Hello everybody

[Wezil]

How can you tell Ben's back?

You can catch up on five pages worth of posts in about 20 seconds.

*sigh*

[Ming]

If you say it often enough will it come true? Maybe you should click your heels together.

Very appropriate coming from you since you seem to be living in some weirdo fantasy land...

You are forced to do what the state tells you to do, or you don't get paid, and you get arrested and thrown in jail. Should I be thankful that the state gives some of it back? Or is it just slavery under a different name?

You are FREE to do whatever you wish with your life, and you have to pay your share to the government... that's NOTHING like being dragged over to this country and being forced to work at some job you have no choice in...

You keep talking about going to Jail and losing all your freedoms, getting raped, losing your children...
Do you want to take a guess at what percentage of the US actually gets convicted of tax fraud/tax evasion...
In the last year I could find the data, the percentage was... 0.0006874681% for all Americans. Nice straw man argument... it doesn't fly.

Let me ask you something, Ming. If someone came up to you and said that you had to give 50 percent of your check to him, before you even saw the money - what would you call that person? Especially if he had a bunch of thugs who would beat you up if you said no?

And this example has what to do with this argument? That's not how it works, so stop being an idiot.

Uh, yeah, you are owned by the state. The state forces you to pay your money and time for the benefit of the state. The only difference is that it lets you keep some of your money. That doesn't change the fact that the state does own you and the state sets the terms.

Again... simple BS. The state doesn't own you. You are free to do whatever you wish. I can get a job I like, get married, have children, play golf, and do things with my life. Slaves can't do any of that.

I can't go to the state and say, hey, I really need that money right now. Let me have all of it. No, the state tells you, pay up or else.

Actually, you can... You can go to the state and work out a plan with them. In many cases, you can even get a lot of taxes waived.

Yeah, and taxation robs you of your freedom, the exact same way. The time that you could have spent improving your own situation, is time that you have to spend working for the state. I don't have the choice - the state decides the terms, and unlike with slavery, you can't escape and gain your freedom. There is no way out.

You are really simple minded if you think the freedom we currently enjoy is the same as slavery... and what is this escape crap... any moron can leave the country. It's easier for me to leave the country than it was for slaves to escape... so WTF are you talking about.

What crime has someone who's kept all the money that he earned through his blood + sweat committed?

The crime of not paying his share... If you want to live in the country, that's the rule. If you don't like it, you have the FREEDOM to go somewhere else.
Please, feel free to move some place where the law says you can keep every penny you earn. We call that FREEDOM.

So because a person chooses to keep all of his money, that gives the state the right to throw him in jail, and take his children away from him, and confiscate his property which he has earned?

SEE ABOVE... You want to live somewhere, you live by the rules. If you don't like the rules, live somewhere else. You CHOOSE!

It didn't used to work this way. It used to be that the state had no claim on the property of it's citizens, and had to sustain itself on the import duties of goods brought into the country.

Your point... in the way past, you had to hunt to eat... THINGS CHANGE. And thank god they do.

And you've already lost a substantial number of your rights which you once possessed. This is my concern. The state is acting like, yes, it owns you - and owns your labor. And you have no right to say no.

But you have the freedom to work the job you want... do what you want with your life... nothing at all like slavery. The state does not own you... Slave masters did OWN slaves.

The top federal bracket is 35 percent. That represents the same as working for the government from January to April.

Now, lets say you happen to work in Oregon, you'll pay 11 percent if you make more than 11k. So that's already 46 percent. The same as working for the government from January to the middle of June. If we take a middle estimate of say 35k, (which really isn't that much money), in Oregon, you're going to pay around 25 percent of that income to the government, if you live in Oregon.

Again Ben... WHAT PERCENT OF THE US pays 50% of their income in taxes. You can post a example here or there, and I can post tons of examples of people who pay very little taxes... So stop trying to sensationalize things by throwing out the 6 month figure as if it's the standard... It isn't.

That's the same as if you were to work from January to April every year for the government and not get paid at all.

