I spent the entire post to which you responded explaining why it would be silly and why the check-a-box spending suggesting shouldn't be done. I've answered that. So, see my last few posts where I explain and give examples of why it is unworkable and impracticable, and inefficient, and how the people know even less than the Congress/legislatures and city councils who would be dealing with these matters. If you don't care to respond to my arguments, that's fine. Just don't repeat the same question I already answered.Seth wrote:
Why would it be silly? It makes even more sense at the local level. People are much closer to the needs at the local level. Why shouldn't they have a checkoff on their taxes that directs how the revenues will be spent?
Things I have to post - libertarianism derail
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Re: Things I have to post - libertarianism derail
Re: Things I have to post - libertarianism derail
I don't believe I've ever said that government has any inherent powers, although I could have slipped up. I may have said that one of the usual functions of a government is to control the borders and immigration, but that is just another delegated power that can be revoked.Coito ergo sum wrote:
Funny, I recall YOU claiming in a different argument that the federal government DID have the inherent power as a sovereign entity to control immigration. Remember that? When I pointed out that the entire federal immigration regime is facially unconstitutional because Congress was never delegated any power under the constitution to make laws concerning or prohibiting immigration? You argued that it still was the federal government's power to do so, inherently, because of the sovereign's inherent obligation to police its borders....? Or, am I misremembering that....and you don't feel the US government has the inherent power to regulate or control immigration?
Seth wrote:
It's important to make this distinction clear, because socialism is entirely based on the principle that the government has authority over citizens sua sponte, and that somehow the collective has more or different rights from those which each individual enjoys. This is not the case. Only individuals have rights. Government only has delegated powers, not rights. Nor does the collective have rights independent of or separate from the rights of the individuals who make up the society. "The people" as a whole have no rights at all, those rights accrue to each separate individual and may be enforced collectively, but they exist at the individual, not the societal or collective level.
Not really. Everything written here must be written in the context of the audience, which is largely socialist in nature.What people think socialism is all about is a different issue than the one we were discussing. You've changed the subject.
The meaning of "the people" is, as has been stated by the Founders and the Supreme Court, a term of art which references the whole of the body politic AS INDIVIDUALS."the right of the people peaceably to assemble, " - thus, "the people" have a right to peaceably assemble.
"the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." - thus, "the people" have the right to keep and bear arms.
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, "
So, "the people" do have rights.
Whatever you're parsing as between an individual person and "the people" as a whole is irrelevant. The people have those rights because the express language of the constitution says they do. That's the strict construction. If you're advocating a liberal construction of the language, then you'll have to clarify that.
This was most recently pointed out in the DC gun case. "The People" don't have rights collectively, they have rights as individuals. The collective of the people has no more, additional or different rights than any one member of which it's comprised.
"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
© 2013/2014/2015/2016 Seth, all rights reserved. No reuse, republication, duplication, or derivative work is authorized.
"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
© 2013/2014/2015/2016 Seth, all rights reserved. No reuse, republication, duplication, or derivative work is authorized.
Re: Things I have to post - libertarianism derail
The point is that you're simply wrong. People are fully competent to decide how they want their money spent, and technology is easily up to the task of giving them the ability to restrict how their money is spent by government.Coito ergo sum wrote:I spent the entire post to which you responded explaining why it would be silly and why the check-a-box spending suggesting shouldn't be done. I've answered that. So, see my last few posts where I explain and give examples of why it is unworkable and impracticable, and inefficient, and how the people know even less than the Congress/legislatures and city councils who would be dealing with these matters. If you don't care to respond to my arguments, that's fine. Just don't repeat the same question I already answered.Seth wrote:
Why would it be silly? It makes even more sense at the local level. People are much closer to the needs at the local level. Why shouldn't they have a checkoff on their taxes that directs how the revenues will be spent?
Some may wish to be more detailed about it than others, but that doesn't mean that they all are not qualified to say "I don't want my money spent on the police, I want it spent fixing the Main Street bridge" or "I don't want any of my money allocated to the federal government to be spent on global warming research or the military."
"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
© 2013/2014/2015/2016 Seth, all rights reserved. No reuse, republication, duplication, or derivative work is authorized.
"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
© 2013/2014/2015/2016 Seth, all rights reserved. No reuse, republication, duplication, or derivative work is authorized.
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Re: Things I have to post - libertarianism derail
So, that would be stupid and a waste of money, an impractical way to go about things, and a giant waste of money, and it would paralyze the United States.Seth wrote:So what?So, when they evaluate the military need and approve a budget for the Pentagon, it delineates how many tanks, planes, drones, bombs, and the like are to be purchased, and where the troops need to go, etc. John Q. Public has no baseline to make such determinations, and the vicissitudes of the public are such that one year they'll wan the SR-71 Blackbird or whatever, and then the next year they'll cancel the whole thing, only to start it up again the following year.
You aren't. You're required to pay taxes, which go to the general fund. You have elected representatives whose job it is to represent your interests in the government, and if you don't like them or they don't get you what you want, you vote them out next time. A representative republic isn't about you only paying for what you want. It's about a nation of people living under laws which apply to everyone, and each person's say is REPRESENTED by the REPRESENTATIVE in the legislature. If you lose the debate, or if your representative loses the debate, then you have to live with that. You don't get to carve out little niches for yourself.Seth wrote:
If I don't like how the military is being used, I should not be required to pay for it.
Why not? (anticipating you asking the question after I just explained the answer to you) -- because It would be monumentally inefficient and it would be wasteful and it would be disorderly, it would not be a representative republic anymore, and essentially it would mean the end of the United States as a nation.
