It's Freeper talk for taxation, basicallyQuote:
Originally Posted by Timbuk2
It's Freeper talk for taxation, basicallyQuote:
Originally Posted by Timbuk2
Here's my ideal society:
1. They make laws that only restrict actions that violate the moral rights of others (as defined by Christian values).
The society that i still find morally acceptable but not Ideal:
2. A society which allows any law to be created except ones that violates others rights.
The differnece being society 2 could have a law like every sunday everyone has to stand on their right leg for one hour (as long as it passed democratically), wherease society 1 could make no such law. I still find them both morally fine socieities though.
If morality is relative then there is no morality, it's as simple as that. Morality turns into set of prefrences and not some significant moral law. It's only significant if you want it to be. Two people can have contradictory views and both be right. So there is no moral law, or anything, it's just a matter of prefrences. And prefrences don't create right or wrong, they don't create moral law, they create something just called law. Which doesn't say whether it's right or wrong, simple that if you do X then Y happens, it's based on the values of the populace.Quote:
Morality is relative. There is a vast array of examples of morality evolving over time, so it's meaningless to talk about as though its an absolute.
The thing the church and other religions try to do, is mold the people to their, what they call, absolute values, and not vice versa.
Even if morality changes over time doesn't mean there is not an absolute morality, to be perfectly clear, you can easily argue we are heading to the "absolute morality" and the reason our morality changes is simply because we're more aware, and are hammering out our definitions. If someone proved fetus at 2 months is alive that would affect our abortion laws. It can also simply be a matter of understanding.
I didn't say everyone I said plenty of people on the board... all taxation (except when folks voluntarily pay more) is done at the point of the gun.Quote:
Originally Posted by Timbuk2
Yes it's a requirement, but people, who wish to live in the U.S are simply playing their club fees so-to-speak to get all the universal benefits that come with living here over other places. Running this country, and maintaining it's greatness isn't free.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lewkowski
So are property rights.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lewkowski
In Freeper-town, it's their own gun that does it
Using that logic, your right to your own body is done at the point of the gun. See what I did there?Quote:
Originally Posted by Steely Glint
Do you? :bulb:Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
Then tell me how property rights are granted at gun point. I buy land. I build something on land. I get a piece of paper from the government saying the land and what's on it is mine. Where does force play into this?
The forced confiscation of *some* wealth to provide basic government (protect against internal and external threats of violence for example) is a necessary evil. The point of using the phrase "point of the gun" is to understand clearly what it means to tax someone. You have usurped their autonomy and taken what is not yours. Some is required for society to function but beyond that it is a violation of a person's autonomy. If you value freedom you support lower taxation.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lebanese Dragon
thatsthejoke.jpg :confused:Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
pictureofapoliceman.jpg too, I guess
Made my point for me?Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
Someone doesn't know the difference between criminal and civil law.
Someone's missing the point by a country mile.
As I pointed out earlier, in Freeper world it's always preferable if you get to strangle the neg---person who took your tooth paste, but doesn't sheriff Joe boil people alive for infringing property rights too? If not, why not?Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
To be fair I think you guys kinda took it and made it your property in the first place with the help of guns :mad: :downcast:Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
Secular is much more likely to try to hump your leg, Theology is very yappy, so there's clearly a difference. BTW how did you find out my dogs' names?Quote:
Originally Posted by Lewkowski
You cannot think of yourself as an individual, you have to think of yourself as a group. Every great society will have this be a fundamental premise. Each individual group member may be vying for their own self interest but as you decide the course we need to take it must consider the entirity of society, it's immoral not to, and it destabilizes the entire system.Quote:
The forced confiscation of *some* wealth to provide basic government (protect against internal and external threats of violence for example) is a necessary evil. The point of using the phrase "point of the gun" is to understand clearly what it means to tax someone. You have usurped their autonomy and taken what is not yours. Some is required for society to function but beyond that it is a violation of a person's autonomy. If you value freedom you support lower taxation.
I don't really understand middle income people suppoting the wealthy. When you become wealthy it becomes logical to support republican policies, until then both in selfish interest (and i would contend in the good for all) you should be supporting a democratic economic policy.
Here will be the greatest short-term increase in our production as a society: When businesses are able to track their employees in real-time as they perform tasks. If for example you're working at Walmart, and they say go get these boxes moved, or toys put in their proper shelves, tracking the # of toys stacked per minute of that employee, and rewarding accordingly. We're so sloppy, there's so much lazyness everywhere. We have so many problems it's just frustrating, and they're solvable. Imagine how much money walmart or any company would save if it was done that way, and how much could be passed onto the employees that outperform other employees. Right now our system of employment does not reward hard work, or quality of work. That's one problem.
Another problem is the stupid amount of corruption being a cancer on our government. For one thing we need a new vetting system for who can be elected into positions of office. Too many times, stupid, ignorant people are there, or the candidate with the most money is there, it's a I scratch your back you scratch my back system.
We will live in a rediculously weathly and beautiful society if we can tackle these key problems.
So end result from the poll and this thread I've come to this conclusion (which I had previously).
The board generally views that it is perfectly OK to restrict someone's freedom based on moral doctrine as long as those moral views don't come directly from belief in a deity.
Sound about right?
