Trump's Death Cult Explained

[rah]

Maybe Trump should just stop using Twitter if he's so upset with them.

[Jon Miller]

Do you really think the church of Scientology or the Mormon church don't make any profit? lol

I pointed out that Mormon was probably the exception. Scientology often doesn't classify as a religion and definitely has sales... if you don't count those as sales and count it as a religion, it would also be an exception.

They are both an incredibly small part of organized religion, you could tax profit (ie take away the tax except status) and 99.9% of churches in the US would pay not a dime. Even taxing sales would do almost nothing for any church. Only taxing property would be meaningful and would mostly penalize old denominations which are currently much weaker than in the past, like Catholics.

I think there is a real argument for taking away the main special favor, which is taxable deductions. Basically, these end up being highly distortionary and heavily favor the rich. It is important to take away all though and not just religious (it is the poor and middle class that give to religious organizations, the upper class and wealthy primarily give to other organizations with heavily classed based benefits).

You are a poster child for why the constitution supports making religions tax except, and that is because so many people are motivated to punish due to religious (or anti-religious) motivations. As I pointed out earlier, sin taxes (like you have seemed to support, with 'tax the churches' cry) is effectively punishing and discriminating against religions. This has often been the main vehicle of religious discrimination in Europe and the Islamic world.

JM
(I am also willing to bet that Mormons could employ some of the most ethical of all accountants/etc and still would find themselves paying minimal taxes on profits.)

[giblets]

Megachurches, televangelists... there's plenty of grifters using religion to make themselves rich. Claiming I'm biased and demanding a "sin tax" is just projection on your part.

[Dauphin]

Twitter is exempt from liability laws to promote free speech

The Democrats have been trying to coerce such platforms into censoring speech they dont like

"Dont hide behind the 1st Amendment" - Don Lemon of CNN advocating for censorship

1. Twitter have a policy, on things like hateful speech. They enforce it or they don’t. So far Trump has been given way more latitude than the average user, and has not censored anything of his. His tweets are still accessible.
2. I don’t see what the Democrats saying or doing is relevant, unless you are saying Twitter is just getting collateral damage - damned no matter what it does. Trump targets Twitter as a Dem proxy?
3. I get more the impression he is attacking Twitter because his base is more liable to breach hateful speech policy on the platform, and he wants that hateful speech out there.

[Ted Striker]

Looks alot better than "let the bullets fly!"

[Uncle Sparky]

It is outrageous that Twitter would allow something so blatantly sensible and statesmanlike... Obama obviously tweeted this just to make Trump look bad. ()

[giblets]

A bunch of nice sounding platitudes that offers no concrete proposals or analysis, exactly what I'd expect from Obama

[Ted Striker]

Leadership doesn't always mean an engineering schematic or a project plan or fluffy policy guideline document.

It's also about setting the tone and communicating what we should be finding acceptable and what we find reprehensible.

Take Trump, for example, who has emboldened all the racists with his garbage rants.

[Berzerker]

You are a poster child for why the constitution supports making religions tax except, and that is because so many people are motivated to punish due to religious (or anti-religious) motivations. As I pointed out earlier, sin taxes (like you have seemed to support, with 'tax the churches' cry) is effectively punishing and discriminating against religions. This has often been the main vehicle of religious discrimination in Europe and the Islamic world.

The Constitution is silent about exempting religion from taxation, I'm sure pastors/preachers had to pay sales taxes and/or tariffs imposed by the feds. Besides, the congressional power to tax supercedes our rights. It aint about punishing religion, its the religious who are demanding special treatment and by granting it Congress has violated the opening words of the Bill of Rights - "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion". Why are non-believers required to subsidize the believers? Doesn't sound like religious freedom to me.

[Berzerker]

1. Twitter have a policy, on things like hateful speech. They enforce it or they don’t. So far Trump has been given way more latitude than the average user, and has not censored anything of his. His tweets are still accessible. 2. I don’t see what the Democrats saying or doing is relevant, unless you are saying Twitter is just getting collateral damage - damned no matter what it does. Trump targets Twitter as a Dem proxy? 3. I get more the impression he is attacking Twitter because his base is more liable to breach hateful speech policy on the platform, and he wants that hateful speech out there.

I agree with that, Twitter's caught in the middle. The Democrats are behind this, they've been coercing these outlets to 'stop propaganda' while allowing theirs. People should really look into that so-called Russian invasion of our election. Troll farms spent about 100k before and after the election on click bait largely unrelated to Trump and Clinton. We've never seen these ads, I haven't. If thats the evidence, why dont we get to see it? I'd like to see all these ads that have become an excuse for censorship.

[Dauphin]

https://www.vox.com/2018/10/19/17990946/twitter-russian-trolls-bots-election-tampering

THat was a two second search from the description you gave. "twitter troll farms 100k". Just to see what came up. Shrug.

I've not read the details, but it looks like the data is available if you are so inclined to read them.

[Jon Miller]

Megachurches, televangelists... there's plenty of grifters using religion to make themselves rich. Claiming I'm biased and demanding a "sin tax" is just projection on your part.