The F-22 is not the Joint Strike Fighter, but they did explain it to you - through your elected representative. If you were not a good enough citizen to petition your elected representative to stop the F-22 program before it began (which has now been ended by Obama anyway), then that's your fault. Your view of it was represented in Congress by your elected representative, and it is not the legislature's responsibility to convince "Seth." It's the responsibility of the legislature to protect and defend the constitution of the United States, and to carry out its charge to provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty for the people. If you don't like how the Congress has provided for the common defense then YOU get out and picket your congressman, and YOU write pamphlets, or YOU run for congress and get things changed.Seth wrote:
Moreover, if most people don't like how the military is being used, they should have the right to defund it by voting with their tax return. I don't care what the bureaucrats think about it, it's up to them to convince me that their requests for money are reasonable and necessary, which requires them to explain to me why they need an F22 Joint Strike Fighter rather than our existing fleet of F15 and F16 aircraft.
That's idiotic, since some programs it can't be closely estimated what it's going to cost in the end. Like - we want to develop a new groundbreaking secret weapon -- who is going to know how much it is going to cost in advance?Seth wrote:
And they won't "start up" anything and then shut it down, because the companion requirement is that they can't start a program that they do not ALREADY have all the money to pay for in the bank. No. More. Deficit. Spending. Period.
The SR-71 program was never announced until long after it was finished because it was fucking SECRET!Seth wrote:
If the public votes with its tax returns to fund the SR-71 program, and Congress collects all it needs to meet that financial requirement, then it gets to do the project. If not, it doesn't.

Seth wrote:
Since in such a system, no procurement would be deficit-based and would have to be paid in cash in full up front to the manufacturer, there would be no impact on contracts or the potential for waste because if the military didn't have the money in the bank PREVIOUSLY given to them by the public, they wouldn't be able to buy the goods.
Then it's up to Congress to persuade people to fund the military by explaining to them why they need the money and the equipment and why they can't be specific about it for reasons of operational security. This requires Congress to generate credibility and trust in the public by properly exercising the authority they have been given and not abusing it or the public. If they violate that trust, the people can defund them, as is right and proper.[/quote]Then you wouldn't have a military worth anything, because there is no way to save up the money ahead of time to pay for 10 year programs to build the next generation Stealth Fighter, and it's not even subject to ready estimation how much such research and development will ultimately cost or whether it will ultimately succeed. And, the public can't have knowledge of such programs, or even the basic information about troop levels, equipment and all that, or the entire world will know everything that John Q. Public does.
No, it's up to you to participate in the political process and either run for Congress yourself, or help elect leaders that represent your interests and opinions.
This is the problem with your plan. You'd need to have a government department whose job it is to create the annual funding lists (reams of paper, by the way), wherein citizens are asked to check these boxes. That, of course, is itself a government program, and would require a check a box in advance to fund it. They would have to have funds to do that first authorization to authorize funds from for the government department to create the check a box forms, and so there would have to be a pre authorization for that pre-authorization....Seth wrote:Seth wrote:
So, the remaining costs are largely labor costs, and the size of the standing army should ALWAYS be subject to the willingness of the people to pay to support them. If they don't want to pay, soldiers are mustered out and equipment mothballed for future use. Pretty simple and elegant way to acknowledge public support for the military.If that's what the people want, then they will deny mothball funds. If they want to preserve the investment in equipment because Congress has convinced them of the need, then they will agree to fund mothballing.Equipment can only be mothballed if the public is willing to pay for the mothballs. If not, it just rots.
Your suggestion is a suggestion to require the government to convince the people that it would be a good use of funds to create a department to collect revenue by means of a voluntary check a box form, wherein the government revenues are allocated. That department, of course, would itself be a government program which would require funding and therefore would require agreement by the people to pay for it. It's check a box forms all the way down....

The printing is easy. The determination of how to word the categories of expenditures, who does the wording, whether they are worded biased or not, how much description is included (especially in top secret items), and all that is not any easier with computers. Do you ever think these things through, Seth?Seth wrote:With computers, it's easy.It's not elegant, it's stupid and unworkable. It's an oversimplification of the reality and relies on a misapprehension that the US budget can be laid out on an index card for a check a box system.
Example:
Woman's Health Program Funding: Congress requests funding for a program to promote women's health issues, and provide medical services to women.
Women's Health Program Finding: Congress requests funding for a program to provide free abortions on demand to women of any age, and to provide funding for needy women in all other areas, including contraception and cancer screening, etc.
Which would be the wording on the check a box sheet? Who would decide? What if the people didn't authorize funding for anyone to make that decision?
Either way, reams of paper have to printed with all the choices, because you're giving the people the option.Seth wrote:The reality is that people would have to fill out reams of forms at the federal, state and local level, approving and allocating various tax moneys for various purposes.
Nope. They get to decide what level of detail to allocate by. If they want to use broad strokes and allocate so much for social welfare entitlements and so much for the military, they can. If they want to take the time to be more specific and work within a specific government spending sector to specify more closely how their money is to be used, they can do that. It can all be done with computers and the accounting and allocation of funds would be done automatically when the person files his return.
What return? Who the FUCK is going to approve funding for the government to process their tax return? Or, to come up with tax forms in the first place? I tell you what -- under the Seth system I will refuse to fund the tax form department and the tax processing department, that way I don't have to pay any taxes. The rest of you can pay for my national defense.
Gotcha. What kind of tax would there be?Seth wrote:The people would have to guess how many purchases one makes so that sales taxes can be allocated, for example.
There would be no sales taxes, so that's a non sequitur.
No licensing? So, you wouldn't have pharmaceutical companies licensed by the government?Seth wrote:There would be no licensing, and fees would be assessed when a service is used and paid for at the time of service.And, if money for licensing and other fees are put in the general fund, then they have to allocate that money too.
