Who was a good leader/president in your country.

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AstroGeek
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06 Jun 2012, 3:30 pm

ruveyn wrote:

'ear 'ear. Whatever the government runs it will sooner than later ruin. And under NHS the Brits did have terrible teeth. You could spot a Brit 'arf a league off by seeing him smile. Crooked and missing teeth.

ruveyn

I could be wrong here, but I always thought that stereotype went back to Victorian times (at least)--well before the NHS.

AstroGeek
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06 Jun 2012, 3:34 pm

JWC wrote:

enrico_dandolo wrote:

Even though the description of taxes as theft is far-fetched, we notice that in the end, if it allows poorer people to live decently (or even just to live) and their children to grow up with a chance to do better than them, the final result is better than if no one was "stolen".

Ok, I think I've got it now.

Stealing is okay, as long as the person who receives the stolen property needs it more than the person it is stolen from.

amirite?

Calling taxation theft is misleading because it suggests anarchy (among other reasons). If society was full of Robin Hoods things wouldn't work so well because of the chaos that would ensue. But a planned, regimented (although admittedly often abused) system of collecting money from those who have much to help those who have little is a very different matter in practical terms.

Why am I getting myself involved in this, anyway? :roll:

JWC
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06 Jun 2012, 3:40 pm

AstroGeek wrote:

Calling taxation theft is misleading because it suggests anarchy (among other reasons).

Calling taxation anything other than theft is misleading, because it suggests that people don't have the right to keep the products of their labor.

AstroGeek
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06 Jun 2012, 3:47 pm

JWC wrote:

AstroGeek wrote:

Calling taxation theft is misleading because it suggests anarchy (among other reasons).

Calling taxation anything other than theft is misleading, because it suggests that people don't have the right to keep the products of their labor.

Appropriation might be a term that we could both agree on then.

JWC
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06 Jun 2012, 3:49 pm

AstroGeek wrote:

JWC wrote:

AstroGeek wrote:

Calling taxation theft is misleading because it suggests anarchy (among other reasons).

Calling taxation anything other than theft is misleading, because it suggests that people don't have the right to keep the products of their labor.

Appropriation might be a term that we could both agree on then.

Isn't appropriation of someone else's property by means of force the same as theft?

ArrantPariah
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06 Jun 2012, 5:43 pm

ruveyn wrote:

Slavery would have died out from sheer economic unworkability in the next generation without the effusion of blood and the smashing of bodies.

What makes you so sure? Nothing drove the South to rebellion more than the slavery issue.

AstroGeek
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06 Jun 2012, 5:45 pm

JWC wrote:

AstroGeek wrote:

JWC wrote:

AstroGeek wrote:

Calling taxation theft is misleading because it suggests anarchy (among other reasons).

Calling taxation anything other than theft is misleading, because it suggests that people don't have the right to keep the products of their labor.

Appropriation might be a term that we could both agree on then.

Isn't appropriation of someone else's property by means of force the same as theft?

Appropriation has a different connotation though. It has the idea of something organized and planned and done by someone in authority, rather than the anarchic connotation of theft.

enrico_dandolo
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06 Jun 2012, 6:01 pm

JWC wrote:

enrico_dandolo wrote:

Ok, I think I've got it now.

Stealing is okay, as long as the person who receives the stolen property needs it more than the person it is stolen from.

amirite?

Ultimately, in a way. Actually, what I said was that if Case A (taxation) gives a better result than Case B (no taxation), which is actually quite obvious, even if there are disagreements on the details, then the fact that it can be qualified as "theft" (which I do not accept) is irrelevant to the ethical discussion.

Of course, unfettered theft for redistribution, even for an undefined greater good, would be a bad thing for other reasons, but AstroGeek has covered that already.

ruveyn
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06 Jun 2012, 9:20 pm

JWC wrote:

Stealing is okay, as long as the person who receives the stolen property needs it more than the person it is stolen from.

amirite?

Define "need" objectively with no political, moral of philosophical bias added in.

Say a person needs a certain kind of blood or he will die. Is he allowed to tap the veins of people who have not volunteered to give him the blood he needs. Do you know what we call people like that? We call the vampires.

You are providing a moral justification for some people to become parasites because of their "need".

Shame on you.

ruveyn

enrico_dandolo
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06 Jun 2012, 10:08 pm

I can see no "objective" criterion of anything when humans are involved. Well, maybe, death, and possibly disease and starvation as well, but that is extreme. However, happinness and unhappiness, subjective and changing though it they are as concepts, are still meaningful, and the former should be promoted, the latter avoided, within reason.

What is certain, in fact, is that to a rich person, a difference of $100 is without any importance (most of it would be hoarded, invested or used for luxury consumption), whereas to a poor person, it is possibly enough for the month's food budget, sustaining that worker both as a person and as a worker (all of the sum, in this case, would be used in consumption). You can have all the pleasure you want about saying that redistribution is theft or what have you, but I don't think you can describe the scenario where the rich person has the $100 as better than the one where the poor person has it.

Rainy
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07 Jun 2012, 3:11 am

...And this is why those in leadership don't listen to the average random person.

duncvis
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07 Jun 2012, 5:28 am

ruveyn wrote:

JWC wrote:

Stealing is okay, as long as the person who receives the stolen property needs it more than the person it is stolen from.

amirite?

Define "need" objectively with no political, moral of philosophical bias added in. (My note - YOU CAN'T, unless you live on a rock orbiting the planet)

Say a person needs a certain kind of blood or he will die. Is he allowed to tap the veins of people who have not volunteered to give him the blood he needs. Do you know what we call people like that? We call the vampires.

You are providing a moral justification for some people to become parasites because of their "need".

Shame on you.

ruveyn

This post should be distributed to anyone who considers extreme 'libertarianism' to be sane and logical - you just compared the destitute to vampires for crying out loud. That is one SERIOUSLY warped moral compass dude - I cannot comprehend your choice of priorities at all. Shame on you, you clearly have no feeling for other human beings if you cannot understand why this is screwed up. Thank god such ideas have no credibility outside a few derided loons on this side of the Atlantic.

:roll:

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Raptor
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07 Jun 2012, 7:53 am

Call it whatever you want but it's still leeching. There's no gentle way to put it.

ArrantPariah
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07 Jun 2012, 9:06 am

Raptor wrote:

Call it whatever you want but it's still leeching. There's no gentle way to put it.

There are gentler terms.

Such as contracting for the government.

JWC
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07 Jun 2012, 3:38 pm

ruveyn wrote:

JWC wrote:

Stealing is okay, as long as the person who receives the stolen property needs it more than the person it is stolen from.

amirite?

It was meant as sarcasm. Remember, I'm the other a**hole who knows that taxation is theft.

Raptor
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07 Jun 2012, 4:03 pm

ArrantPariah wrote:

Raptor wrote:

Call it whatever you want but it's still leeching. There's no gentle way to put it.

There are gentler terms.

Such as contracting for the government.

That's called performing a service for the client agency and being justly compensated for it.

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