Great thing I read about Communism

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What you say is true as far as it goes. But a sufficiently powerful firm can do serious damage to people and use their expensive legal talent to put off any civil damage actions. In short, they can commit fraud and reckless endangerment even without an army or a police force.

ruveyn

What makes Jefferson a moral authority to determine such absolutes on the behalf of naive teenagers and would be bereaved mothers? There is no 'Tree' either figuritive or otherwise. There is only a pecking order, designed by those set to profit from it on behalf of those predetermined to pay its awful cost.

The amazing thing is the economist wingnuts and their politician lickspittles are the first to preach of such 'trees of liberty' and are always the last to send their own children to bleed and die on foreign fields.

I agree. But I don't think it will be anywhere near the fraud and endangerment that happens as a result of government involvement. And I think that there will be fewer giant powerful organizations if they can't manipulate government to ensure their monopolies (and bail them out).

Agreed. Since government operates on legalized theft (aka taxes, a sometimes necessary evil) if it goes sour, there is little short of a revolution than can turn things around. Since modern governments have planes, bombs, tanks and artillary there is little an unarmed or lightly armed people can do about it. Look at the butcher's bill in Syria. The anti-government forces are in the majority and yet they are being slaughtered royally by Bashir Assad and his thugs. Having planes is handy, whether one is good or evil.

ruveyn

i dont understand how tax is 'theft' if it goes to pay for public services.

Do you Americans dislike having fire engines, police cars, refuse collection and street lighting?

What percent of U.S. taxes goes to pay for legitimate government functions - that is armed force, police and law courts.

Less than fifty percent.

Also our foreign policy is predicated on the Forever War. If we spent a reasonable sum just to product our shore our military budget would be one quarter what it is now.

Transfer of income is theft outright. Taxing the rich to give to the poor is an abuse of government power. Governments exist to keep the peace and to guard the boundaries. And that is ALL. Anything more is mischief.

ruveyn

I'm going to use "plunder" rather than "theft", since I have to concede to visagrunt's argument.

If I take resources from you forcefully, it's plunder, even if I give you a product or service in return. If that plunder was limited to things like the list you enumerated, we probably would be on board with it. Where the problem lies is that our resources are plundered to pay for stupid s**t like corporate welfare and paying lazy people not to produce.

that much i agree with ...well maybe not so much armed forces but i digress. To say that you dont like some government expenditure so you shouldnt pay any tax would be throwing the baby out with the bathwater. In the British isles we have a saying "cutting off your nose to spite your face" thats pretty much what this is. If no taxes are paid how do you expect the 'good things' to be paid? ie garbagemen, police and whatever utilities your government hasnt already sold off to greedy parasitic troughpigs.

The underlying problem is an indictment of the authority of the day (ie their specific fiscal attitude) rather than the institution of taxes per sae. I see taxes as an investment, if ever the time comes that i lose my job for no fault of my own, then at least i have the nhs and welfare state as a safety net.

For the record. I am willing to pay a reasonable tax for police, the armed forces and the law courts. Tax is regrettable but a necessary thing to run a government. Without a government the strong would ride roughshod over the weak and the life of the nation would be nasty brutish and short, to use Thomas Hobbles words.

I am unwilling but forcedto pay for unnecessary things, for transfer of assets and for subsidies to the Crony Capitalists. Businesses should live or die by their own efforts and performance in the market place, not on tax payer hand-outs.

The result of all the foolishness and malfeasance is a government that runs on I.O.U. s and mostly broken promises.

Do you think this is a good thing?

ruveyn

its a loaded question. If you're referring to the bankers handouts; then i couldnt agree more, the whole ENRON affair and the associated fallout with the bastards on wall street recieving golden handshakes and everyone of them deserve a long stint behind bars.

I do however take issue with contempt for those on the other end of the scale; the unwillingly unemployed, those that want to work but simply cannot find it who are living a hand to mouth existance. The terminally sick and/or disabled who simply cannot work or cannot find work geared to their abilities. I have no issue with these people recieving state help because my view is crystalled by the philosophy 'from each according to ability to each according to need'.

America's main problem is that it spends a disproportionate amount on defence relative to the actual threat that it faces. It is basically geared up as an offensive invasion force than a homeland defensive one. Bin Laden proved that it is unnecessary to have a large ICBM arsenal or a big army to attack America. All that is needed is a ragtag bunch of followers willing to die for their cause and a clandestine strategy. All the tanks and jet planes in the world are useless against that kind of warfare.

That which is called Defense is a manifestation of the major madness of the U.S. government. The Forever War. Since the end of WW 2, the last war in which the U.S. was victorious btw., we have needed an Enemy to know who we are. That has cost us dearly and will eventually lead to our ruin.

ruveyn

If we wanted universal healthcare in our country, we have to stop the Forever War. Most other countries have it, but those countries are also not perpetually at war. However those countries have similar or higher tax rates than us WITHOUT a forever war, so it does cost quite a bit (generally they carry a fairly high amount of debt, too.) Personally I think a big start for healthcare cost cutting in this country is allow people to buy any drugs they want overseas without a prescription. Most poorer countries do that, just allow people to buy whatever drugs they wish except for usually narcotics (though codeine is OTC in many places around the world.) That'd be the easiest way imo, to cut healthcare costs (Besides people actually cooking for themselves again and not eating junkfood, and like...going for walks.) But, it'd actually cut costs. Doctors, hospitals, and drug companies wouldn't make as much money if costs were actually cut.

Not that this has anything to do with communism, but yes. Oddly regarding Communism, though, Soviet Russia for a long time had a less strict drug policy than us, and my friend from Russia told me in Russia everything except for narcotics you can buy without a prescription. But for the old Soviet drug policy, they actually didn't penalize personal possession, just sale, until the late 60s or 70s (I guess the hippie movement affected things over there, too.)

The problems are twofold: first, what one person considers a 'reasonable and necessary' tax expenditure, another person considers 'waste.' Democracy exists, in part, to try to please the greater proportion of people in tax expenditures. Second, the system (in the US at least) has become incredibly corrupted, with gerrymandering and politicians who literally spend more time asking for money from, and appeasing, large donors than in legislating; the result is that 'the will of the people' is only done if it coincides with 'the will of the donors.'

We have similar issues here in the british isles. Well, actually its worse, in some ways because we have a body called the 'house of lords' composed entirely of unelected, hereditary peers whose authority takes precedence over the elected figures in the house of commons. If you are a wealthy CEO who wants to influence British law all you need to do is stick money in the pocket of a peer to have a legislative change either motioned or vetoed.

So when it comes that the rich one want to take advantage of the poor one, the government shall not interfere by laws about working contracts, that would do nothing more then to allow people to get righteous pay for righteous work. But if the poor decided that they want to take advantage of the rich one, the government "shall keep peace" by laws.

You know whats outright in my eyes? Paying so less money, that the government needs to pay the other one. So the government shall pay for a worker, that enables the rich one to get richer. And while it is absolutely ok that the government pays my worker so that they are able to live and work for me and multiply my prosperity, it is completely outright that they also want some of the money the worker, they also had to pay so he was enabled to work, produced. So the costs of production the government shall share, but not the prosperity.

I can only tell you from my oppinion, but as long as a government is forced to pay a companies workers money, as long they have a right on the wealth the workers produced with the help of the government.

If that doesnt fit, there is an easy solution: Just tell your companies to pay their workers righteous, that the government doesnt need to interfere. Pretty simple and normal business: If you dont want to share to profit, you just have to do it all on your own.

Banks foreclose on property and fail to return the property on the Jubilee year. So what is wrong with taxing the rich ?