Capital Gains Taxes - Should they be abolished?

[Berzerker]

Victor -

-What about those people that will not pay then?

Then others can determine if their reasons for not paying taxes to support the military are valid or not. For example, a poor person may not be able to afford that tax and others can take that factor into account. If someone with the means to pay the tax and won't, then others have the freedom of association to dis-associate from them thereby making life for them rather unpleasant.

-Under the Articles of Confederation the state was decidely penniless. Do you know what happens when a state just prints money without any form of stable income? That's right, it takes a wheelbarrowfull of money to buy a loaf of bread. Just printing money doesn't solve anything.

I never said money should be printed without something to back it up. The state has resources to back up it's currency without the initiation of violence.

-I would not call progressive taxes left wing simply because moderate right wingers should support them as well as everyone on the left.

Maybe those "moderate right wingers" aren't right wing. "Progressive" taxation appears in the Communist Manifesto I believe, that is not a right wing or centrist document.

-And now you miss quote me. I said libertarianism leads to anarchy, not is. There is a fine difference there. A weak government like the libertarians want could never keep order in the modern world -> anarchy.

Maybe this "fine" distinction matters to you, it doesn't to me. You've yet to prove your claim...

-Yes. Sovereign states began collecting annual taxes whose amounts were specified rather than the irregular taxes collected by feudal lords.

How does the alleged consistency of "legalized" theft create the "right" to steal legally?

Business thrived on the certainty that all their money would not suddenly be demanded.

Robin Hood aside, where is the evidence feudal lords were in the habit of confiscating all wealth from subjects?

-Yes. The ball is passed into the law maker's court. If they don't use my tax money to feed starving people that's their fault.

Then I am not responsible either. Are your parents mass murderers? I suggest you look the word "murder" up in a dictionary, it doesn't say a farmer is a mass murderer for not handing over the fruits of his labor.

-Like Hell it is!

Violence is not a moral issue? Does that mean murder is not immoral?

-If no government existed you'd have no rights

I suggest you read the Declaration of Independence. It says we are endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights, not endowed by "government". The tradition of rights comes from people who believed "government" was created to protect rights, not give them.

Claiming you have the right to take justice into your own hands only serves to strengthen my claim that you secretly want anarchy even though you claim to want limited government.

Were people who resisted the Nazis from within their jurisdiction advocating anarchism? Of course not! They were fighting injustice - "taking justice into their own hands". I said if government did not exist, and someone murdered your child, you had the right - a just claim - to punish them. From this right - this just claim - derives government's "right" to punish the person who murdered your child.

-It's one way to define a government. Of course, it does.

Prove that "government" has a natural monopoly on violence. I said it doesn't and you admitted in the case of self-defense that individuals also have the right to use violence. That refutes your claim that only government can use violence legitimately.

-So then the fact that you need to live in a country that charges you tax money doesn't mean it's theft.

The farmer I might buy my food from doesn't invade my home to steal my money if I don't want his food.

-Quite on the contrary. I am contributing money to an organization, whose duty it is to prevent starvation. I personally have no obligation.

And if they don't fulfill this "duty" you claim they have, then you're still responsible. If my "duty" is to feed you and I tell someone else to feed you instead and they fail, I'm not absolved of my responsibility to feed you.

-Definitions are socially constructed, and vary from person to person.

Then they have no meaning. The compilers of dictionaries don't share your opinion.

-They wish to gut the government's ability to govern. That makes them no better than anarchist rabble in my mind.

So prove it.

-Your point?

You will be violently imposing your desires on others when you vote for someone who does your bidding.

So will I. You get to vote too. It's entirely fair.

Would it be "fair" if the majority "voted" to enslave or murder a minority? Many people can't vote, is it "fair" for those who do vote to subject them to the government violence used to enforce their votes?

-Same with morality. Idealists are as or more guilty of atrocities than realists.

You mean left wingers, not "idealists". The fact some people commit crimes in the name of morality doesn't mean their crimes were moral. But utilitarians and fascists don't need morality to justify their acts, only that their acts were utilitarian.
If enslaving 5% of the population did indeed serve a utilitarian purpose, then that would be the "justification" for the act of slavery, not morality.

-Which is decidely smaller than in pre-welfare days.

