Rationalskepticism,lol part III.

[JimC]

You are making two arbitrary categories - ultimately, all taxes redistribute from those they are taken from to a very wide variety of other citizens (including both government employees and welfare recipients), since governments simply pool the revenue they get from all sources before spending it. Whether some of those people should receive such monies, or whether the total amount collected, and from what sources is fair and just are all valid questions, but they are not answered by simplistic libertarian arguments. There will be a robust debate about such matters, but in the end, each society will find some equilibrium position which most citizens are relatively satisfied by; the political party that can provide that wins the election...

[Seth]

You are making two arbitrary categories - ultimately, all taxes redistribute from those they are taken from to a very wide variety of other citizens (including both government employees and welfare recipients), since governments simply pool the revenue they get from all sources before spending it. Whether some of those people should receive such monies, or whether the total amount collected, and from what sources is fair and just are all valid questions, but they are not answered by simplistic libertarian arguments. There will be a robust debate about such matters, but in the end, each society will find some equilibrium position which most citizens are relatively satisfied by; the political party that can provide that wins the election...

The fundamental justification involved in taxation is the need to fund the actions of government taken to benefit the citizenry and the notion that such benefits are not free and must be funded by the citizens who enjoy such benefits. This is a perfectly rational justification. If you sit in the park and feed the pigeons, then you need to pay your share of providing the park.

On the other hand, I see no rational justification for imposing upon me some abstract and unconnected financial responsibility for the economic well-being of anyone else whom I have not voluntarily taken financial responsibility for.

The motives of direct redistributive taxation (welfare) are the motives of the street mugger: "That guy has some money and I need it worse than he does, so I'm going to take it from him and give it to me."

I have never heard an explanation that boils down to anything more sophisticated than this.

Your argument is merely a fallacious appeal to common practice, not a careful examination of the subject. You evade the moral and ethical implications by verbosely saying nothing more than "whatever the majority wants, the majority gets." I don't find that argument to be particularly scholarly, much less convincing.

[JimC]

Your argument is nothing more than selfishness cloaked in ideology masquerading as logic...

And it is simply irrelevant to the way that developed societies work. If you wanted to make a difference, you would take the pragmatic approach of lobbying for lower taxation in general (perhaps with a less progressive income tax as well), plus a systematic reduction in the proportion of taxation revenue devoted to welfare. These arguments can then go into the competing political marketplace, and if enough people agree with you, you may get the changes you wish for. Otherwise, you are nothing more than an impotent, ranting demagogue complaining that people are ignoring their REVEALED TRUTH...

[Seth]

Your argument is nothing more than selfishness cloaked in ideology masquerading as logic...

No, YOUR argument is the selfish one. You selfishly want to take from the person who owns it their property for no better reason than that the property owner has possession of it and you (or someone else, including society as a whole) wants it. You didn't work to acquire it so why should you get to enjoy one thin dime of it?

There's nothing selfish about the concept of private property. One labors, one receives the fruits of one's labor, and one is therefore entitled to sole possession, use and enjoyment of those fruits of labor. The right to possession, use and enjoyment of private property is fundamental to individual liberty and a stable society. In places where this fundamental aspect of human freedom is disrespected, the culture and society rapidly devolve into little more than a government-sanctioned kleptocracy where no person's goods or indeed their lives are safe from the rapacious and ravening hordes of the dependent class and the politicians who covet what is not their.

And it is simply irrelevant to the way that developed societies work. If you wanted to make a difference, you would take the pragmatic approach of lobbying for lower taxation in general (perhaps with a less progressive income tax as well), plus a systematic reduction in the proportion of taxation revenue devoted to welfare. These arguments can then go into the competing political marketplace, and if enough people agree with you, you may get the changes you wish for. Otherwise, you are nothing more than an impotent, ranting demagogue complaining that people are ignoring their REVEALED TRUTH...

Ad hominem fallacy. The issue is not what I do or believe, nor is it an appeal to tradition, which is also a fallacy you make use of here. The question is by what reasoning do you justify anyone appropriating the property (fruits of labor) of anyone else absent some contractual activity that obligates the property owner to compensate someone else using that wealth. What is your argument that "enough people" agreeing to steal someone's property makes that act a moral and ethical one?

You studiously avoid addressing this fundamental question, as all socialists do, because you know full well there is no rational and moral justification for one person (or many) taking the fruits of another's labor from him merely because the property owner has more of something than someone else does.

In place of any sort of rational argumentation you inevitably resort to blithe dismissals that are nothing more or less than fallacious appeals to tradition and argumentum ad populum fallacies and personal attacks.

Address the question: By what right do you justify seizing the property of another for your benefit against the will or voluntary consent of the owner?

[DaveDodo007]

Women, know your place.

Equivocation again, when are you going to admit you have no counter arguments and you need to resort to logical fallacies.

[JimC]

Again, Seth, a meaningless irrelevant rant on your well-worn topic that taxation is theft. Simply, it is an economic reality, in all societies, whose details can (and should) be reviewed and optimised, but it will always be here. I don't need to morally justify the standard way our society is organised...

