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United States42794 Posts
On November 12 2017 11:05 mozoku wrote:Show nested quote +On November 12 2017 08:49 KwarK wrote:
In case anyone thought that I was, I'm not arguing for a 100% estate tax, nor for a government monopoly on investment. My argument throughout has been that while capitalism works extremely well for distributing resources the argument "I got this, therefore I earned this" is invalid and circular, generally being coupled with "I earned this, therefore I should get it". The economic system isn't in the business of telling you what you deserve. This all started off with "taxation is theft". I'd have a lot more sympathy for this if you ever actually responded to my point why this isn't true. Instead, you repeatedly avoided it, told me I didn't understand your argument (even though my argument is a positive one on its own and relies zero on anything you've said), and kept changing the topic to different examples of perceived unfairness. See post below. PostIf it helps, I'll phrase it in a different way. Taxation on its own is not theft--if there's a high tax rate, I can choose not to work. Fine. However, if I agree to trade x units of my time for y units of money, then an armed mob later on decides I should have gotten y - e units of money for my x units of work already performed (i.e. a wealth tax), it deprives me of the opportunity to have simply worked x - d units of time for y - e money on the first place (assuming a progressive tax code). That d units of time is labor I did for society that I can't go back in time and get back. Morally, it's no different than if the armed mob simply made me work for d units of time for them right now--labor without pay is labor without pay, regardless of whether it happened in the present or in the past. I never said anything about double taxation, though I don't think you were directing that at me.
Again, missing what my argument is.
Basically you're not trading your of time for money in a vacuum, you're trading your time for money within a broader economic system within which taxation is a part. The idea that your income is the sole product of your own labours and that taxation is unfairly depriving you of those by force is built on a false premise.
I've been saying the same thing over and over and you're still not addressing it.
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California the heavyweight which is slowly dragging the US into the 21st century, albeit kicking and screaming.
VATICAN CITY—On his way to the United Nations climate talks in Bonn, Germany, this week, Jerry Brown stopped over at the Vatican, where a doleful group of climate scientists, politicians and public health officials had convened to discuss calamities that might befall a warming world. The prospects were so dire—floods and fires, but also forced migration, famine and war—that some of the participants acknowledged difficulty staving off despair.
California’s doomsayer governor did not express much optimism either. Seated between an economist and an Argentine bishop at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, Brown leaned into his microphone and said, “It is despairing. Ending the world, ending all mammalian life. This is bad stuff.”
“There’s nothing that I see out there that gives me any ground for optimism,” he went on. Still, he promised action: “I’m extremely excited about doing something about it."
Even though President Donald Trump has abandoned the Paris climate agreement and called climate change a “hoax,” and even though he is proceeding to scrap the Obama-era Clean Power Plan and promoting the production of coal, Brown insisted to his audience at the Vatican that these policies do not reflect the true sensibilities of the United States.
“This is not just a top-down structure that we have in the United States,” the governor said. The small crowd burst into applause when he added, “Over time, given the commitments that we’re seeing in this room today, and what we’re seeing around the world, the Trump factor is very small, very small indeed.”
In the raw balance of power between a governor and a president, Brown has almost no standing abroad. What he does have is a platform, and a proposition: Crusading across Europe in his Fitbit and his dark, boxy suit, Brown advances California and its policies almost as an alternative to the United States—and his waning governorship, after a lifetime in politics, as a quixotic rejection of the provincial limits of the American governor. In the growing chasm between Trump’s Washington and California—principally on climate change, but also taxes, health care, gun control and immigration—Brown is functioning as the head of something closer to a country than a state.
In his final term, Brown has lobbied other states and regions to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, while augmenting California’s already expansive suite of climate change programs. But Trump’s election—and the specter of Brown’s own retirement—have lately set the governor on a tear. In a rush of climate diplomacy this year, Brown traveled to China to meet with President Xi Jinping, then to Russia to participate in an international economic forum. This past week saw him address lawmakers in Brussels and Stuttgart, Germany, and he was preparing for roundtable meetings with scientists in Oslo before arriving in Bonn for a climate conference, where Brown will serve as special adviser for states and regions. And he is preparing for California to host an international climate summit of its own next year in San Francisco.