Like I explained to ECAC, we went from a largely agrarian system to an industrial one. It was this shift that gradually created large middle and upper classes, not welfare or the lack thereof. The relevant question is whether or not poor people in the welfare system "graduate" up the economic scale faster or slower than poor people who don't rely on welfare. Poor immigrants who don't use welfare show that the work ethic is what leads people out of poverty, not welfare.

-Are you in favor of full employment?

I'm in favor of freedom. Not everyone wants to work all the time, therefore, full-employment won't ever happen except under authoritarianism.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Good for you. Your morality has no place in government.

LOL, ok, like anything like that can exist.

[Dauphin]

Originally posted by Victor Galis


-I do not want profit motives to influence decisions on whether or not I get critical life-saving treatments. With private medical insurance you don't get what you need, you get what a company is willing to give you thinking about it's profits the whole time.

Is that why the French (with insurance policies) have no waiting lists and the best health care system in the world, and the British (with no insurance policies) have 18 month waiting lists.

[Rogan Josh]

Originally posted by Sagacious Dolphin
Here it is a one size fits all, with no care for efficiency and applicablity, only politics and public opinion. This leads to waste and mismanagement.

On pensions say, I would prefer a system where 1-2% of all wages are "forceably" paid to your private pension scheme. Shortfalls on contributions are then paid by the government into the pension scheme offered by the insurer, upto a limit of say £20 a week.

I actually agree with this

This is (almost) how health insurance is done in Germany. You can pick the insurer you want but you must have health insurance of a certain standard. To prevent the insurance companies charging the Earth (since you have to have insurance by law) there are government subsidised schemes (not govt run though) where people below certain incomes can get insurance more cheaply.

Having lived in Germany and Britain have to agree that this is a much better system than the NHS. Although I paid quite a bit more in Germany, the quality of care was far higher, and it seems much more efficient. For example, I found that I was losing sensation in my hands and arms, so I wenrt to the doctor. The very same day I was given a brain scan (it turned out to be a brain infection) and was admitted to hospital. I am faily sure this would have taken weeks on the NHS.

As for pensions, the UK is miles ahead of Germany. In Germnay everything is done by the state, but in the UK most people have private pensions now (although there is still the state pension to fall back on, it is completely pitiful). I think this system works pretty well - in fact, it can be argued that the UK has the best pensions market in the world. I can see the state pension disappearing altogether pretty soon.

I would still argue that there are things which should be centrally controlled, like the Police and the army, since privately funded versions are extremely prone to corruption. (Imagine having an privately funded army who could be bought by your enemy!) And of course money has to be raised to pay for subsidising those who are too poor to pay for essential services.

I do not believe Berzerker's idea of raising money on a voluntary basis would work. If I refuse to pay for the Police force, does that mean that I can be robbed or murdered without consequence? If my town opts out of the army is Russia free to conquor it without interference?

And if the government can raise money so easily, why wouldn't everyone be doing it? I don't think the UN Refugee Agency has huge surpluses of cash....

[9 ECAC Titles]

Berzerker,

> 9 ECAC was identifying himself as a centrist, I merely pointed out that 2 of the major policies he supports are left wing.

I also oppose protectionism and support high military spending and inflation-indexing cap gains. That doesn't make me right wing. It makes me, well -- me. I don't align well with either fringe (I am waiting for one of them to align with me), so I'm centrist by default.


> Was US slavery immoral? The fact many people didn't agree that slavery was immoral doesn't mean it wasn't.

Of course not. But it did mean that in a republic you couldn't simply force the decision on the country on the basis of morality. That is now how our system works. Abortion and the death penalty are classic current examples. I expect them to be argued on utilitarian grounds forever, since the only way for one side to win, as in the case of slavery, is the violence you deplore.


> And actually there is an overwhelming agreement on moral precepts. Everyone agrees that murder and slavery are immoral when they are the victims, it is this "universality" reflected in the Golden Rule that creates the basis of morality.

The nice thing about precepts is that they exist in a Platonic cloud world without application. When it comes to implications, it breaks down quickly. Not because of hypocrisy, but because life is complicated. "Thou shall not kill" is as straightforward as it gets, but killing people is socially approved of in many instances.


> But because many people are hypocrites - that would treat others in ways they don't want to be treated - we have criminal behavior.

