Socialism (Moved from Grapes of Wrath)

Democracy is not perfect as humans administer its objectives but try convincing me of any other forms of government where you could smoke your joint in a mellow yellow freedom.

I'm an anarchist.

Right win nutters are beyond my comprehension,i dont even want to be in their company let alone understand them.Ide rather blow their brains out,if they had any.Don't be so shy in explaining or answering my question about electoral migration, pretending its a straw man is merely avoidance.
So you think some snotty nosed kid who inherited his daddies loot has or should have more say in the running of a country than a decorated soldier?Paying taxes is an obligation of success and you wont get rich being the only inhabitant on a desert island.

MFTP, I didn't intend to be callous. It struck me that someone with your obvious intellect should be able to find rewarding and well-paid employment, a career even. I do understand that living alone on such a modest income must be extremely challenging but that doesn't mean you have to be resigned to that situation.

I'm curious about one point. You complain that the state unfairly separates you from about $9,000 a year. What does it provide you in return? Do you use the public roads and sewer systems paid out of that tax revenue? Were you educated at public expense? Do you have the benefit of a police force that protects you from the menaces of society? Do you partake in at least some of the hundreds of other services and benefits your government provides its citizens?

It strikes me that to claim the state wrongfully appropriates that money unequivocally implies that others ought to bear the burden of the cost of all the services and benefits you receive.

I can't believe you. Straw man after straw man. I addressed your initial qualm in my previous post in the final paragraph. You should be able to figure out why your posts are really straw men with a couple seconds of critical thinking instead of denying it.

As for your second paragraph (if you are indeed even reading this far into my post), I never said that. It is another straw man. I think that everyone should have an equal voice in selecting their representative, but I think that they should have no say over how another person's possessions should be allocated.

I was never even mentioned that the independently wealthy(the snot nosed kids you mentioned) would have a greater say. In fact it was suggested that they have no say at all since they pay no taxes. I did not suggest this, EmperorNero did. You need to work on your reading comprehension unless you want to keep misunderstanding everything and making moot points.

Most of the services I receive from taxes are received on the local and state level, what police protection there actually is (police protection is really a laugh though), road maintenance, utilities, and all of that are local and that makes up about 10% of my taxes. Federal taxes largely go to medicaid, welfare, medicare, social security, the US war machine, and interest on the debt, none of which I am likely to see any benefit from.

Note that I would be willing to chip into social security and welfare programs, but I would prefer them to be handled on community levels through free association.

EDIT: While I am a propertarian, a capitalist, and a libertarian, I am also a mutualist and believe that most matters are best handled more or less collectively amongst a community.

I think you use the straw man reasoning as an excuse to avoid the question,its oh too easy.
You either believe that those who pay more taxes have more rights or you dont.

You just dont think before you make rash statements

A public policy beyond those that are absolutely necessary (such as a military) cannot be justly presented as non optional if individual rights are to take precedent.

I think that the best solution entails a decentralization of government in the United States so that the multiplicity of public policies would be decided by the individual states and those who had one idea might move to a state where their ideal prevails. In this way we could have an equilibrium; a diverse set of governments with a peace keeping central government, to avoid interstate conflicts. Once this decentralization occurs, the states would reserve the right to hold public policy up to a vote and if a certain percentage of the population is unhappy in one state, they can freely move to another. This way, if unreasonable seizure was threatened one could simply leave.

If anyone is stupid enough to think their contribution to a country is just about how much tax they pay,then they need to look around them.Is a fire fighters contribution less than a lawyers?Absolute crap, narrow minded attitudes need to be confronted not accommodated.

The argument was that since those who pay higher taxes support those who pay no taxes because thy have almost no income, they should have a greater say over how their money is being used. To some extent, I agree. I do not think that society has a higher purpose to act towards some nebulous 'greater good', and individuals should only be restricted from acting in ways that interfere with the potential of other individuals. Any other correction to behavior is coercive.

Alright, I'll address it as honest misunderstanding despite my misgivings. I suggested that this would give the individual the option of relocating to an area with laws he finds more agreeable. Laws are already 'my way or the highway', so your extrapolation makes no sense. If anything, my suggestion would allow for much greater freedom, since the communities could reorganize according to their belief structures. If a law in one state was thought to be unjust by a minority, they could relocate to another state where the law is not in place. There could also be consolidation to one state from many to facilitate a more desirable set of laws there. The central government would keep peace and resolve interstate conflicts as well as protect individual rights. The state could not, however, create a law on the basis that it is 'for the greater good' or 'to help protect the citizen from himself' (such as Mr.FightthePower's example of unjust drug laws and the wasteful and insane (what is it when you keep doing something and expect a different result?) 'War on drugs').

I am significantly at odds with you on taxation. While I abhore the regular wasting of tax revenues I believe that taxes are the glue that holds our societies together.