Learn some basic math... that's not 6 months.

That taxation is really no different from slavery. The state takes the fruits of your labor and spends it how it sees fit. You wouldn't work for another person for 4 months with no pay, and if you could be arrested by that person for choosing not to work, you don't consider that slavery? I sure would.

Gee... it takes a part of your labor... let's you live your life, get married, choose your own religion, have children, have fun, do whatever you want.
That doesn't even begin to compare to slavery.
If you consider that the same as being dragged from your home, forced to work in a cotton field from sun up to sun down, forced to live in substandard conditions, subject to rape and beatings, having your children or wife sold to somebody else and taken away, not being able to practice your religion...
Then you really a complete idiot.

[Nikolai]

Hmm, I thought single people could adopt. Just another example of Ben making crap up to support his ridiculous arguments.

http://blogs.findlaw.com/law_and_lif...ple-adopt.html

Over here single people would have a harder time getting permission to adopt, IIUC. But I've never heard of any restriction beyond that.

[Jon Miller]

Evidence is strong (I think, I am not interested in defending this in a BK thread) that those with two parents are raised better (in general) than those with one.

So it is perfectly acceptable to discriminate against single parents (not to ban, but to make it harder).

I have heard of no evidence that being raised by two parents who have the same sex is better/worse than being raised by two parents with different sexes.

JM

[Nikolai]

For the first, yes I too believe it's better to be two persons and not single. And I also think there is evidence of that. As for the second, I guess it's too early to say, but I have my suspicions.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

When and if the study is ever performed it will be obviously trumpetted by winning side. Given that is not the case it is likely that either the studies are not completed or the results were too vague to make conclusions.

However, clearly a two parent arrangement regardless of the sexual persuasion is better than a single parent arrangment. The difference in child outcomes as a function of same sex verses differing sex parents is likely so insignificant as to be considered noise, were I to guess.

[dannubis]

Evidence is strong (I think, I am not interested in defending this in a BK thread) that those with two parents are raised better (in general) than those with one.

So it is perfectly acceptable to discriminate against single parents (not to ban, but to make it harder).

I have heard of no evidence that being raised by two parents who have the same sex is better/worse than being raised by two parents with different sexes.

JM

The fact that on average children in single parent families went through the painful proces of divorce of their parents could have something to do with it.

[Jon Miller]

2=2x1

JM

[rah]

THIS IS INSANE/ actually just typical BEN debate tactics

Ben says

then why don't we let single people adopt as well?

Isn't that discrimination by marital status?

I point out that he's wrong and we do let singles adopt.

He says

Over here single people would have a harder time getting permission to adopt, IIUC. But I've never heard of any restriction beyond that.

Which is it BEN, Single can't adopt or can they? Just admit you were wrong with your first statement.

But NOOOOOO, he responds by changing the argument to something that has nothing to do with his original argument.

For the first, yes I too believe it's better to be two persons and not single.

WELL DUHHHHHHH.

Just admit you were wrong when you implied that singles couldn't adopt.

[dannubis]

2=2x1

JM

(i)^2 = -1

[regexcellent]

The fact that on average children in single parent families went through the painful proces of divorce of their parents could have something to do with it.

The problem of the high rate of divorce is a separate problem from that of single mothers, which also needs a solution.

[rah]

For me another single parent adoption issue is also about what is better for the child. A single parent adoption or continued living in an institution. I haven't seen any studies in this area. Not all adoptions are newborns.

[Lorizael]

(i)^2 = -1

ei^pi + 1 = 0.

I'm confused. Is this relevant in some way?

[MikeH]

That's a LIE

it's e^i*pi + 1 = 0

You're as bad as ben.

[Lorizael]

Given that I majored in astronomy, physics, astrophysics, mathematics, and mathematical astronomy, I think it should be pretty obvious to everyone here that my "lie" is, in fact, a rather clever observation that scientists today are just as "fundamentalist" as they say religious people are. I'm surprised you didn't get it, MikeH.