This is true of some criminal behavior -- Enron executives are certainly hypocrites. Other criminal behavior is the result of dire need. Your kid starves or you steal the loaf of bread. Not a tough choice. The behavior is still criminal, but it's constructive to try to address the cause as well as the result.


> True, many people seem to believe that "government" magically transforms immoral behavior into moral or "non-moral" behavior.

Save the rhetoric for talk radio. Government is collective action, and people en mass are just as responsible for behaving morally as people individually. In fact, government should be held to a higher level, because its ability to harm is magnified. Government immunity from criticism is not my argument, just as presumably entrepeneurial immunity from criticism is not yours.


> But I am glad you can debate this issue without being extremely offended, a number of people on your side view our arguments as personal attacks.

I'm not really sure I have a "side" in this argument. I see people on the fringes both left and right who insist upon the whole-cloth adoption of their ideologies, and I'm willing to engage equally with both by saying -- no, we who are the vast center do not accept your extremism. I would have exactly the same degree of disagreement with a Marxist.

In my experience, the spokepersons for the left, the center, and the right are identical in terms of intelligence, maturity, rhetorical skill, sincerity, etc. Some are twisted ideologues, some are demogogic opportunists, some are "City on the Hill" idealists, some are clear-thinking indviduals arguing from their personal experiences. I ignore the first two groups, suffer the third gladly (without idealism, life would be intolerable), and hang out with the fourth group because they tend to have the best sense of humor.


> I'm not a fan of utility. Terrible acts have been committed in the name of utility and what is best for society.

And greater terrible acts have been committed in the name of morality and saving the soul of humanity. I am not fond of reducing policy to J.S. Mill calculations, but in intractible cases it's the lesser of two evils.

Also: it allows for evolution as circumstances change. The scales of utility may tip a different way tomorrow, but a moral argument is set in theological concrete.


> Welfare creates more dependency, jobs are better.

This is a straw man argument -- everyone agrees that jobs are better than welfare. The question is what to do with those currently without the means to get or hold jobs.

More important, the first clause is an overgeneralizing. Abuse of welfare creates dependency, just as abuse of pain killers creates dependency. That doesn't mean we stop using pain killers -- they have extremely beneficial results in the appropriate context and dosage.

[Dauphin]

Originally posted by Rogan Josh


I actually agree with this

You sound surprised. I'm not some "out there" libertarian. I just feel that taxes and government should not be involved more than is necessary.

I would still argue that there are things which should be centrally controlled, like the Police and the army, since privately funded versions are extremely prone to corruption. (Imagine having an privately funded army who could be bought by your enemy!) And of course money has to be raised to pay for subsidising those who are too poor to pay for essential services.

I agree

You have to use common sense, but anytime an individual choice is feasable, it should be encouraged. In these cases you can't opt out of being defended by your army, or police force, and you can't choose which army you want to defend you or which police force. They are natural monopolies. Therefore they are council/government concerns.

[Victor Galis]

If someone with the means to pay the tax and won't, then others have the freedom of association to dis-associate from them thereby making life for them rather unpleasant.

-Is that so inherently different from the status quo?

Maybe those "moderate right wingers" aren't right wing. "Progressive" taxation appears in the Communist Manifesto I believe, that is not a right wing or centrist document.

-Is everything in the Communist Manifesto communist? Forgive me if I am mistaken, but doesn't progressive taxation also appear in The Wealth of Nations? (No I don't have time to read that for myself since I'm being assigned an average of 200 pages a week for Intl. Affairs classes)

Maybe this "fine" distinction matters to you

-Intent doesn't matter

How does the alleged consistency of "legalized" theft create the "right" to steal legally?

-Legal precedent

Robin Hood aside, where is the evidence feudal lords were in the habit of confiscating all wealth from subjects?

-Feudal lords routinely taxed subjects for all they could squeeze out of them. Something that sucked when you consider the overlapping authority so common in that era. (Read The Sovereign State and its Competitors by Hendrik Spruyt if you want more info about how the nation state beats feudalism.)

Then I am not responsible either. Are your parents mass murderers? I suggest you look the word "murder" up in a dictionary, it doesn't say a farmer is a mass murderer for not handing over the fruits of his labor.

-That's the beauty of philosophy isn't it? It allows interesting statements like "taxation is theft."