Nobody would donate, because they wouldn't have the money. It's like the old "rubbernecking" example from Econ 101. The traffic jam occurs because people slow down and gawk at the accident. If everyone just drove on by, then there would be virtually no traffic jam, but it's no person's individual interest to refrain from gawking himself. He'd only prefer that everyone else stop gawking. You're suggesting a system where everyone would voluntarily not gawk. Won't happen. It's stupid and contrary to human nature.Seth wrote:This would fix that by eliminating all taxes, including income taxes, and giving people the power to donate to the government programs of their choice on a voluntary basis.It sounds simple when you phrase it as "allocating my income tax money to major programs like military, social security, medicare," etc., but the reality is that there are thousands of functions at various levels of government that need to be paid for, and the money comes from many different sources, not just income taxes.
Well, you can't feasibly only defend the people who paid the taxes, so we'd be left convincing people to contribute, which is also unworkable, because your neighbors won't know whether you contributed or not. And, the government couldn't force anyone to contribute, so people would just say "no, let everyone else pay." See the rubbernecking/gawking rule of Econ 101.Seth wrote:Sure. Or we convince them to contribute.Seth wrote:Seth wrote:Simple solution: the default rule is that if you do not designate, your taxes may be allocated as Congress sees fit. Of course, in the Libertarian model, the government wouldn't be collecting income tax, it would be asking for voluntary donations and donors would be able to earmark what their donation is to be used for.And, lastly, if you're one of the "47%", you'd be checking a box to designate what portion of "nothing" gets paid where.So, what about those who don't contribute to the military? We somehow let them get shot, while saving those who contributed?
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Re: Things I have to post - libertarianism derail
Not even close. You're just simply tilting at windmills, my friend. You're cutting a rug in Fantasy Disco, man.Seth wrote:The point is that you're simply wrong.Coito ergo sum wrote:I spent the entire post to which you responded explaining why it would be silly and why the check-a-box spending suggesting shouldn't be done. I've answered that. So, see my last few posts where I explain and give examples of why it is unworkable and impracticable, and inefficient, and how the people know even less than the Congress/legislatures and city councils who would be dealing with these matters. If you don't care to respond to my arguments, that's fine. Just don't repeat the same question I already answered.Seth wrote:
Why would it be silly? It makes even more sense at the local level. People are much closer to the needs at the local level. Why shouldn't they have a checkoff on their taxes that directs how the revenues will be spent?
Where do you get this nonsense? It's not even libertarian.
That is true as far as it goes - groceries - stocks - cars - houses. But, plenty of people are fully incompetent to know what the best use of money for national defense is. In fact, on that point, almost everyone is incompetent. Being competent to manage one's own financial affairs does not render one competent to evaluate national security threats. To suggest that the average person is fully competent to act as a national security assessment bureau and to allocate guns and butter on a national level is monumentally, patently, and ridiculously ludicrous. You've gone to plaid, Seth. You've gone to plaid.Seth wrote:
People are fully competent to decide how they want their money spent,
Technology, perhaps. But, your own stupid system would require prior funding of that technology, and prior funding of a department to organize the lists of all government expenditures. You'd be basically asking the government to put check-boxes next to every line-item of the entire federal budget (not to mention state and local budgets), and have each individual allocate their funds among the 1,000s upon 1,000s of programs.Seth wrote: and technology is easily up to the task of giving them the ability to restrict how their money is spent by government.
Most people can hardly work their DVD player, or read a simple government statute or ordinance.
You're oversimplifying again. Multiply that by 1,000s, requiring the people to determine where their money goes relative to 1,000s of federal, state and local programs. Anyway -- you're idea is ridiculous. Fail.Seth wrote:
Some may wish to be more detailed about it than others, but that doesn't mean that they all are not qualified to say "I don't want my money spent on the police, I want it spent fixing the Main Street bridge" or "I don't want any of my money allocated to the federal government to be spent on global warming research or the military."
Re: Things I have to post - libertarianism derail
No, just the federal government, which is precisely as intended. Life in local communities will go on quite nicely.Coito ergo sum wrote:So, that would be stupid and a waste of money, an impractical way to go about things, and a giant waste of money, and it would paralyze the United States.Seth wrote:So what?So, when they evaluate the military need and approve a budget for the Pentagon, it delineates how many tanks, planes, drones, bombs, and the like are to be purchased, and where the troops need to go, etc. John Q. Public has no baseline to make such determinations, and the vicissitudes of the public are such that one year they'll wan the SR-71 Blackbird or whatever, and then the next year they'll cancel the whole thing, only to start it up again the following year.
Seth wrote:
If I don't like how the military is being used, I should not be required to pay for it.
Nonsense.You aren't. You're required to pay taxes, which go to the general fund.
Why do I have to "live with it?" Why can't I propose a new system that will modify the representative process somewhat by allowing me to determine in what categories of government services my money will be spent. Within that specification, Congress can determine exactly how to spend it, but I wish to retain the right to defund any service I don't agree to pay for...like welfare.You have elected representatives whose job it is to represent your interests in the government, and if you don't like them or they don't get you what you want, you vote them out next time. A representative republic isn't about you only paying for what you want. It's about a nation of people living under laws which apply to everyone, and each person's say is REPRESENTED by the REPRESENTATIVE in the legislature. If you lose the debate, or if your representative loses the debate, then you have to live with that. You don't get to carve out little niches for yourself.
Of course it would be a representative republic, it would just have an additional layer of government spending control.Why not? (anticipating you asking the question after I just explained the answer to you) -- because It would be monumentally inefficient and it would be wasteful and it would be disorderly, it would not be a representative republic anymore, and essentially it would mean the end of the United States as a nation.
Seth wrote:
Moreover, if most people don't like how the military is being used, they should have the right to defund it by voting with their tax return. I don't care what the bureaucrats think about it, it's up to them to convince me that their requests for money are reasonable and necessary, which requires them to explain to me why they need an F22 Joint Strike Fighter rather than our existing fleet of F15 and F16 aircraft.
