AMERICAN CONSERVATISM IN 2008 AND BEYOND

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You didn't frame the argument. I did.

So what? You pretend this somehow makes you master, or in control of the discussion? This is a juvenile way of looking at discussion.

Instead of complaining when others do not accept your frame, you ought to accept that almost never will the Frame of an argument be agreed upon by those of opposing ideological stripes. Getting hung up on the fact that others view the world differently than yourself is counter-productive to the entire concept of having these discussions in the first place.

In this particular instance, I believe that you are Appealing to Extremes; b/c our system of taxation neither makes slaves out of any of us OR forces you or anyone else to pay anyone else's house payments. These are not real-world situations. Please recall that Slavery does not only mean forced work for no pay, it also means you cannot leave if you don't like it. That certainly isn't the situation here in America today.

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So there is a limit? You expect to get something for your taxes? There is a point that you might not be so agreeable to having your property confiscated for the purpose of helping out others? So what is the limit? At what point do you begin to feel used or oppressed or violated by the amount the government forces you to help others?

Well, as an avowed Socialist-leaning Dem, I'm willing to give far/b] more than you or others will. This is primarily b/c I do not feel the need to own much physical goods myself, and have less desire to keep ever-expanding piles of cash than yourself and others.

Your question 'what is the limit?' is rather silly. Once again, it depends on the situation and what is being given. For example, if we have a public health care option, I'm willing to pay more than I otherwise would due to the enhanced services I would receive.

No it isn't silly. Once you establish that you do expect value for your taxes, there is a limit and it is not silly to think about what that limit is. The fact that you don't care whether you own material goods or not is not even a factor. Your person, your labor, your freedom are also part of the definition of property at Williams defined it.

But if you honestly don't mind working to pay my house payment so that I don't have to, great. I'll send you my address and you can start the checks right away.

However, it is simply not deducible from the founding principles of our republic that there is an absolute moral prohibition of the compulsory use of one person (or his property) for the benefit of another.

. If I dislike involuntary servitude, I can leave the country and find another more to my liking. This is true.

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. If I dislike involuntary servitude, I can leave the country and find another more to my liking. This is true.

This is an important point that I'd like to split into a seprate conversation; namely, you bunch of Republicans and Conservatives who are unhappy with the way things are going in America cannot leave to find another country more to your liking, for the simple fact exists that there is nowhere for you to go. America is arguably the most Conservative nation in the world - that prays to the right God, that is.

Must be depressing.

Cycloptichorn

Or is there no room in the debate for the concept of abolishing slavery and staying? A lot of folks, both black and white who denounced slavery, did that once before rather than just leaving the country. I think that might be an option even now.

Or is there no room in the debate for the concept of abolishing slavery and staying? A lot of folks, both black and white who denounced slavery, did that once before rather than just leaving the country. I think that might be an option even now.

Cycloptichorn wrote:

That isn't really a definition, and I don't agree with it. I wonder why, as WH pointed out, you didn't use a traditional definition, instead of something someone wrote for Ask.com.

It's actually from the 'Political Dictionary' on/by answer.com. This entry was written by an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Boston University.

It certainly somehow sums up the various theories written in the past.

This is an important point that I'd like to split into a seprate conversation; namely, you bunch of Republicans and Conservatives who are unhappy with the way things are going in America cannot leave to find another country more to your liking, for the simple fact exists that there is nowhere for you to go. America is arguably the most Conservative nation in the world - that prays to the right God, that is.

Must be depressing.

Cycloptichorn

GeorgeOb1 writes

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However, it is simply not deducible from the founding principles of our republic that there is an absolute moral prohibition of the compulsory use of one person (or his property) for the benefit of another.

I found this point fascinating when you first expressed it and I find it fascinating here.

Can you elaborate on how or why you hold that opinion?

However, France, Germany, the Czech Republic and others have already voiced concerns, stated in a familiar capitalist context, about the lack of wisdom in Obama's statist, somewhat socialist approach to our current problems.

Cycloptichorn wrote:

This is an important point that I'd like to split into a seprate conversation; namely, you bunch of Republicans and Conservatives who are unhappy with the way things are going in America cannot leave to find another country more to your liking, for the simple fact exists that there is nowhere for you to go. America is arguably the most Conservative nation in the world - that prays to the right God, that is.

Must be depressing.

Cycloptichorn

Apart from the foolish and unnecessarily bullying tone, this comment is simply incorrect.

In the first place it isn't yet clear how far the current administration will go in its efforts to create an enduringly government - managed economy. Right now the indicators are that it may go very far indeed, either knowingly or merely in response to the current crisis.

In the second, it is clear right now that the economic policies of most of the successful nations on continental Europe are a good deal to the right of the Obama Administration. Most Europeans would like to see more international restraint on the power of the United States to act unilaterally - that is merely the predictable result of our relative size (Liliputians always act that way towards Gullivers); and that tends to clout the issue a bit. However, France, Germany, the Czech Republic and others have already voiced concerns, stated in a familiar capitalist context, about the lack of wisdom in Obama's statist, somewhat socialist approach to our current problems.