Violence is not a moral issue? Does that mean murder is not immoral?

-Only if you chose to view it in moral terms.

I suggest you read the Declaration of Independence. It says we are endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights, not endowed by "government". The tradition of rights comes from people who believed "government" was created to protect rights, not give them.

-That theory is all nice and good, but if you have no one to protect your rights they do not exist. Protection of a right effectively creates it. I have problems with language of the Declaration of Independence because of all that creator nonsense.

Were people who resisted the Nazis from within their jurisdiction advocating anarchism?

-Rebels. Sometimes rebellion is right, sometimes it isn't. Rebellion is fundamentally different from someone deciding to avenge the murder of a loved one instead of letting the government handle that.

I said if government did not exist, and someone murdered your child, you had the right - a just claim - to punish them. From this right - this just claim - derives government's "right" to punish the person who murdered your child.

-I wouldn't really call that a right. No one would stop you (well except for the target), but that doesn't mean you have a right. If I wanted to stop you I could do that too.

The farmer I might buy my food from doesn't invade my home to steal my money if I don't want his food.

-Neither does the government if you don't live on it's land. You don't see the Romanian government comming after me seeking tax money. If you take the farmer's money and refuse to pay for it, that's like living here and refusing to pay the taxes.

Then they have no meaning. The compilers of dictionaries don't share your opinion.

-Who says this is my opinion? You merely interpreted my statement as saying such. While the statement might have implied it, it did not explicitly state that. (Am I messing with your mind yet? Or do I have to brush up on my postmodernist critique?)

You will be violently imposing your desires on others when you vote for someone who does your bidding.

-So voting is tyranny then?

[quote]Would it be "fair" if the majority "voted" to enslave or murder a minority? Many people can't vote, is it "fair" for those who do vote to subject them to the government violence used to enforce their votes?[/qoute]

-I don't vote, and I'm missing key civil liberties. Don't talk to me about what's fair.

You mean left wingers, not "idealists". The fact some people commit crimes in the name of morality doesn't mean their crimes were moral.

-By idealists I mean idealists, not left-wingers. Realism/Idealism is independent of political orientation.

But utilitarians and fascists don't need morality to justify their acts, only that their acts were utilitarian.

-Whoa! Lumping all fascists with utilitarians doesn't work, buddy. Explain to me what the utility of exterminating the Jews is?

If enslaving 5% of the population did indeed serve a utilitarian purpose, then that would be the "justification" for the act of slavery, not morality.

-Morality is an idealist concept. Idealists would murder 50% of the world population if they found them immoral. Look at alQueda.

Like I explained to ECAC, we went from a largely agrarian system to an industrial one. It was this shift that gradually created large middle and upper classes, not welfare or the lack thereof.

-This shift created a small class of rich fatcats, and a relatively small middle class. Look at the Gilded Age. The Progressive movement increased the size of the middle class and made life better for the working class.

The relevant question is whether or not poor people in the welfare system "graduate" up the economic scale faster or slower than poor people who don't rely on welfare. Poor immigrants who don't use welfare show that the work ethic is what leads people out of poverty, not welfare.

-That's rather irrelevant. You still can't starve the unemployed.

I'm in favor of freedom. Not everyone wants to work all the time, therefore, full-employment won't ever happen except under authoritarianism.

-Good that you caught that. I might have had to call you a communist But seriously, our economy can never support full employment regardless of desire, thus we have to have something to take care of the 4-5% of people who will be unemployed at any given time.

Is that why the French (with insurance policies) have no waiting lists and the best health care system in the world, and the British (with no insurance policies) have 18 month waiting lists.

-No, that's why the Canadians with no insurance policies provide cheaper, more reliable health care than the Americans. In America if I want to even see a doctor I've got to fork over money. He doesn't have to tell me anything. He can tell me nothing or "I don't know" and still get a decent sum of money. That encourages people not to see the doctor until something really bad happens, which rather prevents effective preventive care which drives up medical costs, which discourages people from seeing a doctor, which... you get the point.... or maybe you don't.

If you think the NHS is bad, try being poor in America... (I'm not poor, but I'm appalled at the cost of health care here. That and the fact I was told that my immunization record was forged when I came here, because the Americans were so far behind on their vaccine technology.)