In one sense, Brown’s fixation on climate change would seem unremarkable, the predictable conclusion of a career steeped in the ecological and environmental movements of the 1960s and 1970s. The 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, early Earth Day rallies and the Stockholm conference on the environment weighed heavily on the public consciousness when Brown was starting out in politics, and observers of a certain age will still recall him mystifying audiences with pronouncements about “planetary realism” and the “spaceship Earth.” He was still talking about the need for a fundamental shift in lifestyle when he said at the Vatican that confronting climate change will require “a transformation of the relationship of human beings to all the mysterious network of things.”
“It’s not just a light rinse,” Brown said. “We need a total, I might say, brainwashing. We need to wash our brains out and see a very different kind of world.”
But in his climate diplomacy today, Brown is performing a more urgent, final act. For nearly all his public life—from secretary of state to governor, to mayor of Oakland and state attorney general before becoming governor once again, at age 72—Brown’s near-constant state was to run for public office. Now, for the first time, he is not. Term limits will chase Brown from the state Capitol in January 2019, and today he calls climate change his “campaign,” dismissing the idea that after running unsuccessfully for president three times, he might try again in 2020. “I’ve thought because people like you ask me,” he said in an interview before leaving for Europe. “But no, I’m not running.”
Now, Brown’s future rests on a family ranch in Northern California, where he is nearly finished building a remote, off-the-grid home. These days, he talks more about rattlesnakes and wild boar than the presidential election, and he has turned his focus from electoral politics to more existential concerns.
“I find a lot of what is included in politics doesn’t count that much, at least for my salvation or my peace of mind or my interest in life,” Brown said. The climate, he went on, “is fundamental. It’s not like dietary requirements. It’s not like a tax measure, or a school curriculum, or many of the issues, even a crime bill. It goes to the essence of being alive, living things. Whether it’s humans or fauna, flora, the basis of life is embedded in this chemical structure, biological structure. And it’s threatened.”
Sitting in the back of a Ford Crown Victoria on a tarmac at Los Angeles International Airport, Brown added, “This, to me, seems worthwhile.”
Brown often borrows from the writer Carey McWilliams’ description of California as “the great exception,” a colossus that McWilliams said, “always occupied, in relation to other regions, much the same relation that America has occupied toward Europe: it is the great catch-all, the vortex at the continent’s end into which elements of America’s diverse population have been drawn, whirled around.”
Trump’s election nearly spun that vortex off its axis. In a state where Democrats had already battered Republicans to near-irrelevance, voters last year installed Democratic super-majorities in both houses of the state Legislature. They approved higher taxes and stricter gun controls, legalized marijuana and made certain felons eligible for early parole. They handed Trump the most lopsided loss a Republican presidential nominee has suffered in California in 80 years. Then they slumped in front of their TV sets as the rest of America went the other way.
The morning after the election, the leaders of the state Senate and assembly issued a joint statement in which they said they “woke up feeling like strangers in a foreign land.” Brown had joked before the election that if Trump were to become president, “We’d have to build a wall around California to defend ourselves from the rest of this country.”
Now, the state Legislature and a large share of Brown’s constituents expected him to hoist it up—to assert California’s sovereignty in the Trump state. As Trump started dismantling his predecessor’s climate policies, Brown helped organize an alliance of 14 states and the island of Puerto Rico, pledging to meet their share of the U.S. commitment to the Paris climate accord. He redoubled his efforts outside of the United States, expanding on a joint project with the German state of Baden-Württemberg: recruiting nearly 200 mostly subnational governments to sign a nonbinding pact to limit global temperature rise to below 2 degrees Celsius, the threshold beyond which many scientists predict environmental catastrophe. On top of that, Brown negotiated legislation extending California’s signature cap-and-trade program for an additional 10 years, then signed an agreement with leaders of Ontario and Quebec to integrate their cap-and-trade systems with California’s.