I am a retired professional, the first on either side of my parents' families to complete a graduate degree. During my high-income earning years I chose to have nothing to do with tax shelters and other avoidance schemes popular with so many of my contemporaries. My reasoning was simple and, to me at least, convincing. The taxpaying public had largely footed the bill for my elementary, secondary, undergraduate and graduate school education. My contribution was relatively minor. All those white collar and blue collar workers made it possible for me to achieve a very comfortable station in life. It was my obligation to repay that out of the bounty I enjoyed.

I looked at it this way. I might have been able to shave tens, even scores of thousands of dollars of taxes from my assessment, year after year, but the government would simply place my tax obligation on the shoulders of others who didn't have the means to afford the tax advisors and elaborate schemes to do likewise. In other words, not only would these taxpayers have funded my education but I would be repaying them by shifting my tax obligation onto their shoulders. What person of conscience could do that?

Every once in a while the subject of tax shelters would come up in conversation and it led to a lot of boastfulness about the cleverness of this scheme or that. I learned quickly enough to just keep my mouth shut because explaining my position merely made others uncomfortable, sometimes a bit hostile.

Over the decades I know I paid many times more into the treasury than was ever paid out on my behalf but it was really never much more than a fair return on the investment made in me.

Zetetic, you would Balkanize the United States, emphasizing division while undermining consensus.

The nation state would be or quickly become farcical and its intrusion into the realm of state rights would still remain contentious.

What would you consider to fall within the ambit of 'keeping peace'?

If the point of your proposal is to foster the development of distinct communities, each organized according to its belief structures, why should the feds be charged with 'resolving interstate conflicts'?

Who would it favour save the largest, the most important of its own constituencies? Then you would be right back to your perceived tyranny of the majority.

What of states that didn't want their conflicts arbitrated by the central authority. Sometimes differences or conflicts have to run their course before the parties are willing to accept meaningful and genuinely consensual compromise.

It strikes me that trying to solve a troubled system by replacing it with another equally or even more dysfunctional system isn't as good a solution as working to reform the existing system.

I am a retired professional, the first on either side of my parents' families to complete a graduate degree. During my high-income earning years I chose to have nothing to do with tax shelters and other avoidance schemes popular with so many of my contemporaries. My reasoning was simple and, to me at least, convincing. The taxpaying public had largely footed the bill for my elementary, secondary, undergraduate and graduate school education. My contribution was relatively minor. All those white collar and blue collar workers made it possible for me to achieve a very comfortable station in life. It was my obligation to repay that out of the bounty I enjoyed.

I looked at it this way. I might have been able to shave tens, even scores of thousands of dollars of taxes from my assessment, year after year, but the government would simply place my tax obligation on the shoulders of others who didn't have the means to afford the tax advisors and elaborate schemes to do likewise. In other words, not only would these taxpayers have funded my education but I would be repaying them by shifting my tax obligation onto their shoulders. What person of conscience could do that?

Zetetic, you appear unduly self-centred and decidedly ungrateful. You contend that your education through high school was worthless and yet the cost of that was a burden willingly carried by others on your behalf and without which you wouldn't be a 20-year old college kid today. It's a bit audacious (and telling) for you to mock or dismiss the sacrifice made by others for your benefit based on your youthful apprehension of the quality of what their money bought for you. They provided it, you took the benefit of it, so it hardly lies in your mouth to whine about it.

I have raised my own children and can tell you this is the standard tedious griping that accompanies the passage from adolescence to adulthood. You may find it insulting that I rank you with mere mortals but there is a decided experience and learning deficit that attends but two decades of life.

You see things quite oddly. For example, nowhere did I mention "cheating taxes." My comments concerned tax avoidance, not tax evasion, a distinction that appears lost on you. Tax avoidance is entirely legal and widely embraced by very clever and wealthy individuals who would rather see less fortunates shoulder the weight of their governments. I had a professor who was likely the most eminent tax expert in my country. He told his bright-eyed young students that anyone who earned a quarter million dollars a year and paid a dime in taxes was a fool. Decades later I remember those words - "a fool."

I can say that you, like your colleague FTPM, have a genuine intellect. You waste it on being confrontational. Harnessed to two or three decades of life experience, your intellect may serve you incredibly well and bring you both reward and happiness. Unfortunately both of you embrace positions with the intellectual atrophy more commonly seen in embittered types twice your age. Step back, open your mind and question everything you believe.

This debate has gone from debating democracy to criticising the government.We can all have our doubts and anger about certain political parties,i moan all the time.The argument developed into alternative democracies,such as if you dont pay taxes you dont have a say in the countries democratic decissions, the two statements dont exactly go together.
Socialism respects that even if you dont earn enough or for certain reasons you are unable to work,you wont be excluded from the democratic debate.Fight those who abuse the system, the work shy,the corrupt politician,the fraudsters,not the rights of individuals in a free country.