[Berzerker]

Rogan -

I do not believe Berzerker's idea of raising money on a voluntary basis would work. If I refuse to pay for the Police force, does that mean that I can be robbed or murdered without consequence?

Not without consequence, others would still have the moral authority to defend or avenge you. But you've highlighted a good reason for people to pay taxes for police, true?

If my town opts out of the army is Russia free to conquor it without interference?

Your town wouldn't opt out. If they did, the rest of us would get angry and boycott your town.

And if the government can raise money so easily, why wouldn't everyone be doing it? I don't think the UN Refugee Agency has huge surpluses of cash....

The UN is not a government.

9 ECAC -

I also oppose protectionism

and support high military spending

So did Stalin.

It makes me, well -- me. I don't align well with either fringe (I am waiting for one of them to align with me), so I'm centrist by default.

Hehe, but progressive taxation and welfare states are not just left wing, they are left wing principles. Debating how much capital gains should be taxed within certain ranges or what tariff levels should be are not big issues. When someone says they are a "centrist", that means they support left wing policies on some issues and right wing policies on other issues. But when the left wing policies they support appear in the Communist Manifesto while the right wing policies are not really right wing or minor in their impact, "centrism" is more left than right.

Of course not.

I hope you meant "of course".

But it did mean that in a republic you couldn't simply force the decision on the country on the basis of morality.

We're told a war was fought to end slavery, that's forcing morality on slaveholders. Is murder immoral? When murder was outlawed, wasn't morality being imposed on the immoral?

That is now how our system works.

Our system works by not imposing morality on the immoral?

Abortion and the death penalty are classic current examples. I expect them to be argued on utilitarian grounds forever, since the only way for one side to win, as in the case of slavery, is the violence you deplore.

These issues are not debated based on utilitarian grounds, but on moral grounds.
Btw, I don't deplore violence, just the initiation of violence.

The nice thing about precepts is that they exist in a Platonic cloud world without application.

We prosecute murderers, that's the real world application of a moral precept.

When it comes to implications, it breaks down quickly. Not because of hypocrisy, but because life is complicated. "Thou shall not kill" is as straightforward as it gets, but killing people is socially approved of in many instances.

The translation is, "Thou shalt not murder". And yes, criminality is hypocrisy because even criminals don't want to be the victims of crime. That's what the Golden Rule is about, the hypocrisy of doing to others what you don't want others doing to you.

This is true of some criminal behavior -- Enron executives are certainly hypocrites. Other criminal behavior is the result of dire need. Your kid starves or you steal the loaf of bread. Not a tough choice.

There are differing levels of immorality. If you robbed someone to feed your starving child, would you still offer an explanation to your victim asking them for forgiveness?

Save the rhetoric for talk radio.

"Rhetoric"?

Government is collective action, and people en mass are just as responsible for behaving morally as people individually.

Government is not collective action, it is the action of one group of people directed at another group of people. And while you may not like this truth, many people act differently to others when "government" is the medium through which they act. Most people would not break into their neighbor's home to rob them, but when "government" is doing this on their behalf, they view the act differently. The individual theft they agree is immoral, the "collective" theft is "non-moral" or "moral".

And greater terrible acts have been committed in the name of morality and saving the soul of humanity.

And obviously these horrendous acts committed in the name of morality were not moral, but how does one claim a horrendous act committed in the name of utility did not achieve that utility? We could run off to a poor country and enslave a portion of the people to achieve a utilitarian goal, but that would still be immoral. Would you argue against such a policy on utilitarian or moral grounds?

The scales of utility may tip a different way tomorrow, but a moral argument is set in theological concrete.

Morality and theology are two different issues. Slavery was and will always be immoral, but the utility of slavery may change back and forth.

This is a straw man argument -- everyone agrees that jobs are better than welfare. The question is what to do with those currently without the means to get or hold jobs.

It isn't a strawman argument. When the system of welfare creates dependency on welfare instead of the work ethic, welfare is no longer a utilitarian "achievement".

More important, the first clause is an overgeneralizing.

No it isn't, I said welfare creates more dependency, not that it makes everyone on it dependent for ever.

Victor -

-Is that so inherently different from the status quo?

Yes, under the status quo, people are put in cages or killed for refusing to pay a tax.

-Is everything in the Communist Manifesto communist?

No.