Don't wanna. I want to reform the system so they have to ask for the money, save it up, then spend it rather than just telling me they need the money and I must pay for it whether I like it or not.The F-22 is not the Joint Strike Fighter, but they did explain it to you - through your elected representative. If you were not a good enough citizen to petition your elected representative to stop the F-22 program before it began (which has now been ended by Obama anyway), then that's your fault. Your view of it was represented in Congress by your elected representative, and it is not the legislature's responsibility to convince "Seth." It's the responsibility of the legislature to protect and defend the constitution of the United States, and to carry out its charge to provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty for the people. If you don't like how the Congress has provided for the common defense then YOU get out and picket your congressman, and YOU write pamphlets, or YOU run for congress and get things changed.
Seth wrote:
And they won't "start up" anything and then shut it down, because the companion requirement is that they can't start a program that they do not ALREADY have all the money to pay for in the bank. No. More. Deficit. Spending. Period.
Tough shit. They get X amount of dollars to give it a bash, and if that isn't enough, then then can explain to us why that isn't enough and ask for some more. I don't accept the "Daddy, I need more allowance. "Why do you need more son?" "Well, Daddy, I'm working on a top-secret project and you're just going to have to trust me when I tell you I need more." "Why sure, son, I'll just keep on giving you as much as you say you need because I trust you." model anymore.That's idiotic, since some programs it can't be closely estimated what it's going to cost in the end. Like - we want to develop a new groundbreaking secret weapon -- who is going to know how much it is going to cost in advance?
Politicians have proven that they cannot be trusted with my money anymore, so it's time for a change.
Seth wrote:
If the public votes with its tax returns to fund the SR-71 program, and Congress collects all it needs to meet that financial requirement, then it gets to do the project. If not, it doesn't.
Nobody said it was easy. It requires that Congress build trust in those who pay for such programs. If they haven't built the trust, they don't get to play with the money. So sorry, but that's just how it needs to be.The SR-71 program was never announced until long after it was finished because it was fucking SECRET!I mean, Jesus Tap Dancing Christ, dude. How can Congress convince you of the necessity of a secret weapon program...?
Seth wrote:Seth wrote:
So, the remaining costs are largely labor costs, and the size of the standing army should ALWAYS be subject to the willingness of the people to pay to support them. If they don't want to pay, soldiers are mustered out and equipment mothballed for future use. Pretty simple and elegant way to acknowledge public support for the military.If that's what the people want, then they will deny mothball funds. If they want to preserve the investment in equipment because Congress has convinced them of the need, then they will agree to fund mothballing.Equipment can only be mothballed if the public is willing to pay for the mothballs. If not, it just rots.
Nice bit of amphigory there.This is the problem with your plan. You'd need to have a government department whose job it is to create the annual funding lists (reams of paper, by the way), wherein citizens are asked to check these boxes. That, of course, is itself a government program, and would require a check a box in advance to fund it. They would have to have funds to do that first authorization to authorize funds from for the government department to create the check a box forms, and so there would have to be a pre authorization for that pre-authorization....
Your suggestion is a suggestion to require the government to convince the people that it would be a good use of funds to create a department to collect revenue by means of a voluntary check a box form, wherein the government revenues are allocated. That department, of course, would itself be a government program which would require funding and therefore would require agreement by the people to pay for it. It's check a box forms all the way down....![]()
Seth wrote:With computers, it's easy.It's not elegant, it's stupid and unworkable. It's an oversimplification of the reality and relies on a misapprehension that the US budget can be laid out on an index card for a check a box system.
As I said, this is not a line-item veto proposal, it's a broad-scope selection process. Each person gets to determine how detailed their expenditure authorization will be. With computers it's ridiculously simple. You list the categories of spending and tree down to specific areas or programs under those categories, you link to the specific programs and the user can drill down as far as they like in allocating funds, just like Congress does. At every level there's an "allocate X dollars" selection box. You want to donate $100 to women's ovarian cancer research, you can do so. You want to donate that $100 to women's cancer programs generally, you can. You want to donate that $100 to women's health issues, you can. All government programs are hierarchal by nature, and programming a computer system to provide hierarchal drill-down is child's play. Reach the level you want to fund, click the "Fund this Program with ____ dollars" button and enter an amount and it's all done automatically. Your money (when collected) flows to the program you choose. And Congress only has to budget within a class with funds allocated by payers to the general class.The printing is easy. The determination of how to word the categories of expenditures, who does the wording, whether they are worded biased or not, how much description is included (especially in top secret items), and all that is not any easier with computers. Do you ever think these things through, Seth?
Example:
Woman's Health Program Funding: Congress requests funding for a program to promote women's health issues, and provide medical services to women.
Women's Health Program Finding: Congress requests funding for a program to provide free abortions on demand to women of any age, and to provide funding for needy women in all other areas, including contraception and cancer screening, etc.
Which would be the wording on the check a box sheet? Who would decide? What if the people didn't authorize funding for anyone to make that decision?
Instant referendum on public programs and services.
Seth wrote:The reality is that people would have to fill out reams of forms at the federal, state and local level, approving and allocating various tax moneys for various purposes.
Nope. They get to decide what level of detail to allocate by. If they want to use broad strokes and allocate so much for social welfare entitlements and so much for the military, they can. If they want to take the time to be more specific and work within a specific government spending sector to specify more closely how their money is to be used, they can do that. It can all be done with computers and the accounting and allocation of funds would be done automatically when the person files his return.
Nope. No paper at all. It's all done on-line, by computer.Either way, reams of paper have to printed with all the choices, because you're giving the people the option.
What return? Who the FUCK is going to approve funding for the government to process their tax return?
With luck, nobody.