Source
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United States42794 Posts
On November 12 2017 11:23 mozoku wrote:Show nested quote +On November 12 2017 11:06 TheYango wrote:On November 12 2017 06:50 ChristianS wrote:
Where the hell did Kwark advocate 100% capital gains tax? It really looks like you're off in a room by yourself fighting arguments nobody made. Kwark favors free market capitalism, generally Mozoku isn't saying that Kwark explicitly is advocating a 100% capital gains tax. On November 12 2017 06:32 mozoku wrote:
The only way to eliminate "leeching" (other than forced labor) would be to tax returns on investments by 100% (else some degree of leeching would obviously exist). What he seems to be arguing is that a 100% capital gains tax is the only way to disincentivize the formation of an "absentee landlord" class that purely sustains its livelihood off of ownership of the means of production. I have no idea how he logically reached that conclusion, as he hasn't explained how you go from A->B, but he isn't exactly putting words in Kwark's mouth. He just took Kwark's premise to some extreme logical conclusion without explaining to anyone the intervening steps. Anything other than 100% capital gains tax would allow leeching with a sufficiently high principal. Granted, I was confused on what KwarK's point on that one was, and imo it's unclear if he was trying to make a moral or economic one. I took it as economic.
I'm not saying that the workers should own the means of production, nor that we should kill the kulaks, nor that we should enact a 100% capital gains tax, nor that we should enact a 100% estate tax, nor any of the other things that mozuku has responded to.
My point is and always has been that within our economic system there is a far less perfect correlation between the value we contribute and the compensation we receive than we may wish to believe. The claim that an individual is being unjustly deprived of their compensation through taxation presumes that the default compensation is in some way just.
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"Former staffer to Republican congressman Ron Paul."
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On November 12 2017 11:05 mozoku wrote:Show nested quote +On November 12 2017 08:49 KwarK wrote:
In case anyone thought that I was, I'm not arguing for a 100% estate tax, nor for a government monopoly on investment. My argument throughout has been that while capitalism works extremely well for distributing resources the argument "I got this, therefore I earned this" is invalid and circular, generally being coupled with "I earned this, therefore I should get it". The economic system isn't in the business of telling you what you deserve. This all started off with "taxation is theft". I'd have a lot more sympathy for this if you ever actually responded to my point why this isn't true. Instead, you repeatedly avoided it, told me I didn't understand your argument (even though my argument is a positive one on its own and relies zero on anything you've said), and kept changing the topic to different examples of perceived unfairness. See post below. PostIf it helps, I'll phrase it in a different way. Taxation on its own is not theft--if there's a high tax rate, I can choose not to work. Fine. However, if I agree to trade x units of my time for y units of money, then an armed mob later on decides I should have gotten y - e units of money for my x units of work already performed (i.e. a wealth tax), it deprives me of the opportunity to have simply worked x - d units of time for y - e money on the first place (assuming a progressive tax code). That d units of time is labor I did for society that I can't go back in time and get back. Morally, it's no different than if the armed mob simply made me work for d units of time for them right now--labor without pay is labor without pay, regardless of whether it happened in the present or in the past. I never said anything about double taxation, though I don't think you were directing that at me.
Hmmmmmm let me talk to my employer about only working when I feel like it for the amount of money that i feel like. Why am I working all week when I only really need to work 3 days a week?
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United States42794 Posts
To me the take from that isn't that he thinks Democrats are worse than child molesters but rather that he thinks the Democrats would "steal" the seat by winning the election. That's not great for democracy.