Forgive me if I am mistaken, but doesn't progressive taxation also appear in The Wealth of Nations?

I haven't read it either.

-Intent doesn't matter

You claimed libertarianism leads to anarchism and have repeatedly accused me of wanting this. Maybe you see a distinction, I don't.

-Legal precedent

We are talking about different issues. I'm talking about "rights" that come from the "creator" and you're talking about "rights" that come from legal status.

-Feudal lords routinely taxed subjects for all they could squeeze out of them.

Would these be people living on the feudal lord's lands? Would "routinely be somethin like annually? You said they confiscated all wealth, now you're limiting that to what could be squeezed out of them.

Something that sucked when you consider the overlapping authority so common in that era.

If this was so wrong, why would you point to a practice you despise to "justify" similar practices today?

-That's the beauty of philosophy isn't it? It allows interesting statements like "taxation is theft."

That's the beauty of ducking questions, it allows one to avoid the embarrassment of having "logic" turned back on them.

-Only if you chose to view it in moral terms

You don't view murder in moral terms? Does that mean murder is or is not wrong?

-That theory is all nice and good

It's not a theory, just the truth.

if you have no one to protect your rights they do not exist.

Sure they do. The fact some people violate the rights of others doesn't mean rights don't exist. A "right" is a moral or just claim that exists whether or not government exists. If someone tries to murder you, and there is no one there other than you to stop them, you still have the right to defend yourself.

Protection of a right effectively creates it.

So if "government" is not there to stop an intruder, you no longer have any right to protect yourself and your property?

I have problems with language of the Declaration of Independence because of all that creator nonsense.

All that "creator nonsense" was merely the reflection that we didn't create ourselves. Notice how Jefferson didn't mention "God" or "Yahweh"?

-Rebels. Sometimes rebellion is right, sometimes it isn't. Rebellion is fundamentally different from someone deciding to avenge the murder of a loved one instead of letting the government handle that.

Do you remember what we were talking about? I said this:

Sure I do. That's why government has the "right" to extract retribution - because I have that right. If no government existed and someone murdered your child, you'd have the right to track them down and punish them.

You then accused me of being an anarchist instead of responding to my point. Why does "government" have the "right" to exact retribution? Because we as individuals have that right, not because "government" is endowed with "rights" we don't have.

-I wouldn't really call that a right

I would, and so would the people who created the tradition of "rights". While there are "civil rights" created through legislation, natural "rights" are just or moral claims that exist regardless of government. That's why people who resisted the Nazis were "right", because they had natural rights superior to whatever governmental rights the Nazis claimed.

-Neither does the government if you don't live on it's land.

Again, this was and is not a communist nation where "government" owns our land. Your analogies require government ownership of all the land and that just isn't factual.

You don't see the Romanian government comming after me seeking tax money.

Nor does the US government come to me demanding taxes based on the fiction it owns my land.

If you take the farmer's money and refuse to pay for it, that's like living here and refusing to pay the taxes.

You mean the farmer's food. When the farmer sells me food, I want the food and pay for it. That is not analogous to those government services I don't want.

-Who says this is my opinion? You merely interpreted my statement as saying such.

You said this:

-Definitions are socially constructed, and vary from person to person.

This is the opinion dictionary compilers don't share with you.

While the statement might have implied it, it did not explicitly state that. (Am I messing with your mind yet? Or do I have to brush up on my postmodernist critique?)

Hehe, don't even get started with postmodernism.

-So voting is tyranny then?

It is given your politics. But this assumes your candidate gets elected and follows thru with your agenda.

-I don't vote, and I'm missing key civil liberties. Don't talk to me about what's fair.

But what about my questions?

-Whoa! Lumping all fascists with utilitarians doesn't work, buddy.

Sure it does, both claim to want what is best for "society". "The good of society must prevail over the good of the individual" - Benito Mussolini

Explain to me what the utility of exterminating the Jews is?

Why? Did I say exterminating Jews served a utilitarian purpose? What if we abducted some people from a poor country and enslaved them? That would serve a utilitarian purpose, but would still be immoral. Utilitarian goals are not always moral goals, that's why I'm not a fan of utilitarianism.

-Morality is an idealist concept.

Meaning we should strive for or ignore morality?

Idealists would murder 50% of the world population if they found them immoral. Look at alQueda.