But that would only be true if most other people agreed with you and refused to fund a system or program. And I'm fine with defunding the IRS tomorrow.Or, to come up with tax forms in the first place? I tell you what -- under the Seth system I will refuse to fund the tax form department and the tax processing department, that way I don't have to pay any taxes. The rest of you can pay for my national defense.
Seth wrote:The people would have to guess how many purchases one makes so that sales taxes can be allocated, for example.
There would be no sales taxes, so that's a non sequitur.
No taxes whatsoever. It's all completely voluntary.Gotcha. What kind of tax would there be?
Seth wrote:There would be no licensing, and fees would be assessed when a service is used and paid for at the time of service.And, if money for licensing and other fees are put in the general fund, then they have to allocate that money too.
Nope. Just laws that say if you produce or market a harmful drug, everybody associated with it goes to jail for initiating force and the company gets liquidated and the assets distributed to the victims for initiating fraud. Don't make a mistake, because one mistake will destroy the company and all the investors will lose all their money, and the victims of such fraud will be compensated by becoming the new owners.No licensing? So, you wouldn't have pharmaceutical companies licensed by the government?
Seth wrote:This would fix that by eliminating all taxes, including income taxes, and giving people the power to donate to the government programs of their choice on a voluntary basis.It sounds simple when you phrase it as "allocating my income tax money to major programs like military, social security, medicare," etc., but the reality is that there are thousands of functions at various levels of government that need to be paid for, and the money comes from many different sources, not just income taxes.
Nobody would donate, because they wouldn't have the money.
Nonsense. People like various government programs. Voters vote in favor of taxes and services all the time because they want or need the service.
Nonsense. It's just giving people control of their private property back and demanding that government PERSUADE people to fund it rather than imposing funding by force.It's like the old "rubbernecking" example from Econ 101. The traffic jam occurs because people slow down and gawk at the accident. If everyone just drove on by, then there would be virtually no traffic jam, but it's no person's individual interest to refrain from gawking himself. He'd only prefer that everyone else stop gawking. You're suggesting a system where everyone would voluntarily not gawk. Won't happen. It's stupid and contrary to human nature.
Seth wrote:Sure. Or we convince them to contribute.Seth wrote:Seth wrote:Simple solution: the default rule is that if you do not designate, your taxes may be allocated as Congress sees fit. Of course, in the Libertarian model, the government wouldn't be collecting income tax, it would be asking for voluntary donations and donors would be able to earmark what their donation is to be used for.And, lastly, if you're one of the "47%", you'd be checking a box to designate what portion of "nothing" gets paid where.So, what about those who don't contribute to the military? We somehow let them get shot, while saving those who contributed?
Hm. Gee, a "free rider" conundrum. Well, that's solved by the people who want to be protected. They pay to be protected. If someone else gets protected by accident, well, the payers will just have to live with that or do something about it...like convince the free riders to contribute.Well, you can't feasibly only defend the people who paid the taxes, so we'd be left convincing people to contribute, which is also unworkable, because your neighbors won't know whether you contributed or not. And, the government couldn't force anyone to contribute, so people would just say "no, let everyone else pay." See the rubbernecking/gawking rule of Econ 101.
"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
© 2013/2014/2015/2016 Seth, all rights reserved. No reuse, republication, duplication, or derivative work is authorized.
"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
© 2013/2014/2015/2016 Seth, all rights reserved. No reuse, republication, duplication, or derivative work is authorized.
Re: Things I have to post - libertarianism derail
I love how you just assume that because people are not fully competent to evaluate national security threats that this axiomatically means that they are incompetent to recognize that they don't know enough about it to make a decision and that therefore it might be a good idea to hire professionals (and agree to fund them) to do the work.Coito ergo sum wrote:That is true as far as it goes - groceries - stocks - cars - houses. But, plenty of people are fully incompetent to know what the best use of money for national defense is. In fact, on that point, almost everyone is incompetent. Being competent to manage one's own financial affairs does not render one competent to evaluate national security threats. To suggest that the average person is fully competent to act as a national security assessment bureau and to allocate guns and butter on a national level is monumentally, patently, and ridiculously ludicrous. You've gone to plaid, Seth. You've gone to plaid.Seth wrote:
People are fully competent to decide how they want their money spent,
Using your model of human nature, people would just sit in their houses with shit floating around the living room because the toilet is stopped up and they don't know how to fix it and are too stupid to know enough to hire a plumber to come and do the work.
People are not that stupid or that cupidinous. People are perfectly qualified to make political and social decisions about how their money is spent, and they are competent to recognize that there may be important projects or services that they aren't familiar enough with to consider them in detail, but they are fully competent to consider them in gross.
Your implicit notion that people are stupid sheep that cannot recognize or acknowledge that they need a strong military with the best equipment and voluntarily agree to fund such a military is, of course, nonsense.
That's what I call a jaundiced view, and an arrogant one. But if that's how they are, then they get the government they deserve for being stupid, don't they?Most people can hardly work their DVD player, or read a simple government statute or ordinance.
"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
© 2013/2014/2015/2016 Seth, all rights reserved. No reuse, republication, duplication, or derivative work is authorized.
"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
© 2013/2014/2015/2016 Seth, all rights reserved. No reuse, republication, duplication, or derivative work is authorized.
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Re: Things I have to post - libertarianism derail
Well, if the end goal is destroy the United States of America (which is a federal republic, and not merely geographically nearby places and localities), then you're suggestion makes perfect sense.Seth wrote:No, just the federal government, which is precisely as intended. Life in local communities will go on quite nicely.Coito ergo sum wrote:So, that would be stupid and a waste of money, an impractical way to go about things, and a giant waste of money, and it would paralyze the United States.Seth wrote:So what?So, when they evaluate the military need and approve a budget for the Pentagon, it delineates how many tanks, planes, drones, bombs, and the like are to be purchased, and where the troops need to go, etc. John Q. Public has no baseline to make such determinations, and the vicissitudes of the public are such that one year they'll wan the SR-71 Blackbird or whatever, and then the next year they'll cancel the whole thing, only to start it up again the following year.