But for the most part they are not using the particularities of the religious exemption, rather they are using the standard properties of corporations and traditional aspects of being a grifter.

To focus on religious organizations and not non-profit (and for-profit, to be honest) institutions including ones like hospitals/etc is picking out religious organizations for a sin tax.

JM

[Jon Miller]

The Constitution is silent about exempting religion from taxation, I'm sure pastors/preachers had to pay sales taxes and/or tariffs imposed by the feds. Besides, the congressional power to tax supercedes our rights. It aint about punishing religion, its the religious who are demanding special treatment and by granting it Congress has violated the opening words of the Bill of Rights - "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion". Why are non-believers required to subsidize the believers? Doesn't sound like religious freedom to me.

McCulloch v. Maryland (1819)


In the landmark Supreme Court case McCulloch v. Maryland, Chief Justice John Marshall handed down one of his most important decisions regarding the expansion of Federal power. This case involved the power of Congress to charter a bank, which sparked the even broader issue of the division of powers between state and the Federal Government.

In 1816 Congress established the Second National Bank to help control the amount of unregulated currency issued by state banks. Many states questioned the constitutionality of the national bank, and Maryland set a precedent by requiring taxes on all banks not chartered by the state. In 1818 the State of Maryland approved legislation to impose taxes on the Second National Bank chartered by Congress.

James W. McCulloch, a Federal cashier at the Baltimore branch of the U.S. bank, refused to pay the taxes imposed by the state. Maryland filed a suit against McCulloch in an effort to collect the taxes. The Supreme Court, however, decided that the chartering of a bank was an implied power of the Constitution, under the “elastic clause,” which granted Congress the authority to “make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution” the work of the Federal Government.

This case presented a major issue that challenged the Constitution: Does the Federal Government hold sovereign power over states? The proceedings posed two questions: Does the Constitution give Congress power to create a bank? And could individual states ban or tax the bank? The court decided that the Federal Government had the right and power to set up a Federal bank and that states did not have the power to tax the Federal Government. Marshall ruled in favor of the Federal Government and concluded, “the power to tax involves the power to destroy."

https://www.ourdocuments.gov/print_f...and+%281819%29

Many of the recent calls to tax churches rest on the premise that churches owe at least some of their resources to political authorities — to governments — who can decide whether or not to collect and use those resources for their own purposes. In this view, exempting churches from taxation is seen as somehow subsidizing religion. But it is a mistake to equate “not taxing” with “subsidizing,” even if in some sense the effect is the same. Governments do not refrain from taxing religious institutions merely because it is politically convenient or socially acceptable to support them. They do and should continue to refrain from taxing churches because their power over them is limited, because “church” and “state” are distinct and because religious freedom is fundamentally important.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...uld-keep-them/

JM

[Berzerker]

the effect is the same... thats the point, if my local church doesn't pay any taxes, the people who do pay the taxes are subsidizing the church.

[Jon Miller]

Lewis states there are varying opinions among scholars as to how much of a burden jizya was.^[107] According to Norman Stillman: "jizya and kharaj were a "crushing burden for the non-Muslim peasantry who eked out a bare living in a subsistence economy."^[108] Both agree that ultimately, the additional taxation on non-Muslims was a critical factor that drove many dhimmis to leave their religion and accept Islam.^[109]

In some places, for example Egypt, the jizya was a tax incentive for Christians to convert to Islam.[71]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhimmi#Jizya_tax

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxati...Jews_in_Europe

There is strong historical reasons to be deeply concerned about government using taxation to persecute or favor particular religions/etc. Or to favor (or disfavor) religious belief versus none at all.

JM

[Jon Miller]

The Constitution is silent about exempting religion from taxation, I'm sure pastors/preachers had to pay sales taxes and/or tariffs imposed by the feds. Besides, the congressional power to tax supercedes our rights. It aint about punishing religion, its the religious who are demanding special treatment and by granting it Congress has violated the opening words of the Bill of Rights - "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion". Why are non-believers required to subsidize the believers? Doesn't sound like religious freedom to me.

Believers still pay the same taxes as unbelievers. Churches just do not pay taxes that non-religious non-profit organizations do not have to pay.

JM

[giblets]

But for the most part they are not using the particularities of the religious exemption, rather they are using the standard properties of corporations and traditional aspects of being a grifter.

To focus on religious organizations and not non-profit (and for-profit, to be honest) institutions including ones like hospitals/etc is picking out religious organizations for a sin tax.

JM

I'm not saying only churches should be taxed more, I'm only talking about them because someone else brought it up.

[Jon Miller]

I actually would support all charitable deductions to be removed. They were a good idea, and I actually think the religious ones are on the whole good, but it is too heavily gamed by the rich and is distortionary.

This is probably the single biggest benefit that religious organizations (And non-religious charities) have.

JM

[giblets]

I think some scrutiny of whether a religious organization is really the equivalent of a charity (Scientology?) is reasonable.