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On November 12 2017 11:05 mozoku wrote:Show nested quote +On November 12 2017 08:49 KwarK wrote:
In case anyone thought that I was, I'm not arguing for a 100% estate tax, nor for a government monopoly on investment. My argument throughout has been that while capitalism works extremely well for distributing resources the argument "I got this, therefore I earned this" is invalid and circular, generally being coupled with "I earned this, therefore I should get it". The economic system isn't in the business of telling you what you deserve. This all started off with "taxation is theft". If it helps, I'll phrase it in a different way. Taxation on its own is not theft--if there's a high tax rate, I can choose not to work. Fine. However, if I agree to trade x units of my time for y units of money, then an armed mob later on decides I should have gotten y - e units of money for my x units of work already performed (i.e. a wealth tax), it deprives me of the opportunity to have simply worked x - d units of time for y - e money on the first place (assuming a progressive tax code). That d units of time is labor I did for society that I can't go back in time and get back. Morally, it's no different than if the armed mob simply made me work for d units of time for them right now--labor without pay is labor without pay, regardless of whether it happened in the present or in the past..
So a progressive tax code is not morally wrong per say, but changing the rules after the fact is? I find this a lot more convincing. However a wealth tax is not the only way that a new law could change how past-you might have chosen to spend his time. An oil-field investor might get fucked by cap-and-trade regulation, someone who bought a prison might get fucked by criminal justice reform etc etc... I think one of the prices one pays for a democratic society is that society might change the rules of the game, and this might include you losing money. And (and this is important) and dont see why that is morally wrong. Why should a soceity be enslaved for ever to a previous generations conception of economics? The rules must be changeable, anything else would be morally wrong in my opinion.
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On November 12 2017 11:58 KwarK wrote:
To me the take from that isn't that he thinks Democrats are worse than child molesters but rather that he thinks the Democrats would "steal" the seat by winning the election. That's not great for democracy.
But he says both. And it's really fucking sad how close this is to being the average Republican stance. They would sooner fly in the face of our founding fathers, and act as though they're fighting some war, where losing to Democrats is a fate worse than death, than disavow a sex offender and just move the fuck on.
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Can't be noticed anymore by saying dumb things as a republican, so if you really want that attention you gotta go the extra mile.
Also, "liberty-identitarian".
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Tribalism is a hell of a drug.
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Folks, I'm seeing a trend here.
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On November 12 2017 12:25 NewSunshine wrote:Show nested quote +On November 12 2017 11:58 KwarK wrote:
To me the take from that isn't that he thinks Democrats are worse than child molesters but rather that he thinks the Democrats would "steal" the seat by winning the election. That's not great for democracy. But he says both. And it's really fucking sad how close this is to being the average Republican stance. They would sooner fly in the face of our founding fathers, and act as though they're fighting some war, where losing to Democrats is a fate worse than death, than disavow a sex offender and just move the fuck on.
For what it's worth, I am an American conservative, voted for all Republicans because in general they were closer to my values than the Democrats were. I thought Roy Moore's behavior and history of illegal political grandstanding and blatant disrespect for the rule of law about religion as a judge was disqualifying all on its own.
The really creepy sex stuff coming out now is just the diarrhea frosting on the shit cake that is the Roy Moore candidacy.
I've found Trump's behavior in office and Trump's Russian ties to be extremely objectionable, to say the least. I've commented a lot about that before in this thread.
Unfortunately, you are quite correct that "it's really fucking sad how close this [that Democrats are worse than child molesters] is to being the average Republican stance." The 'clickservatives' (a term invented by Rick Wilson, whose articles are well worth reading) like Hannity, Rush, and Carlson have shown themselves to have a staggering lack of moral character and intellectual honesty over the past year, and they seem to represent the majority of the modern Republican party. It is making me seriously question what kind of party the Republicans have turned into.
Overall, I am at something of a personal political crossroads right now and the events of the next 3 years will do a lot to shape my views of American politics going forward.... Interesting times indeed.
EDIT:
Is Moore arguing that the conviction be overturned?