No, that's the way it is. That's what you do. You pay taxes and they go to general fund and the CONGRESS has the Constitutional authority to spend that money, in accordance with the wishes of a majority of the elected representatives acting within their Constitutional authority. What you're suggesting is something different, and is nonsensical and foolish.Seth wrote:Seth wrote:
If I don't like how the military is being used, I should not be required to pay for it.Nonsense.You aren't. You're required to pay taxes, which go to the general fund.
I JUST FUCKING GOD DAMN MOTHER FUCKING EXPLAINED THAT TO YOU!!!!!!! CHRIST ON A MOTHER FUCKING BICYCLE.Seth wrote:Why do I have to "live with it?"You have elected representatives whose job it is to represent your interests in the government, and if you don't like them or they don't get you what you want, you vote them out next time. A representative republic isn't about you only paying for what you want. It's about a nation of people living under laws which apply to everyone, and each person's say is REPRESENTED by the REPRESENTATIVE in the legislature. If you lose the debate, or if your representative loses the debate, then you have to live with that. You don't get to carve out little niches for yourself.
Why do you have to live with it? Because we live in a representative republic governed by a constitution. You elect members to Congress. Congress has the power to tax and spend (in accordance with its enumerated powers), and your representative has a say in the matter, but not control by fiat. You may get what you want, you may not. But, once the law is made within the enumerated powers of Congress then Congress has spoken as a body. That's it. If the law is going to be that theft is illegal, or that a federal highway will be built, then that's what is going to happen. Your representative might have opposed those measures, but Congress speaks as a single body. You have to live with it becasue we are a nation of people living under laws which apply to everyone, and each person's say is represented by a representative in the legislature. If you lose the debate, you lose the debate. You don't get to carve out little niches for yourself.
Now don't fucking ask me "why" again - when I just fucking explained it to you. That's fucking why. Because the Constitution is set up as representative republic and not some stupid-ass idiocy about every individual reviewing the national fucking budget.
You can propose whatever nonsense you want. I can propose that our country be set up as a nation that gives everything to everyone for free. I've merely explained, when you've spoken in terms of what "is" how you are inaccurately explaining what "is." And, I've explained that your suggestion for what "should be" is monumental idiocy.Seth wrote:
Why can't I propose a new system that will modify the representative process somewhat by allowing me to determine in what categories of government services my money will be spent. Within that specification, Congress can determine exactly how to spend it, but I wish to retain the right to defund any service I don't agree to pay for...like welfare.
I notice you said nothing about it not being monumentally inefficient, wasteful and disorderly. I'll take that as your agreement. That's why your idea is stupid. And, it would only be a representative republic for those individuals who agreed to fund their representatives. So, when only some of the people send a representative to congress, the rest who didn't provide funding would not be represented, and then they would opt out of being governed by those representatives at all. Nation gone. But, that, of course, is your stated goal, as noted above, in which case it'd be an amazing success.Seth wrote:Of course it would be a representative republic, it would just have an additional layer of government spending control.Why not? (anticipating you asking the question after I just explained the answer to you) -- because It would be monumentally inefficient and it would be wasteful and it would be disorderly, it would not be a representative republic anymore, and essentially it would mean the end of the United States as a nation.
Good luck with that.Seth wrote:Seth wrote:
Moreover, if most people don't like how the military is being used, they should have the right to defund it by voting with their tax return. I don't care what the bureaucrats think about it, it's up to them to convince me that their requests for money are reasonable and necessary, which requires them to explain to me why they need an F22 Joint Strike Fighter rather than our existing fleet of F15 and F16 aircraft.Don't wanna. I want to reform the system so they have to ask for the money, save it up, then spend it rather than just telling me they need the money and I must pay for it whether I like it or not.The F-22 is not the Joint Strike Fighter, but they did explain it to you - through your elected representative. If you were not a good enough citizen to petition your elected representative to stop the F-22 program before it began (which has now been ended by Obama anyway), then that's your fault. Your view of it was represented in Congress by your elected representative, and it is not the legislature's responsibility to convince "Seth." It's the responsibility of the legislature to protect and defend the constitution of the United States, and to carry out its charge to provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty for the people. If you don't like how the Congress has provided for the common defense then YOU get out and picket your congressman, and YOU write pamphlets, or YOU run for congress and get things changed.
Run for office.Seth wrote:Seth wrote:
And they won't "start up" anything and then shut it down, because the companion requirement is that they can't start a program that they do not ALREADY have all the money to pay for in the bank. No. More. Deficit. Spending. Period.Tough shit. They get X amount of dollars to give it a bash, and if that isn't enough, then then can explain to us why that isn't enough and ask for some more. I don't accept the "Daddy, I need more allowance. "Why do you need more son?" "Well, Daddy, I'm working on a top-secret project and you're just going to have to trust me when I tell you I need more." "Why sure, son, I'll just keep on giving you as much as you say you need because I trust you." model anymore.That's idiotic, since some programs it can't be closely estimated what it's going to cost in the end. Like - we want to develop a new groundbreaking secret weapon -- who is going to know how much it is going to cost in advance?
Politicians have proven that they cannot be trusted with my money anymore, so it's time for a change.
So sorry, but that's moronic beyond belief.Seth wrote:Seth wrote:
If the public votes with its tax returns to fund the SR-71 program, and Congress collects all it needs to meet that financial requirement, then it gets to do the project. If not, it doesn't.Nobody said it was easy. It requires that Congress build trust in those who pay for such programs. If they haven't built the trust, they don't get to play with the money. So sorry, but that's just how it needs to be.The SR-71 program was never announced until long after it was finished because it was fucking SECRET!I mean, Jesus Tap Dancing Christ, dude. How can Congress convince you of the necessity of a secret weapon program...?