Simple answer - the rest of us don't agree with you, so suck it up, princess...

[mistermack]

So, what you're saying is that in your (Marxist) worldview there is no such thing as private property at all. I thought so. See, there is no middle ground at all, just as I said.

No, I'm saying that in the REAL world, private property doesn't mean what you think it means.

You're so fond of quoting nature. Property exists in nature just as long as the rest of the world doesn't take it off you.
In the REAL human world, that applies, just the same.

Of course, I realise that you are unfamiliar with that world.

[JimC]

So, what you're saying is that in your (Marxist) worldview there is no such thing as private property at all. I thought so. See, there is no middle ground at all, just as I said.

No, I'm saying that in the REAL world, private property doesn't mean what you think it means.

You're so fond of quoting nature. Property exists in nature just as long as the rest of the world doesn't take it off you.
In the REAL human world, that applies, just the same.

Of course, I realise that you are unfamiliar with that world.

Remember, mm, you'll have to prise his property from his cold, dead hands...

[Svartalf]

Again, Seth, a meaningless irrelevant rant on your well-worn topic that taxation is theft. Simply, it is an economic reality, in all societies, whose details can (and should) be reviewed and optimised, but it will always be here. I don't need to morally justify the standard way our society is organised...

Simple answer - the rest of us don't agree with you, so suck it up, princess...

especially since right leaning governments are as able as left leaning ones to tax highly, the surplus revenue simply tends to go toward the military rather than toward welfare...

[Svartalf]

So, what you're saying is that in your (Marxist) worldview there is no such thing as private property at all. I thought so. See, there is no middle ground at all, just as I said.

No, I'm saying that in the REAL world, private property doesn't mean what you think it means.

You're so fond of quoting nature. Property exists in nature just as long as the rest of the world doesn't take it off you.
In the REAL human world, that applies, just the same.

Of course, I realise that you are unfamiliar with that world.

Remember, mm, you'll have to prise his property from his cold, dead hands...

well, that will prove that there is no such thing as a natural right, since the most basic of them all, life, will have been taken from him, with or without social sanction and for legal or illegal reasons

[mistermack]

Remember, mm, you'll have to prise his property from his cold, dead hands...

That's really not a problem to many governments.

The nazis prised it from their cold dead teeth.

[Seth]

Again, Seth, a meaningless irrelevant rant on your well-worn topic that taxation is theft. Simply, it is an economic reality, in all societies, whose details can (and should) be reviewed and optimised, but it will always be here. I don't need to morally justify the standard way our society is organised...

Simple answer - the rest of us don't agree with you, so suck it up, princess...

Once again you resort to evasion and appeals to common practice. As I have specified, not all taxation is theft, which you simply refuse to acknowledge. I suspect this is because you understand that this is true and that redistribution through taxation is immoral, but you don't care that it's immoral because you benefit from such theft.

[Seth]

So, what you're saying is that in your (Marxist) worldview there is no such thing as private property at all. I thought so. See, there is no middle ground at all, just as I said.

No, I'm saying that in the REAL world, private property doesn't mean what you think it means.

Fallacious appeal to common practice. That you think this is the case, even if it is, doesn't morally justify the practice, so you're just evading the issue again.

You're so fond of quoting nature. Property exists in nature just as long as the rest of the world doesn't take it off you.

And in nature, I have the right to kill anyone or anything that tries to take what is mine.

In the REAL human world, that applies, just the same.

Of course, I realise that you are unfamiliar with that world.

That it occurs does not make it either rational or moral.

And I'm intimately familiar with that world, I just don't accept that it is a moral or just world or that I am required to accept the status quo.

[JimC]

Again, Seth, a meaningless irrelevant rant on your well-worn topic that taxation is theft. Simply, it is an economic reality, in all societies, whose details can (and should) be reviewed and optimised, but it will always be here. I don't need to morally justify the standard way our society is organised...

Simple answer - the rest of us don't agree with you, so suck it up, princess...

Once again you resort to evasion and appeals to common practice. As I have specified, not all taxation is theft, which you simply refuse to acknowledge. I suspect this is because you understand that this is true and that redistribution through taxation is immoral, but you don't care that it's immoral because you benefit from such theft.

Your opinion (a very isolated one) is that redistribution through taxation is immoral. It is not a fact, it is not rational, and it ignores the obvious - all government revenue and spending involves redistribution of some sort, like it or not...

[mistermack]

In the REAL human world, that applies, just the same.

Of course, I realise that you are unfamiliar with that world.

That it occurs does not make it either rational or moral.

And I'm intimately familiar with that world, I just don't accept that it is a moral or just world or that I am required to accept the status quo.

So you're arguing for rights that you think are reasonable and moral. Other people see it differently.
But you have this delusion that the rights that YOU advocate, are somehow ordained from above, rather than out of your own head.
My ideas of what should be rights clash with yours. But yours are somehow superior to anyone else's.
Well, I've got news for you. They're not. Your ideas of rights are just that. Your ideas.
Of course, you have the "right" to disagree, and to fight the world when it tries to impose a different set of rights to yours.
Fight the world if you want. You seem to do it very quietly.