First you claim my view is "idealistic", then argue against my "idealism" by pointing to Al Qaeda?

-This shift created a small class of rich fatcats, and a relatively small middle class. Look at the Gilded Age. The Progressive movement increased the size of the middle class and made life better for the working class.

First, the industrial revolution could not transform the country over night. Would we be where we are now if we had remained agrarian and "progressive"? Nope. And it wasn't the "progressive" movement that created a large middle class, it was the GI Bill and the aftermath of WWII.

-That's rather irrelevant.

Why?

You still can't starve the unemployed.

Who said anything about starving the unemployed? I'll ask you again, how many people starved to death before welfare programs? I wish you would answer this question given your repeated accusations of mass murder for opposing socialistic programs. Stalin accused Ukrainian farmers of "hoarding" food before launching his policies that did starve millions to death. (Just a snippet of history ).

-Good that you caught that. I might have had to call you a communist

Lol, I do have to take a second and look for traps But communists aren't the only authoritarians...

But seriously, our economy can never support full employment regardless of desire, thus we have to have something to take care of the 4-5% of people who will be unemployed at any given time.

That's what I hear from people with more economic knowledge than me. Whether or not it's true is another matter. I understand our current system - the Fed -is designed to prevent "full" employment, but that doesn't mean those who are unemployed will starve. If this was true, millions would have died of starvation before welfare.

[Victor Galis]

The UN is not a government.

-Exactly because it has severely limited powers.

Is murder immoral? When murder was outlawed, wasn't morality being imposed on the immoral?

-Banning murder also has great utilitarian value too.

Btw, I don't deplore violence, just the initiation of violence.

-Therefore by Christian standards of morality you are immoral.

No it isn't, I said welfare creates more dependency, not that it makes everyone on it dependent for ever.

-Dependence is better than misery.

Yes, under the status quo, people are put in cages or killed for refusing to pay a tax.

-Really Name the last person who was given the death penalty for tax evasion.

[qoute]No[/quote]

-Then why assume that progressive taxes are communist?

You claimed libertarianism leads to anarchism and have repeatedly accused me of wanting this. Maybe you see a distinction, I don't.

-No, I accused you of wanting something that leads to this. You may not realize it, but your policies lead to anarchy.

We are talking about different issues. I'm talking about "rights" that come from the "creator" and you're talking about "rights" that come from legal status.

-And I'm saying the creator is mythical BS, therefore not a source of rights.

Would these be people living on the feudal lord's lands?

-Yes. But those lands were not well defined, so you could have multiple lords extracting money out of you.

Would "routinely be somethin like annually?

-No, it would be when the lord felt like it. In those days the only organization that even really kept exact track of what time it was was the Church. With the increase in trade in the 11th century a merchant class also emerged, which needed to keep track of time for its business dealings.

You said they confiscated all wealth, now you're limiting that to what could be squeezed out of them.

-No, I said, squeezed them for what they were worth. You can't really confiscate a house... who do you sell it to? (Remember you've already extracted what it was feasible to extract.) They would take what they could reasonably expect to turn into money to pay for their armies... obviously there would be more peaceful times when they would not do this as often as when they were at war, but that just goes to show you that there was no regular schedule.

That's the beauty of ducking questions, it allows one to avoid the embarrassment of having "logic" turned back on them.

-But only when one sucks at ducking questions. I simply don't care to read through my old posts to look at all the points you missed.

You don't view murder in moral terms? Does that mean murder is or is not wrong?

-Murder is extremely counter-productive in utilitarian terms.

It's not a theory, just the truth.

-There is no absolute truth, all is a theory, some better than others. Please, we can't all claim what we believe in is the truth and expect to be believed. The best any of us can do, is a pretty good approximation of what is true.

Sure they do. The fact some people violate the rights of others doesn't mean rights don't exist. A "right" is a moral or just claim that exists whether or not government exists. If someone tries to murder you, and there is no one there other than you to stop them, you still have the right to defend yourself.

-I view a right as something you are entitled to.

So if "government" is not there to stop an intruder, you no longer have any right to protect yourself and your property?

-Discussing rights in a lawless society is meaningless.

All that "creator nonsense" was merely the reflection that we didn't create ourselves. Notice how Jefferson didn't mention "God" or "Yahweh"?