I can't help the idiocy of the system you propose.Seth wrote:Nice bit of amphigory there.
Your suggestion is a suggestion to require the government to convince the people that it would be a good use of funds to create a department to collect revenue by means of a voluntary check a box form, wherein the government revenues are allocated. That department, of course, would itself be a government program which would require funding and therefore would require agreement by the people to pay for it. It's check a box forms all the way down....![]()
No - that is NOT what you said. You said that people would have the CHOICE of whether to vote on broad scope issues, or defund specific things. You did NOT say that they would ONLY have the choice of broad scope selection. It's always about moving the goalposts with you, isn't it?Seth wrote:Seth wrote:With computers, it's easy.It's not elegant, it's stupid and unworkable. It's an oversimplification of the reality and relies on a misapprehension that the US budget can be laid out on an index card for a check a box system.As I said, this is not a line-item veto proposal, it's a broad-scope selection process.The printing is easy. The determination of how to word the categories of expenditures, who does the wording, whether they are worded biased or not, how much description is included (especially in top secret items), and all that is not any easier with computers. Do you ever think these things through, Seth?
Example:
Woman's Health Program Funding: Congress requests funding for a program to promote women's health issues, and provide medical services to women.
Women's Health Program Finding: Congress requests funding for a program to provide free abortions on demand to women of any age, and to provide funding for needy women in all other areas, including contraception and cancer screening, etc.
Which would be the wording on the check a box sheet? Who would decide? What if the people didn't authorize funding for anyone to make that decision?
That is NOT in any way "easy." Please give me an example of a program which is treed down to specific areas. Make it one like Congress's proposed bill number 101: The Judiciary System of the United States. Come on, Seth -- let's see you "easily" tree that down....Seth wrote:
Each person gets to determine how detailed their expenditure authorization will be. With computers it's ridiculously simple. You list the categories of spending and tree down to specific areas or programs under those categories, you link to the specific programs and the user can drill down as far as they like in allocating funds, just like Congress does. At every level there's an "allocate X dollars" selection box.

You want to pay for Chaplains in the military, but not M-16's, fine. You want to pay for white paint on roadways, but not yellow, fine. You think stop signs should be defunded, but not yield signs, fine.Seth wrote: You want to donate $100 to women's ovarian cancer research, you can do so. You want to donate that $100 to women's cancer programs generally, you can. You want to donate that $100 to women's health issues, you can.
And, how many pages, if someone printed this out, do you imagine this would take?Seth wrote:
All government programs are hierarchal by nature, and programming a computer system to provide hierarchal drill-down is child's play. Reach the level you want to fund, click the "Fund this Program with ____ dollars" button and enter an amount and it's all done automatically. Your money (when collected) flows to the program you choose. And Congress only has to budget within a class with funds allocated by payers to the general class.
Instant referendum on public programs and services.
Just because something isn't printed on paper doesn't change the amount of material.Seth wrote:Seth wrote:The reality is that people would have to fill out reams of forms at the federal, state and local level, approving and allocating various tax moneys for various purposes.
Nope. They get to decide what level of detail to allocate by. If they want to use broad strokes and allocate so much for social welfare entitlements and so much for the military, they can. If they want to take the time to be more specific and work within a specific government spending sector to specify more closely how their money is to be used, they can do that. It can all be done with computers and the accounting and allocation of funds would be done automatically when the person files his return.Nope. No paper at all. It's all done on-line, by computer.Either way, reams of paper have to printed with all the choices, because you're giving the people the option.

O.k., we're about done here...Seth wrote:What return? Who the FUCK is going to approve funding for the government to process their tax return?
With luck, nobody.[/quote[
And, that's why you know your program is stupid. You're just calling for something to be created that would be the end of the United States of America, effectively.
Of course you are, but what you're "fine with" is just one voice of 300,000,000. If you don't want to live in the US, move. Well, of course, you're free to ask your Congressman to propose an amendment to the Constitution to do what you say you want. But, when he looks at you like you're an idiot, don't be surprised.Seth wrote:But that would only be true if most other people agreed with you and refused to fund a system or program. And I'm fine with defunding the IRS tomorrow.Or, to come up with tax forms in the first place? I tell you what -- under the Seth system I will refuse to fund the tax form department and the tax processing department, that way I don't have to pay any taxes. The rest of you can pay for my national defense.
Seth wrote:Seth wrote:The people would have to guess how many purchases one makes so that sales taxes can be allocated, for example.
There would be no sales taxes, so that's a non sequitur.No taxes whatsoever. It's all completely voluntary.Gotcha. What kind of tax would there be?
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Re: Things I have to post - libertarianism derail
That's what we do now. We have a Constitution which sets forth a procedure for people to hire people to go do the work. It's called, "representatives" and "senators." They get elected - so each population center gets a representative, and each State gets 2 senators. Those people all meet in Washington DC, and then figure things out.Seth wrote:I love how you just assume that because people are not fully competent to evaluate national security threats that this axiomatically means that they are incompetent to recognize that they don't know enough about it to make a decision and that therefore it might be a good idea to hire professionals (and agree to fund them) to do the work.Coito ergo sum wrote:That is true as far as it goes - groceries - stocks - cars - houses. But, plenty of people are fully incompetent to know what the best use of money for national defense is. In fact, on that point, almost everyone is incompetent. Being competent to manage one's own financial affairs does not render one competent to evaluate national security threats. To suggest that the average person is fully competent to act as a national security assessment bureau and to allocate guns and butter on a national level is monumentally, patently, and ridiculously ludicrous. You've gone to plaid, Seth. You've gone to plaid.Seth wrote:
People are fully competent to decide how they want their money spent,
You're the one who said they were competent to decide DIRECTLY. I merely showed you how wrong you were.