A more salient insight would be that the board in general recognises that there are differences in both principle and practice between secular and religious approaches to morality.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lewkowski
Do you disagree with what I said?Quote:
Originally Posted by Aimless
Are you now a champion of freedom against the tyranny of the "moral majority" (whatever that happens to be at any given time). Or are you like most leftist fully wedded tot he idea of the government telling people how to live?
You mean trespassing or disagreements over contract terms? Because the latter get resolved in civil courts, where jail is rarely a possible punishment. The punishment for trespassing has more to do with the potential for violence than with the act of stepping on someone's property. Trespassing is also not a felony.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nessus
I invite/urge you to re-read this thread if you're still having difficulties with this :confused:Quote:
Originally Posted by Lewkowski
SighQuote:
Originally Posted by Loki
These all involve people holding fire-arms who are given money by a government, nyet?
You're conflating the role of the government as the arbiter of disputes and the role of the government of enforcing its own laws. The former involves contracts mutually agreed upon; the latter entails doling out punishment for a failure to obey the government. An analogy would the difference between an arbitrator ruling that you must give up your house based on a contract you signed with another party and a village elder forcing you to give up your house because you won't follow some custom.
If I am not strong enough to strangle the person who took my tooth paste, can I or can I not sick policemen to shoot at him? Assume I am American for this exercise. You may also further assume that the person who took my tooth paste at no point in time signed any agreement where they agreed the tooth paste was mine.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
Taxation is done at gunpoint in the same way and for the same reason that property is appropriated/acquired and defended at gunpoint. Scholars disagree on the relative justice/injustice of the two cases.
Repeating something won't make it true. A thief had a choice as to try to take someone else's property. If they didn't try to steal that property, which would incur absolutely no cost to them, they wouldn't be punished. The thief therefore gets punished for taking a positive act. You have no choice but to pay taxes. You cannot negotiate the terms of the taxes. You can't opt out. There's no one to negotiate with. It's a unilateral imposition of terms, and you get jailed for not following them.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aimless
It's equally unilateral that my boyfriend can't beat me unless I say otherwise, and I guess it's somewhat bilateral that my toothpaste is mine? I am withholding people of tooth paste the same way as the government is depriving them of 0.x of their pay-check, and it's the self-same guns that uphold the deprivation of tooth paste and pay-check. Which is the origin of the mockery here, the guns.
You'll have to open up exactly which axioms you're using here, as you seem perfectly happy in using some arbitrary definition of property to twist your panties in a bunch, but ostensibly you don't think Minx's girlfriend can turn around and claim him as property. Minx is able to ring up the Svedish police to point a gun at his girlfriend if she tries to use him for cotton-picking, and those are the same guns the Svedish government would turn on Minx if he tried to practice medicine without giving a protection fee to the Svedish government. To the Freeper mockery it is immaterial through which means the policemen and their guns are introduced into the situation; so long as that threat to life and limb via fire-arm exists, the exact same injustice is being performed. Why can't Minx's girl friend use him for cotton picking or sexual slavery? Who decided that? Not either of them, that's for sure. Did the thief and I agree the tooth paste was mine, not his? I haven't, to this day, signed a single paper about tooth paste ownership.
And it is perfectly possible to avoid taxation, the degree depends on how much free time and capital you have. Do you think Mittens has been held at gun-point lately? How much taxes do the aborigines in Brazil pay, given they're more or less kept in isolation from the rest of human civilization?
This entire exchange is an exercise in absurdity but I'm sure you'd be pleased keeping it up in perpetuity, lest anyone defame the high ideals of Free Republic :|
That's not true. There are several ways to avoid paying taxes, or opt-out. That includes property, income, consumption, and sales taxes. That means not owning real estate (or paying rent to a land-owner who pays RE taxes), not enrolling as an employee (but working under the table or in shadow economies), and not buying anything with a consumption or sales tax (in many states that includes essentials like food and clothing), or a gas tax (walking and riding a bicycle are free).Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
There are even ways to avoid paying inheritance, estate, or death taxes. "Income" is divided between labor and capital, where work is taxed higher than dividends, earned interest, capital gains. To pay even less in the latter categories, there are tax "shelters" and schemes, for those who can afford to pay a tax attorney well versed in international law. Even that expense is tax deductible for those who itemize.
That IS the essence of the problem, though. Those with enough money can negotiate and/or opt out of tax payments.....by hiring CPAs and attorneys to exploit the tax code. Legally.
What's your obsession with toothpaste? The case is long closed and justice was done.
Since you started the thread with certain deities in mind, would you prefer we discuss bald men and bears?Quote:
Originally Posted by Lewkowski
No. You seem to have it backward, actually. But then, you'd already made your conclusions prior to posting this thread. :donkey:Quote:
Originally Posted by Lewkowski
Cliff notes for Lewk: 'moral doctrine' doesn't have to serve, or originate from, any deity/religion or religious text. Freedom--as you use the term--is relative.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aimless
Nope, sounds wrong in both directions. There are many cases where religious and secular morality overlap. So whether those moral views come from a belief in a deity is not important. Whether one can reason objectively that a law is beneficial for the society and important enough to create a law is.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lewkowski
Thou shalt not kill (murder). There is a clear benefit to society to implement this law, and the consequences are important enough to warrant impeding the freedom to kill at will. It also happens to be a religious law.
No sex before marriage. No clear benefit to society, consequences not important enough to impeded the freedom to have sex before marriage.