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On November 11 2017 19:25 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On November 11 2017 18:23 mozoku wrote:On November 11 2017 16:08 GreenHorizons wrote:On November 11 2017 11:34 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On November 11 2017 08:30 GreenHorizons wrote:On November 11 2017 08:25 mozoku wrote:On November 11 2017 04:30 KwarK wrote:On November 11 2017 04:14 mozoku wrote:On November 11 2017 03:22 IgnE wrote:On November 11 2017 02:06 mozoku wrote:
[quote]
I understand what you were trying to say. The problem is that productivity and time are directly dependent on each other, so the more efficient man literally owns the extra time his productivity has created (assuming you agree he should be free to use his time as he pleases). Whether or not you redistribute his present time or his past time is irrelevant from a moral perspective. Forcefully redistributing his wealth under any circumstances is equivalent to forced labor (perhaps a very small amount of forced labor, but a nonzero amount).
Of course, everyone pretty much (including me) agrees that that if a second of forced labor at the end of a software engineer's workday can save millions of starving children (not realistic but making an extreme example to illustrate my point), it's morally justifiable to make the guy work the extra second. But the fact is it that's it's still a moral tradeoff that's being made. The software engineer has a true moral grievance (in some sense) in claiming that the arrangement is unfair to him--which stands in contrast to what you're asserting. You are really going down the wrong tracks here with "forced labor" and "moral grievance." Capitalism operates on "forced labor." It uses that "free labor" that is forced by necessity to take the market wage. You should really just abandon this whole line of thought. This is independent of my point. Life doesn't exist without "forced labor." We'd starve to death. You can complain to Mother Nature it it makes you feel better. Pure capitalism is a system that, at the very least, doesn't result in forced labor beyond what Mother Nature requires of us. You can choose simply choose not to trade (i.e. be a self-reliant hermit). Granted, that's not a very convincing argument when any sort of reasonable utility/freedom conversion rate of introduced, but nobody really argues for pure capitalism either. As I've argued since the beginning, the morality of taxation is about tradeoffs. You and KwarK are the ones arguing raising taxes is essentially infinitely justifiable if efficiency isn't a concern. You're still not understanding my argument. My argument is that the amount of money you get is output by what is essentially a black box. It's not just "put work in, get money out", lots of people work very hard and don't get shit, others don't work and get more money than they could spend. Taxes are a component of the internal mechanism of that black box. That's not an argument, that's just an attempt at obfuscation. You very clearly said "capitalism is merely efficient; those who profit from it have no moral claim to their rewards." To which I refuted because time and productivity are, by definition, related. Either you acknowledge that someone's time has non-monetary value (as you've reasonably implied this entire discussion) and thus you cannot raise taxes on wealth without infringing on one's personal freedom to their own time, or you maintain the not only obviously silly but contradictory position that time's value is purely monetary, but efficient capitalism is not the best way to value one's time, while acknowledging it's the most efficient way to run an economy (that runs by efficiently allocating people's time). I don't know what this new point you're trying to make is. "Your income function is complicated, and taxes are part of it. That makes raising taxes on the wealthy morally justified." ??? And you're even assuming the already refuted point "1 hour = 1 hour" to make this new, confusing argument. So if I'm gifted a pile of money, let's say $10,000,000 And I invest it in a moderate investment that yields 1.5% ($150,000/yr) I'm working harder/more efficiently than any fire fighter, police officer, teacher, Marine, etc... Right? Or maybe capitalism allows people to get rich without doing any work whatsoever? Being gifted money is outside the realm of an economic system. You'd want to look at the genesis of that $10MM, and figure it the person who earned it did something productive enough to warrant the $$. Ex. Person purchases unused land, turns it into a vineyard that is now worth $10MM. Is that fair? Yeah.. it kind of is. After that person dies someone inherits the vineyard. Someone has to own it, and since it is still productive it generates income for the inheritor and society (taxes, consumption). The inheritor part certainly feels less fair. Though everyone working in the US inherits some of the previous generation's legacy and that probably feels unfair to people in poorer countries too. No perfect solutions at the