No, they would fix the toilet. But, they have no capacity to know, themselves, whether Iran or North Korea is a threat. Big difference.Seth wrote:
Using your model of human nature, people would just sit in their houses with shit floating around the living room because the toilet is stopped up and they don't know how to fix it and are too stupid to know enough to hire a plumber to come and do the work.
Your suggestions on this thread are.Seth wrote:
People are not that stupid or that cupidinous.
See above - they aren't "perfectly qualified" to act as a national security threat assessment bureau. They're competent to elect leaders that they want to represent them.Seth wrote: People are perfectly qualified to make political and social decisions about how their money is spent,
That's why we elect representatives.Seth wrote:
and they are competent to recognize that there may be important projects or services that they aren't familiar enough with to consider them in detail, but they are fully competent to consider them in gross.
Your explicit notion that people are smart enough to determine, by line item, the entire United States federal budge, their State's budget, and their municipality's budget is moronic.Seth wrote:
Your implicit notion that people are stupid sheep that cannot recognize or acknowledge that they need a strong military with the best equipment and voluntarily agree to fund such a military is, of course, nonsense.
No. That's why we have people vote on who their elected leaders should be, so that people who have access to better information and a lawmaking body that can more soberly address issues of the day, can try to make more informative choices and decisions in line with the overall will of the people. That way, the people get a better government than they "deserve." Treat every man according to what he deserves, and who will escape the lash?Seth wrote:That's what I call a jaundiced view, and an arrogant one. But if that's how they are, then they get the government they deserve for being stupid, don't they?Most people can hardly work their DVD player, or read a simple government statute or ordinance.
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Re: Things I have to post - libertarianism derail
We live in a country where (usually) less than 50% of eligible citizens bother to vote. This is particularly true in off-year national elections. Statistics for local elections are even more depressing. Florida voters couldn't even figure out how to use a printed ballot. I mean, look at this - can you REALLY not figure out how to vote for Al Gore? It's got big fucking arrows pointing the the correct hole.

Ask any idiot on the street to point to Iran on a map. Ask any idiot on the street to name the Vice President. Ask any idiot on the street to find his own asshole without a roadmap.
Do you really, really want to put the finances of the US into these people's hands? Do you honestly think they're competent to decide how to allocate trillions of dollars?

Ask any idiot on the street to point to Iran on a map. Ask any idiot on the street to name the Vice President. Ask any idiot on the street to find his own asshole without a roadmap.
Do you really, really want to put the finances of the US into these people's hands? Do you honestly think they're competent to decide how to allocate trillions of dollars?
Yeah well that's just, like, your opinion, man.
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Re: Things I have to post - libertarianism derail
On a side note, it just occurred to me that libertarians could arguably have the same gripe that Democrats had with that ballot. Democrats said that Al Gore was the second item down on the left, but the third dot to fill in, so they wrongly checked the second dot. Well, the libertarians came next on the left, third, but they were the fifth dot. Did any libertarians complain that they accidentally voted for the Socialist candidate?laklak wrote:We live in a country where (usually) less than 50% of eligible citizens bother to vote. This is particularly true in off-year national elections. Statistics for local elections are even more depressing. Florida voters couldn't even figure out how to use a printed ballot. I mean, look at this - can you REALLY not figure out how to vote for Al Gore? It's got big fucking arrows pointing the the correct hole.
Ask any idiot on the street to point to Iran on a map. Ask any idiot on the street to name the Vice President. Ask any idiot on the street to find his own asshole without a roadmap.
Do you really, really want to put the finances of the US into these people's hands? Do you honestly think they're competent to decide how to allocate trillions of dollars?

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Re: Things I have to post - libertarianism derail
Libertarians are smarter then Democrats.
Fact.
Fact.
Yeah well that's just, like, your opinion, man.
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Re: Things I have to post - libertarianism derail
I wonder if Green Party candidates were shocked and outraged to realize they had accidentally voted for the Constitution Party?laklak wrote:Libertarians are smarter then Democrats.
Fact.

Re: Things I have to post - libertarianism derail
Sorry thats an appalling designed ballot paper (I'm sure you can find British ones just as bad).
You shouldnt have to spend more than 2 seconds working where to tick/cross/punch and I reckon that takes 10 seconds if you havent seen it before.
If you had something similar for a nurse/doctor to fill out to prescribe a medicine even through 95 out of 100 would get it right thats a lot of dead patients.
You don't make goverment or any other form any more complex that it needs to be
You shouldnt have to spend more than 2 seconds working where to tick/cross/punch and I reckon that takes 10 seconds if you havent seen it before.
If you had something similar for a nurse/doctor to fill out to prescribe a medicine even through 95 out of 100 would get it right thats a lot of dead patients.
You don't make goverment or any other form any more complex that it needs to be
When only criminals carry guns the police know exactly who to shoot!
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Re: Things I have to post - libertarianism derail
My point exactly. Asking the average voter to tick boxes on possibly hundreds of ballot pages in order to determine how they want their tax money spent is far more complex than the ballot I linked to. If they cannot figure out the Florida ballot, as poorly designed as it was, how on earth would they manage one that required more than a single choice? Anyone who could not suss out how to vote for Al Gore back in 2000 shouldn't have been voting in the first place, let alone determining how trillions of Federal dollars should be spent.MrJonno wrote:...You don't make goverment or any other form any more complex that it needs to be
Seth's idea of allowing voters to determine financial priorities might work in a society of highly educated, intelligent, motivated voters, but it doesn't stand a snowball's in a society whose only criteria for voting is attaining a minimum age and successfully breathing.
Yeah well that's just, like, your opinion, man.
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