rEvolutionist wrote:
I'm not carping. I'm simply pointing out how you are wrong.
Of course you're carping. If you weren't on welfare you wouldn't care that welfare recipients get less where you live, you'd be lauding your government for it's austerity and for not encouraging sloth and idleness.
This is why anyone on any form of government assistance should not be allowed to vote.
rEvolutionist wrote:Pity you're not smart enough to know the difference between social democracy (let alone liberal democracy) and Marxism.
Pity you're not smart enough to know the Marxist roots of and inevitable progress in a downward spiral of social democracy and socialism of every stripe.
It's quite simple and fundamental: All forms of socialism, including social democracy and liberal democracy and every other form of government defined by the word "democracy" has its roots in Marxism and the core principle of all of them is that the State (the collective) claims sovereignty and control over the labor and property of the individual and it claims the right to take and redistribute to others the fruits of the individual's labor.
Any socialist society may be more or less oppressive and blatant in how it goes about this redistribution, but it is the essential principle that the individual does not fully own himself or his labor that binds all forms of socialism together, and it's what makes them all Marxism. Disguise it as much as they try, it still amounts to the same fundamental principle: The individual is the property of the State (collective).
That's slavery pure and simple.
In a Libertarian society, each individual is sovereign in his person and property and may do with both as he pleases subject only to his assumption of voluntary contractual obligations with others, or the State, and to his not initiating force or fraud upon another.
The "voluntary contract" part of Libertarian philosophy neatly disposes of your usual canard about not paying taxes. As I have told you many, many times, but which you simply and obstinately refuse to acknowledge or accept, Libertarianism is NOT about paying no taxes, it is about not paying
redistributionary taxes, which is to say those taxes which are extracted against the voluntary will of the taxpayer to directly or indirectly fund the physical, medical or financial needs of others.
This does NOT mean that a taxpayer may not VOLUNTARILY agree to fork over a portion of his labor or property for the benefit of those who are having difficulty. It does not even mean that Libertarians, as a group, object to supporting the poor. It merely means that it is not the proper role of government to FORCE anyone to labor and sacrifice on behalf of another. It means that every person should be free to support, or not support the poor and needy based on their own ability to do so, their knowledge of the worthiness of the person to be helped, their well-formed and mature adult personality traits like altruism, charity and enlightened self-interest, and the humility of those who are requesting assistance.
Libertarians take natural and understandable umbrage at the dependent class wielding the Mace of State as a weapon against them in order to extort material support for people whom the taxpayer has no connection or fiscal responsibility to.
Paying taxes for things the individual uses, and even to some extent that they MAY use, like roads and bridges, police and fire services and other necessary operations of government are perfectly valid and reasonable to most Libertarians under the "no force or fraud" and "voluntary contract" principles. If I want to use the public pool, then I have voluntarily contracted to pay a tax to support that use. But if I don't want to use a public pool, and never do, then I am not obligated to support it financially.
It's quintessential "user pays."
Democracy is well-served by this sort of "objector's veto" of government activities. If enough people care about a public pool to keep it financed voluntarily, then there will be a pool, just as there are many, many PRIVATE swimming pools around (YMCA, private clubs, etc.) that use NO taxpayer money. If not enough people value having a pool around, then "democracy" in the form of the free market will ensure that there is no pool and therefore no mandatory public expense to support it.
The same principle applies to almost every function and program of government. Give the people the free choice to support or refuse to support a particular program suggested by the legislature and the program will survive or fall on its own, based on its perceived value to the public.
Boulder County, Colorado is an excellent example of how this actually works in practice. Despite being one of the most oppressive socialist-style governments in the entire state, Boulder County, and indeed the City of Boulder, operate their outstanding and highly beneficial Open Space programs with a minimum of coercion. They propose a tax to fund open space acquisition every year or so and they place the decision in the hands of the voters, who may approve or deny the tax.
Never, in the history of the programs, have Boulder voters refused to approve an open space tax. As a result the city and county combined own more than 60,000 acres of dedicated open space that makes Boulder a lovely place to live (environmentally...politically it's a fucking Marxist nightmare for a property owner), and all those taxes have been overwhelmingly approved. While this is still coercive because those who do not use and do not wish to support the program are compelled to pay, the taxes are levied as SALES TAXES, so all one has to do to avoid paying for the Open Space programs is to shop outside of Boulder County.