extreme to solve.. it's a balancing act. Gifting money is totally a thing. My point was simply that the person who was gifted the money isn't "working harder/more efficiently than others" who get paid less or "earning" $150,000/yr but that would be their income. An example of Kwark's point of income not connecting to the "work" with which one "earns" income. Surely Mozu and others can see why that person didn't "earn" their income by being more efficient or working harder than the majority of Americans that get compensated for actual work at a much lower rate. EX: Bill gates gifts me 100 million dollars at random. I make a rudimentary investment. Now I make more money than anyone here no matter what you do for a living. Maybe that will make it easier for people to understand I didn't earn the privilege of being the wealthiest person on the forum with the highest income? + Show Spoiler +If you make more than $1m a year gtfo this site and do something with your life EDIT: Also this: You can't pretend the value of the gift (and it's time equivalent) just appeared out of thin air. If I want to sell enough of my labor to not only have take care of myself, but also someone of my choosing, what business is it of someone else's? Other than being petty, that is. Whether or not the money is a gift is irrelevant, so we can ignore the fact that beneficiary of capital returns isn't the one who sold his labor to earn the starting capital. To answer the final question left, the fact that efficiency advantages compound upon themselves is irrelevant to the arguments I've already put forth. I'm not pretending it came out of thin air. I'm just pointing out that my income would have nothing to do with how hard/efficiently I worked and my family would never have to work again (with some very rudimentary planning). So we could be generations deep where generations of people haven't ever had to work but they all have a larger income than most Americans that actually labor. It's just an example of how one's complete lack of "work" can be wholly irrelevant to their high income. Trying to adjust the world to make it so it's reasonable to say that my family wealth is the result of my families more efficient and harder work than everyone here is going to make your head explode.
So much truth. I can't believe people are against "handouts" like inheritance being taxed while being OK with stuff like churches not being taxed and being able to be part of politics. Truly insane.
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On November 12 2017 11:28 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
California the heavyweight which is slowly dragging the US into the 21st century, albeit kicking and screaming.
So, based on that article, the 21st century will be all about which of the following?
* A Catholic doomsday cult telling the government what to do
* Governments brainwashing voters into accepting unpopular policies
* Local diplomacy replacing federal diplomacy
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On November 12 2017 13:13 TheLordofAwesome wrote:Show nested quote +On November 12 2017 12:25 NewSunshine wrote:On November 12 2017 11:58 KwarK wrote:
To me the take from that isn't that he thinks Democrats are worse than child molesters but rather that he thinks the Democrats would "steal" the seat by winning the election. That's not great for democracy. But he says both. And it's really fucking sad how close this is to being the average Republican stance. They would sooner fly in the face of our founding fathers, and act as though they're fighting some war, where losing to Democrats is a fate worse than death, than disavow a sex offender and just move the fuck on. For what it's worth, I am an American conservative, voted for all Republicans because in general they were closer to my values than the Democrats were. I thought Roy Moore's behavior and history of illegal political grandstanding and blatant disrespect for the rule of law about religion as a judge was disqualifying all on its own. The really creepy sex stuff coming out now is just the diarrhea frosting on the shit cake that is the Roy Moore candidacy. I've found Trump's behavior in office and Trump's Russian ties to be extremely objectionable, to say the least. I've commented a lot about that before in this thread. Unfortunately, you are quite correct that "it's really fucking sad how close this [that Democrats are worse than child molesters] is to being the average Republican stance." The 'clickservatives' (a term invented by Rick Wilson, whose articles are well worth reading) like Hannity, Rush, and Carlson have shown themselves to have a staggering lack of moral character and intellectual honesty over the past year, and they seem to represent the majority of the modern Republican party. It is making me seriously question what kind of party the Republicans have turned into. Overall, I am at something of a personal political crossroads right now and the events of the next 3 years will do a lot to shape my views of American politics going forward.... Interesting times indeed.
