Text 3464, 140 rader
Skriven 2006-07-07 13:30:00 av Robert E Starr JR (3937.babylon5)
Ärende: Re: Atheists: America's m
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* * * This message was from Kurt Ullman to rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.m * * *
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@MSGID: <kurtullman-453538.08515906072006@news.west.earthlink.net>
@REPLY: <jvCdndpuNJADSTvZnZ2dnUVZ_sudnZ2d@comcast.com>
In article <kfpoa2pfqadgjiii2sopehbbvpei6ume5o@4ax.com>,
 Josh Hill <usereplyto@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Wed, 05 Jul 2006 12:41:56 GMT, Kurt Ullman <kurtullman@yahoo.com>
> wrote:
> 
> >In article <4omla295r32jn0s9fa1714rofoce6fm1a5@4ax.com>,
> > Josh Hill <usereplyto@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >> B. Everyone believes that government has the right to tax. Or are you
> >> aware of an industrialized society that doesn't? If so, I'd be very
> >> interested to know how they get by without courts, cops, roads,
> >> leaders, and a military.
> >      There is no right to tax. There is an ability to tax based on 
> >local laws, customs, etc.  But I know of no place that suggests the 
> >government has a right to your money. 
> 
> Actually, the Government's right to tax is enshrined in the
> Constitution.
   No it isn't. Congress shall the power... Everywhere else there is a 
right, the word is actually used. Rights are higher on the scale of 
precedence than mere powers. 

> 
> >A right to tax indicates that the 
> >government takes what it needs and then allows you to keep what it deems 
> >it doesn't need.
> 
> That's the way it's always worked. How else would it work?
> 
      So according to you, the IRS takes your pay check, takes what it 
wants and gives the rest to you? 

> >> C. I don't see, as I've said, that the right to tax heirs is any
> >> different from the right to tax wage earners, and I don't see how how
> >> you can argue that one is morally superior to the other.
> 
> >     I don't see how you can possibly argue that either one is 
> >inherently moral. 
> 
> You believe that it's amoral to collect taxes? Because the consequence
> of that belief would seem to be dire: no army, no navy, no roads, no
> police. I don't see how that's justifiable from a moral perspective.

    I don't have ANY idea how you made this leap of logic. 

>  
> >> D. You speak of private property as if it were sacrosanct, but who
> >> gave Joe the right to that property in the first place? Probably some
> >> poor Indian who was run off his tribe's land with a musket. And while
> >> that Indian would have been very firm about his tribe's ownership of
> >> that land, he would have found your notion that one person or family
> >> should control it bizarre. Yet we take it for granted that Joe has
> >> some special right to it because his great-great-great-great
> >> grandfather ran that Indian off with a musket.
> >
> >    See. Another reason we don't commuicate. Private property is not 
> >only sacrosanct but absolutely necessary and inherent to our entire 
> >system. 
> 
> That private property is inherent to our system doesn't mean that it's
> inherent to every political system. And even within our system,
> private property is not quite as inviolable as you make it out to be.
> The state, for example, has the right of eminent domain, albeit it
> must pay fair compensation. The state can levy taxes, even if those
> taxes have the effect of reducing one's property. The state can
> regulate what one does with one's property for the public good.
> Within that Constitutional framework, there's a great deal of give, a
> great deal of practicality. And there's a tacit understanding of the
> moral obligations of the group to the individual and the individual to
> the group.

       We were talking about our system, why bring others in. 
Actually most of the stuff that you outline are indications of the 
importance of personal property. They can't just come in and take it 
without compensation and without at least pretending they have a good 
reason, they generally cannot levy taxes that impact on the property 
values of SPECIFIC lots (to be used as a punishment or to drive someone 
out). 

>  
> >> Nah, there's no deep philosophy here. If a fellow amasses property
> >> through the sweat of his brow, one can at least invoke fairness -- he
> >> did the work, he should have the reward. But in the case of
> >> multigenerational inheritance, well, all it comes down to is the
> >> question of whether and to what degree we are going to let some
> >> individuals suck blood in perpetuity from the body economic because
> >> their ancestors happened to be Smiths rather than Joneses.
> 
> >        But you are more than happy to let the government suck that very 
> >same blood FROM the economy.
> 
> I think you should address my statement rather than ignoring it and
> shifting the conversation to another topic

    I did answer it. You suggested that keeping the family's hard earned 
money was sucking blood from the economy. I suggested that inheritance 
taxes themselves do the same thing by diverting resources from 
economically positive things like growing the business, investing in 
other things, etc. 

> 
> That being said, I'm not aware of any evidence that your assertion is
> true. I believe that government should handle what it can best handle,
> and that individuals and businesses should handle what they can best
> handle, and I believe that who handles what should be based on
> evidence rather than the ideologies and preconceptions of the left or
> the right.
        But are you aware of any evidence that it is false? 

 In some cases, that leads me to support a role for the
> government, as for example in the expansion of Medicare, which in
> light of the fact that as we both agree it's been a long time since
> medicine was a matter of market forces, appears to be more efficient
> than private health care plans. 

    We don't know how this works out. I see no reason to think an actual 
freemarket health care system (where I buy my own insurance, pay for it 
myself, etc.) would less effecient than government plans. You are 
putting words into my mouth. 

In others, it leads me to believe that
> the role of government should be curtailed, as for example in pork
> barrel construction projects, subsidies, or public housing (since I
> think that housing could be more efficiently provided and administered
> by business). It really depends. The one thing I'm sure of is that
> knee-jerk ideological solutions don't work.
    Yep. Although I really doubt we would agree on the definition of 
knee-jerk solutions.
                                                                               
      
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