On February 04 2011 02:48 Infinite Lurker wrote:
Firstly, asking teenagers who can afford the leisure of sc2 if they want to pay taxes is a bit unfair. I believe that, while social security and medicare are extremely inefficient, we should still pay taxes. It's easy to look at a bum on the street and think "get a job, stop being lazy". Maybe he has diabetes and can't afford dialysis because medicaid fails.

Bottom line is, I'd rather let myself get ripped off than watch the unfortunate suffer. I'm sure $60 was a complete rip-off for a video game, but we pay because we want the game. Unless you want others to suffer, accept taxes for what they are and pay up.

Also the ad-hominems here are pretty funny. Pretty much verbatim from the textbook examples.

The difference is if you are "ripped off" with a $60 video game, you can choose not to pay for it without risking your life or jail.

It's also funny you bring up ad hominem, while yes there are plenty in this thread and almost any thread, "Unless you want others to suffer, accept taxes for what they are and pay up" is also a logical fallacy, though I'm not going to bother looking up the fancy name for it. You are basically saying the only reason to not like taxes, is if you want people to suffer. Do you even want to be logical?

Electric.Jesus

Germany755 Posts

February 03 2011 18:09 GMT

#362

On February 04 2011 02:49 Treemonkeys wrote:

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On February 04 2011 02:47 Electric.Jesus wrote:

On February 04 2011 02:30 cydereal wrote:
Part of why taxes are so contentious, particularly in the USA, is because people assume that taxes paid is money wasted. Much of this is rooted in a fundamental distrust of legislators and legislative bodies. Though legislators are elected officials, the general sentiment is that they are self-interested and prone to influence from wealthy lobbyists. This feeling is only compounded by the concept of legislative tenure, where a new congressman has to wait until he has some clout before he can start hauling in government spending for his constituency.

Imagine, then, if we removed some of the task of allocating spending from legislators and gave it back to individuals. We now have the technology to allow the general population to make these kinds of decisions on a large scale, particularly because turnout is likely to be proportional to voter turnout for general elections. How much more willing would you be to pay tax if you could see to it that the projects you cared about were funded directly. I'd love to funnel my tax check into NASA and the University of California system. Instead lots of it goes to pay inflated pensions to public workers.

In a society that works properly, taxes should feel like a willing contribution, not a mandatory burden.

I completely agree. Basic psychology tells us that the motivation to do something is a product of a few core variables. One of these is instrumentality, the question how strongly your effort relates to a desired outcome. This is necessarily low to non-existant in curren tax-systems. I think it would be way cooler if you could see what is done with your specific tax money. Lets say that, at the end of the year you could see that your tax money saved the life of a sick child or went into a new bridge? You know, make it tangible somehow to give people a stronger feedback what useful purpose their money served. I know ths idea has its flaws but it may be a start.

Which our current government would never allow, because you aren't going to get that warm fuzzy feeling when you see that your taxes paid interest to some bankers who printed money for almost nothing. It would be more feasible at the local level but becomes more and more corrupt as you get up to the federal level.

Yeah, also who would like to see that their money was spent on weapons that were used to kill civilians. I know that this is the main problem. On the other hand maybe this will raise stronger attention wo where tax payer oney goes. It is often said that tax payer money is handled carelessly, and rightly said it is. I guess more people would be OK with paying taxes if they somehow knew their money is being spent in a sensible and responsible way.

VabuDeltaKaiser

Germany1107 Posts

February 09 2011 04:56 GMT

#363

On February 04 2011 01:33 nalgene wrote:

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you are a payed agent or a vigilant kid.

considering money worth you did not read my post. money actually has no real worth. the only, reason to keep it short, money has worth is because we use it. funny thing just because of that countrys use a certain money, they have to pay back interest, money produced out of nothing the only reason is because they use it. debt based money, as it calls, produces debt, if the states would produce their own currency, they would be debt free.

also because you did not address my posts, you did not realize us and europe have private banks gathering the money. there is no, absolutely no difference.

pps.: nice try to construct so much paradoch information in one post. confuse me? sorry no.

you: And I am not talking about those creative ways you describe that bank use to "create" money, those are often worthless. But in general sense all big world currencies are still reasonably trustworthy for the time being.
me: hahaha. but no. i did not ever said that. no creativity at all. the money creation happens: just blunt out, type into computer a number, write a number on paper, both not worth anything, going into accepted currency, just because these private organisations can. and they want something back only because states use it as currency and you are forced too. it is called debt money system. the one who uses it, is in debt. basically. to someone who did not more than just printed some numbers on paper or hacked a number into a pc.

i dont gonna quote your utter shit, because i already answered in this thread. about european countries have central banks and how this doesnt work better and still have to listen to politicians...

you are a straight out joke. european central bank in fact is private. politicians have no influence, at all.

CONSIDER: there maybe people, payed to confuse you on public forums. about serious matters. this is called greenspeech, or fedspeech. or i dunno just maybe my self esteem is really low and i dont want to head on. sorry. dont wanna discuss on that matter. maybe i just should leave this thread for now. since i maybe got distracted. you decide. also there maybe people who just have no idea. at all.

I've talked to people IRL who are payed to confused on public forums/spread things/and at events, too ( it's for advertising random products, but they do exist. ) There was one kid who was payed to talk about HT ( hyperthreading )...

you give my arguments.

i am absolutely my opinion. that is your opinion.

you are totally right, as i am.

(rofl quotes, nice work :D )

Krikkitone

United States1451 Posts

February 09 2011 05:08 GMT

#364

If you don't want others to suffer give money to a charity that will ease their suffering
If you want to contribute to space research (NASA) or advanced education/research (University of California) you can.

Taxes are unnecesary for that. Taxes are a way to force someone Else to pay for what you want.

Now some of those things have a significant free rider problem, people can receive the benefit without any cost to themselves. (military.. most law enforcement.)

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