I appreciate that, and would greatly enjoy not being able to generalize the entire right in that light. Even in this thread you have those that argue it's totally cool to vote for Moore, simply because he's not a Democrat, and finding someone to write in is just not worth being able to say you didn't vote for a sex offender. So that colors my perception of it too. I would too enjoy if more people on the right could be less combative, and more questioning, as you are. They should have to uphold some kind of standards to deserve your loyalty.
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On November 12 2017 15:04 Buckyman wrote:Show nested quote +On November 12 2017 11:28 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
California the heavyweight which is slowly dragging the US into the 21st century, albeit kicking and screaming. So, based on that article, the 21st century will be all about which of the following? * A Catholic doomsday cult telling the government what to do * Governments brainwashing voters into accepting unpopular policies * Local diplomacy replacing federal diplomacy
Many lefties outside of CA have this weird, unwarranted love of the state (or at least its government) and its half-alive Climate Change zealot governor.
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On November 12 2017 13:13 TheLordofAwesome wrote:Show nested quote +On November 12 2017 12:25 NewSunshine wrote:On November 12 2017 11:58 KwarK wrote:
To me the take from that isn't that he thinks Democrats are worse than child molesters but rather that he thinks the Democrats would "steal" the seat by winning the election. That's not great for democracy. But he says both. And it's really fucking sad how close this is to being the average Republican stance. They would sooner fly in the face of our founding fathers, and act as though they're fighting some war, where losing to Democrats is a fate worse than death, than disavow a sex offender and just move the fuck on. For what it's worth, I am an American conservative, voted for all Republicans because in general they were closer to my values than the Democrats were. I thought Roy Moore's behavior and history of illegal political grandstanding and blatant disrespect for the rule of law about religion as a judge was disqualifying all on its own. The really creepy sex stuff coming out now is just the diarrhea frosting on the shit cake that is the Roy Moore candidacy. I've found Trump's behavior in office and Trump's Russian ties to be extremely objectionable, to say the least. I've commented a lot about that before in this thread. Unfortunately, you are quite correct that "it's really fucking sad how close this [that Democrats are worse than child molesters] is to being the average Republican stance." The 'clickservatives' (a term invented by Rick Wilson, whose articles are well worth reading) like Hannity, Rush, and Carlson have shown themselves to have a staggering lack of moral character and intellectual honesty over the past year, and they seem to represent the majority of the modern Republican party. It is making me seriously question what kind of party the Republicans have turned into. Overall, I am at something of a personal political crossroads right now and the events of the next 3 years will do a lot to shape my views of American politics going forward.... Interesting times indeed.
The modern Republican Party is seen as insane to everyone outside of the US. And it isn't because the whole world is some liberal hellhole, its because the Republican Party is about as useful/sane as Australia's One Nation Party. You've got guys saying that certain parts of the Republican Party isn't racist but they're using the same exact rhetoric as the lady who started her maiden speech with I believe we are in danger of being swamped by Asians.
I'm amazed at the amount of American exceptionalism in this thread sometimes but that's to be expected by people who have literally never lived anywhere but the United States.
On November 12 2017 15:41 Introvert wrote:Show nested quote +On November 12 2017 15:04 Buckyman wrote:On November 12 2017 11:28 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
California the heavyweight which is slowly dragging the US into the 21st century, albeit kicking and screaming. So, based on that article, the 21st century will be all about which of the following? * A Catholic doomsday cult telling the government what to do * Governments brainwashing voters into accepting unpopular policies * Local diplomacy replacing federal diplomacy Many lefties outside of CA have this weird, unwarranted love of the state (or at least its government) and its half-alive Climate Change zealot governor.
Those who are actually politically aware don't really like CA's government. Its just one of the most socially liberal states where you can find a very strong urban culture in its main urban hubs so the "lefties" who only view politics at face-value like it. Compared to a lot of the country, I imagine that stands for a lot. Living in the midwest, some things are pretty regressive. So much so that its an actual culture shock and I went to a socially conservative Anglican school for my entire life.