-Evolution can't endow anyone with non-physical things.

Why does "government" have the "right" to exact retribution?

-Because it is their job to prevent future transgressions. By punishing the guilty they serve to discourage future crimes.

Because we as individuals have that right, not because "government" is endowed with "rights" we don't have.

-If individuals claimed that right society would fall apart. Imagine a scenario.

You live in a nice house. You have a neighbor you know is envious but hasn't tried anything funny yet. One night you go away, and some burglar breaks into your house and steals some of your valuables. This burglar is not your neighbor, but you don't know that. You go over to your neighbor's house with a shotgun and demand he return your stuff or else... he, not having it, is in a lose-lose situation. People taking the law into their own hands doesn't work.

Again, this was and is not a communist nation where "government" owns our land. Your analogies require government ownership of all the land and that just isn't factual.

-No, my theory only requires that the government is sovereign over the land.

You mean the farmer's food. When the farmer sells me food, I want the food and pay for it. That is not analogous to those government services I don't want.

-The government is just a farmer who only sells his food in bulk. You might not want all the components, but it's an all or nothing deal. Now if you want to whine about that, that's different than arguing that Capital Gains Taxes should be abolished, which really was the matter at hand.

This is the opinion dictionary compilers don't share with you.

-Have you not yet learned that not all statements I make necessarily represent my own opinions? I've done just enough high school debate to sometimes want to argue a point that I don't necessarily support. When I break out the postmodernism... that's one of those times Usually Othertimes I really mean it.

It is given your politics. But this assumes your candidate gets elected and follows thru with your agenda.

-Which we know he won't... especially not my agenda If someone pushing my agenda got elected you'd see NASA budget increases

Sure it does, both claim to want what is best for "society". "The good of society must prevail over the good of the individual" - Benito Mussolini

-That sounds very idealistic. It could also be utilitarian, or realistic (if it's a ploy to get/maintain power). One quote rarely allows you to know exactly what a person thought like.

Why? Did I say exterminating Jews served a utilitarian purpose? What if we abducted some people from a poor country and enslaved them? That would serve a utilitarian purpose, but would still be immoral. Utilitarian goals are not always moral goals, that's why I'm not a fan of utilitarianism.

-I'm saying extermination of the Jews was a sign of idealism. Hitler's ideal of a perfect Aryan race. Didn't do much utilitarianly, didn't do much realisticly...

Meaning we should strive for or ignore morality?

-Meaning realists have little use for it

First you claim my view is "idealistic", then argue against my "idealism" by pointing to Al Qaeda?

-Fun, no? Just goes to show you how wide a range idealism encompasses. I'd call Wilson an idealist, and Bin Laden an idealist. Both share the fact that they are not realists.

I'll ask you again, how many people starved to death before welfare programs?

-Don't have figures... but it's irrelevant. Society has since changed. In those days you could count on your extended family. Now, they probably don't even live in the same city.

But communists aren't the only authoritarians...

-True, but fascists would justify full employment for utilitarian reasons (So would some communists)

On the full employment thing:

Full employment means the supply of workers is low, wages go up. With wages going up across the board, companies' profits go down. They increase prices to compensate, and we have inflation. 0% unemployment implies a very severe shortage of labor, hence strong inflation->bad thing.

[9 ECAC Titles]

Berzerker,

Your answers exemplify what I am saying when I argue that morality is often an unworkable basis for policy, in a state with democratic principles, when there is a significant split in moral beliefs.

Moral arguments are essentially circular. We all hold our own moral sentiments as axiomatic -- that's why we have to find other ways of dealing with these issues than appealing to moral arguments when dealing with others whose beliefs contradict ours. Otherwise it becomes a "yes it is," "no it isn't" argument.

The alternative to finding ways of compromising on these issues is to go off to someplace where everybody agrees with you in all issues of moral precept and application. Such monasterial movements usually (1) cut themselves off from any chance of affecting a heterogenuous social environment and (2) further subdivide and subdivide over smaller and smaller moral issues.

I want to live with my neighbors and stress the vast amount of agreement we have on issues. That means I have to respect their (your ) right to be dead wrong on some issues.

[Victor Galis]

As much as I would love to continue this debate, I have lots of CS work to do Perhaps, I'll return after the weekend or maybe this thread will be buried by then...