It would be better if each INDIVIDUAL in Boulder County could VOLUNTARILY decide whether or not to pay an open space tax by electing to do so, or donate whatever amount more they wish, on their state income tax return. This would be entirely Libertarian (well, except for the income tax part...) in philosophy and it's eminently do-able with today's technology.
I don't even object to an income tax if the law and the form permits me to specifically earmark and allocate the use of my tax funds to specific areas of government operations (military, health, social services, national forests) or to specific government PROGRAMS (EPA superfund cleanup, building highways and bridges, building shooting ranges, etc.) that I choose to support.
Again, this sort of system is "democratic" to the nth degree because it permits an individual veto on the use of that taxpayer's labor and property for causes or programs the taxpayer does not wish to support. In aggregate it amounts to an annual referendum on the public's opinions of the various functions and activities of government.
If enough people are annoyed by the Forest Service closing public lands merely because they don't have enough money to patrol it, they can withhold their tax money and thereby prevent the Forest Service from doing so. Conversely, if they value Forest Service patrol activities which they deem beneficial and useful in preserving the values that THE TAXPAYERS see in public lands, they will volunteer their tax money for that purpose.
If the war in Afghanistan is unpopular, then many citizens would be able to vote with their wallets to de-fund the military and its excursions. If it's a "popular" war, then they can likewise choose to voluntarily earmark their money to that purpose.
Coercive taxation is a function of Marxism, at its core (it of course has a much, much longer history prior to Marx, but it's useful to attach it to Marxism today because it is Marxists who are most in favor of coercive taxation today). It's a liberal philosophy that says that the government, including the elected representatives and bureaucrats, are better judges of how to dispose of the labor and property of the individual taxpayer than the individual taxpayer is, so government must seize the fruits of that labor by force and redistribute it as the government sees fit.
Libertarians believe in enlightened self-interest and mature adult personalities and know that people will make, overall, rational and proper decisions about allocating their labor and property for their own benefit, and for the benefit of others, without being coerced and threatened into doing so.
And that's exactly how it worked, and worked quite well, until February 13, 1913, during the rise of the Progressive movement, when the Sixteenth Amendment was ratified by the requisite number of states.
And even earlier than that, the same Libertarian system was in place and worked for literally thousands of years in the American Indian populations. The Iroquois Confederacy, upon which the Constitution was in part based, levied no taxes at all on anyone and it persisted for a long, long time...until Europeans came along and fucked it all up.
Libertarian societies go clear back into pre-history if you bother to look. Most tribal societies set forth codes of conduct but they are voluntary and anyone not wishing to abide by those codes is free to leave the tribe and strike out on their own at any time.
Prior to 1913 in the US funds were obtained by the federal government primarily by tariffs and excise taxes, which is to say "user pays" taxes. Don't want to pay tax on liquor, then don't brew and sell liquor. Don't want to pay a tariff? Then manufacture your goods internally.
While several flat taxes were approved around the time of the Civil War, to fund the war effort, they were low (6 to 8%) and limited to incomes over a baseline amount ($800), and those taxes had explicit sunset dates upon which they expired.
This kept the government in check because it was not a permanent authority to levy a tax on incomes and had to be considered by Congress every time it expired.
But the Progressives, starting in about 1902, were determined to advance the principles of Woodrow Wilson and the Progressive party to expand the role and power of the federal government to an essentially unlimited degree. Go read some books about Woodrow Wilson like "Woodrow Wilson and the Roots of Modern Liberalism" by Pestritto for some very scholarly and highly accurate information on the nature and intent of the Progressives for an "Imperial Presidency."
Once government was given the key to the cage of the golden goose through ratification of the 16th Amendment, which was NEVER supposed to go higher than 7% of anyone's income, the results were inevitable and we end up with the bloated, inefficient, costly, abusive, tyrannical federal government we have today.
If you make income tax voluntary and earmarkable, it acts as a public referendum and if necessary a veto upon programs which the public refuses to support.
"Seth is Grandmaster Zen Troll who trains his victims to troll themselves every time they think of him" Robert_S
"All that is required for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Edmund Burke
"Those who support denying anyone the right to keep and bear arms for personal defense are fully complicit in every crime that might have been prevented had the victim been effectively armed." Seth
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