The thing with America is that its a pretty terrible place to live unless you have a really good job. As a transplant, the main benefits I've noticed are far cheaper cars, cheaper food and cheap housing if you're in Ohio or somewhere similar. But if I didn't have a well paying job with good health insurance benefits, it'd suck far more than the majority of places around the world with an actual functional safety net. Its not just welfare but simple things like city cleanliness and police professionalism that improve the living conditions of even the less wealthy better.
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On November 12 2017 11:25 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On November 12 2017 11:05 mozoku wrote:On November 12 2017 08:49 KwarK wrote:
In case anyone thought that I was, I'm not arguing for a 100% estate tax, nor for a government monopoly on investment. My argument throughout has been that while capitalism works extremely well for distributing resources the argument "I got this, therefore I earned this" is invalid and circular, generally being coupled with "I earned this, therefore I should get it". The economic system isn't in the business of telling you what you deserve. This all started off with "taxation is theft". I'd have a lot more sympathy for this if you ever actually responded to my point why this isn't true. Instead, you repeatedly avoided it, told me I didn't understand your argument (even though my argument is a positive one on its own and relies zero on anything you've said), and kept changing the topic to different examples of perceived unfairness. See post below. PostIf it helps, I'll phrase it in a different way. Taxation on its own is not theft--if there's a high tax rate, I can choose not to work. Fine. However, if I agree to trade x units of my time for y units of money, then an armed mob later on decides I should have gotten y - e units of money for my x units of work already performed (i.e. a wealth tax), it deprives me of the opportunity to have simply worked x - d units of time for y - e money on the first place (assuming a progressive tax code). That d units of time is labor I did for society that I can't go back in time and get back. Morally, it's no different than if the armed mob simply made me work for d units of time for them right now--labor without pay is labor without pay, regardless of whether it happened in the present or in the past. I never said anything about double taxation, though I don't think you were directing that at me. Again, missing what my argument is. Basically you're not trading your of time for money in a vacuum, you're trading your time for money within a broader economic system within which taxation is a part. The idea that your income is the sole product of your own labours and that taxation is unfairly depriving you of those by false is built on a false premise. I've been saying the same thing over and over and you're still not addressing it.
Respectfully, that would be analogous to someone stealing your money, and then redistributing it to your neighbors (as well as giving a small portion back to your family) in the form of various goods and services. Its still unethical to take the money in the first place, just like it would be unethical to force a person to donate to charity at gunpoint. The money is their property, and taking it by force is robbery, regardless of what you do with the money after it was taken. Simply because there is a system of government welfare built around an unethical practice doesn't make the practice itself ethical.
However there is a better counter-argument to that line of reasoning. Its simply that, if you choose to live in the US, or Canada, or whatever, you accept that you are bound to the laws of that country, and furthermore, you accept that you are bound to follow whatever changes are made to those laws by your elected representatives.
Its no different than agreeing to work for a company, and signing a contract that says they have a right to modify your pay within some reasonable margin, without notice. If they then modify your pay, you can't complain or call it robbery. It was part of the rules you agreed to when you decided to work there, or in this case, when you decided to live in whichever country you call home.
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What is often missed in discussion of Marxian commodity fetishism is that labor power itself is also a commodity. In its sale as commodity the fact and history of its being embedded in a network of relations is erased. That's how you get the fucked up "morality" arguments about taxation.
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On November 12 2017 10:00 Nyxisto wrote:
modern day presidential at work again
Sacha Baron Cohen, now would be the time to reveal that you've been playing Trump all along
On November 12 2017 09:27 Doodsmack wrote:
“There”
I'm sure Ukraine wants to solve Ukraine too they should have just been nice to those friendly russian artillery and armored vehicles occupying their land. Bunch of fools and haters can't see how nice Putin is.
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EPT