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed45.asp
Madison No. 45
The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected.

The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State.

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed41.asp
Madison No. 41
Some, who have not denied the necessity of the power of taxation, have grounded a very fierce attack against the Constitution, on the language in which it is defined. It has been urged and echoed, that the power "to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts, and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States,'' amounts to an unlimited commission to exercise every power which may be alleged to be necessary for the common defense or general welfare. No stronger proof could be given of the distress under which these writers labor for objections, than their stooping to such a misconstruction. Had no other enumeration or definition of the powers of the Congress been found in the Constitution, than the general expressions just cited, the authors of the objection might have had some color for it; though it would have been difficult to find a reason for so awkward a form of describing an authority to legislate in all possible cases. A power to destroy the freedom of the press, the trial by jury, or even to regulate the course of descents, or the forms of conveyances, must be very singularly expressed by the terms to raise money for the general welfare.

But what color can the objection have, when a specification of the objects alluded to by these general terms immediately follows, and is not even separated by a longer pause than a semicolon? If the different parts of the same instrument ought to be so expounded, as to give meaning to every part which will bear it, shall one part of the same sentence be excluded altogether from a share in the meaning; and shall the more doubtful and indefinite terms be retained in their full extent, and the clear and precise expressions be denied any signification whatsoever? For what purpose could the enumeration of particular powers be inserted, if these and all others were meant to be included in the preceding general power? Nothing is more natural nor common than first to use a general phrase, and then to explain and qualify it by a recital of particulars.

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed36.asp
Hamilton No. 36
Let it be recollected that the proportion of these taxes is not to be left to the discretion of the national legislature, but is to be determined by the numbers of each State, as described in the second section of the first article. An actual census or enumeration of the people must furnish the rule, a circumstance which effectually shuts the door to partiality or oppression. The abuse of this power of taxation seems to have been provided against with guarded circumspection. In addition to the precaution just mentioned, there is a provision that all duties, imposts, and excises shall be UNIFORM throughout the United States.

Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

Section 8. The Congress shall have power
To lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
To borrow money on the credit of the United States;
To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;
To establish a uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States;
To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures;
To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States;
To establish post offices and post roads;
To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;
To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court;
To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations;
To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water;
To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years;
To provide and maintain a navy;
To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces;
To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions;
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;
To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular states, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United States, and to exercise like authority over all places purchased by the consent of the legislature of the state in which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings;--And
To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof.

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No it isn't silly. Once you establish that you do expect value for your taxes, there is a limit and it is not silly to think about what that limit is. The fact that you don't care whether you own material goods or not is not even a factor. Your person, your labor, your freedom are also part of the definition of property at Williams defined it.

But if you honestly don't mind working to pay my house payment so that I don't have to, great. I'll send you my address and you can start the checks right away.

As long as you are willing to do the same for me; that's the beauty of taxation! If you are willing to buy into the parts which help you, you ought to be willing to buy into doing your part to help others. Otherwise, it just smacks of greed.

Cycloptichorn

Certainly you are not claiming that France and Germany are economically to the right of America?!?! Perhaps in their recent statements re: stimulus, but their everyday economies surely are not.

The extreme is the situation in which the productive have reached the point where their contribution no longer nets them sufficient benefit to justify remaining productive. It is that limit you referred to earlier, though you wouldn't define it. And so productivity mostly ceases but its still fair. All share equally in the increased misery that results.

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The extreme is the situation in which the productive have reached the point where their contribution no longer nets them sufficient benefit to justify remaining productive. It is that limit you referred to earlier, though you wouldn't define it. And so productivity mostly ceases but its still fair. All share equally in the increased misery that results.

Ah yes, the 'Galt' line. I believe we are nowhere close to this point. I submit as evidence that fact that taxes are near their lowest point in the last century, yet at no point did we see the productive do what you say they will if things 'reach that point.' Even at 90% top marginal tax rates people still worked hard to produce. How do you square your theory versus the historical record?

Cycloptichorn

Cycloptichorn wrote:

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The extreme is the situation in which the productive have reached the point where their contribution no longer nets them sufficient benefit to justify remaining productive. It is that limit you referred to earlier, though you wouldn't define it. And so productivity mostly ceases but its still fair. All share equally in the increased misery that results.

Ah yes, the 'Galt' line. I believe we are nowhere close to this point. I submit as evidence that fact that taxes are near their lowest point in the last century, yet at no point did we see the productive do what you say they will if things 'reach that point.' Even at 90% top marginal tax rates people still worked hard to produce. How do you square your theory versus the historical record?

Cycloptichorn

The historical record does not include escalating entitlements that have greatly swelled over the last few decades and are currently consuming the lion's share of the Federal budget and will continue to increase under our current system. And the current administation and congress are intending to greating add to those.

That's how I square my theory.