We need to act as a community.
We may not always agree with the way our taxes are spent…Shit if I lived there I would be pissed off at spending trillions on war toys (though having 1 of our verrrrrrrrrrry old Hercules break down while trying to supply aid in Indonesia was a) stupid and b) embarrassing), you may feel spending tax on other peoples health care is something to get pissed off about…but I am glad I live somewhere that is taxed and I see how (some) of the tax benefits my community.
I keep looking at the pictures from the tsunami and wondering if they a tax structure that supports people (yes I know NO WHERE has anything in place for a diaster on that scale). Yes there is shitloads of aid pouring in, but how does it work for the bloke that lost his fishing boat, his livelyhood? Can he use the tax he has paid to claim a wage? The woman who is mum to six kids and just lost her husband (the wage earner), will the govt provide her with a wage until she is able to?
I live somewhere my tax does provide that. For me and for anyone who needs it. That is why I pay my tax. Oh yeah and that bit where they prosecute me if I don’t But tax is a luxuary. It makes society better not worse.
*No man is an island, entire of itself
every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main
if a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were,
as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were
any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind
and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls
it tolls for thee. *
– John Donne
I just knew the “no man is an island” part. Could there be a more fitting and unsettling moment for this time then “if a clod be washed away by the sea” ever??
There was a very good chance I would be wrong with the reference (thank you Sevastopol ) but I what I said, I believe. It hard to see neighbours suffer in such a horrendous way and not think we are lucky to be compelled to do such “foul” things as pay tax.
My taxes and Libs are helping people who are trying to survive through more shit then we will ever know.
It doesn’t matter what you write Kiwi, Liberal thinks he is an island.
One of these days he’ll save up enough money to move to a tax-free anarchy, but until then he’ll regularly regurgitate his anti-tax anti-government rants.
I agree with the tacit consent part: after all the practical way to get people to change the law is not to jump up and down about theft but to move to reduce spending and then, taxation.
However, there are some who whine about theft while simultaneously being okay taking advantage of the services government provides with the cash. Liberal would be the last anti-tax loony I would accuse of doing that.
To all the self-righteously indignant out there, I would say “that’s nice, dear. You don’t like paying taxes. What programs, specifically, do you want to cut?”
Hardly. Despite my best efforts to avoid its “benefits”, government is so ubiquitous that its claws are in me from morning’s first awareness (you’d be amazed how regulated pillows and mattresses are). But whether I benefit from its extortion is beside the point. I might also benefit when Guido protects my store. Even hurricane destruction had some benefit. I got to know the neighbors.
Yes, but why add on the extra layer of bureaucracy and wealth suction? Why pay an incredibly expensive middleman to broker all these services for you? Surely, it is cheaper to hire Paul than it is to hire Peter to hire Paul.
Your simplistic view of my philosophy could hardly be more wrong. I do not seek to be a hermit; I seek to engage in voluntary human relations with other volunteers.
Just to clear up the tiny factual portion of this thread, bracket indexing for inflation came in 1982 under President Reagan. So, uh, fuck President Reagan very much, I guess. If it’s any consolation, back then a hunnert and eighty five bucks actually bought something.
Oh I know you like being with other people. After all you’re a member, and you pay for the privilege too!
But your anti-tax crusade is rather simplistic, my executive-level friend, especially considering how taxes have gone hand-in-hand with human existence throughout all of civilization. But don’t despair, you can always sign up Prince Lazarus and his merry band of Heinlein/Rand worshippers in an attempt to find your true desire.
No, I’m afraid I can’t. I have been personally bannished from Randdom by none other than Harry Binswanger himself. To him and his god, Ayn, I am a “hippie of the right”, a “braindead poser who deduces [my] philosophy from axioms shat out [my] ass”.
Because it is about living in a society that looks after it’s people. We don’t all have equal skills, talents, intelligence. Some people will have a rougher road through life then others. We need to look after them.
I was fairly sure you were a Christian and I’m very positve that I’m not…but doesn’t the bible say something about looking after each other?
But what about roads, sewerage, police, national parks, conservation, border control, running elections etc etc? Are these ‘donate-if-you-can-be-arsed’ things? Surely some of those are very good reasons to pay tax?
Then what is stopping you? Is it “out of sight out of mind”? How is it that people are being looked after if you hand the task over to perhaps the least trustworthy people — politicians — in our whole society? And if you truly believe what you seem to be saying — that everyone ought to be made as equally sillked, talented, and intellgient as possible — why don’t you force smart people to tutor dumb people, singers to train the tonedeaf, and running backs to help out every klutz? Instead, all you advocate is seizing the property of people who are peaceful and honest, handing it over to their magistrates, allowing them to take a substantial cut, and then dole it out to people they don’t even know a thousand miles away.
Indeed, it does. But a moral obligation does not constitute a civic one. The Bible says to pray as well, but no man should be forced by government to pray.
Browse the Cato Institute’s website. There is a rich library of classical liberal material addressing those sorts of issues. Better yet, read this. It’s free, and online:
) then I can have a few weeks off work and not have to be homless/penniless while I recuperate, so the turd I just flushed is all taken care of etc etc.
