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User avatar #3 - douthit (05/08/2013) [-]
Even better: "Everyone has to pay their fair share. It's a social contract. You do care about the children, the poor, and the elderly, don't you?"
#100 to #3 - bummerdrummer (05/09/2013) [-]
"we'll give you free roads, education, police/ fire protection, even social services to help you get on your feet. we need a percent of what you make to help keep the whole thing running though."
User avatar #107 to #100 - douthit (05/09/2013) [-]
You're not "giving" someone something if they're forced to accept it, and forced to pay for it.
User avatar #143 to #107 - clockworkmage (05/09/2013) [-]
And this is why a pseudo-socialist society would work. In theory everyone would have relatively equal income, and some would have a tad more money than others to spend on leisure. It's actually been proven that even when everyone is poor, as long as everyone is poor (and not say, everyone is poor and then you have some ******* who got his daddy's money and spends it on ruining everyone's lives to make even more money than the near-billion he already owns) people are happier. Indeed, there's less crime even, because there's less things to take grudges against. You don't feel an insatiable rage at the people who are at the top of society, because those people are in a relatively similar situation as you.

It amazes me that a country founded on abolishing the class system Britain had in place, while it's become bound together almost as ferociously as 1800s England and Britain.
People don't seem to understand that the general outcome of a libertarianism society would bee even more rich people doing even more horrible things. There is a place for conservatism, but in this day and age, it isn't in America. We need to get ourselves straightened out and work together for once. Unfortunately, I'm not sure how much hope I have for that front, but perhaps it can come easier than I tend to think.
User avatar #144 to #143 - douthit (05/09/2013) [-]
I can't understand why some want to see people brought down so that everyone's more equal, rather than wanting to see everyone raised up.

And libertarianism doesn't equal conservatism.

Plus I don't know who these rich people are you're talking about, who are doing evil things now.
User avatar #145 to #144 - clockworkmage (05/09/2013) [-]
First of all, I suppose I didn't put much time into proofreading that (thanks brain), so I didn't mean to make a direct equation of libertarianism to conservatism. I understand the philosophies of both, and fully understand the difference between them.
It's just a hypothetical, because there are plenty of people out there who live on the fact that they're rich. They become rich, become greedy, and proceed to make money by doing malicious things and creating malicious regimes for their company to follow.

Taxes are a necessity. If we didn't have taxes, we wouldn't have roads, schools, health care (which many don't already, but this is just the extent of what we can have) and we wouldn't have the components necessarily to have civilization, at least modern civilization.
People usually don't act in large ways if they have little to gain. People wouldn't just randomly start building projects or start teachings students in a formalized and necessary way. Taxes and government regulate those things. Now, I'm not saying the US government doesn't have problems (far, far, far, far, far from it in my opinion) but it's unfortunate to say that our taxes don't do anything. Taxes have to be used. There is not a single successful civilization created that did not tax it's people in some shape or form. Taxes are necessary. What we need to do, is we just need to understand that taxes should be regulated in the way that everyone's income is equalized. People of extremely high taxes should be taking signification load off of people with incredibly low income. It's really quite as simple as that. Of course, making that a reality is a different affair.
User avatar #152 to #145 - douthit (05/09/2013) [-]
Simply being rich (which is subjective) isn't immoral. And I don't know of any company with a regime any worse than government--which is mandatory and which you can't decide not to fund. Government is worse than any company.

It's a fallacy to say that because government does something, it won't get done if government doesn't do it. Before the first government (whichever it was is irrelevant), I'm sure there were already roads, kids being educated, and people giving medical care. Of course they were bound by the technology of their time, but we could have the same thing today. And civilization doesn't require government, government is created by civilization.

I agree people don't act in large ways if they have little to gain, which is why I favor privatization of everything, and the elimination of the government. Free market competition and the attempt to profit from one's business is the best motivation to improve anything. By this principle, privatizing government-run and funded schools, hospitals, and roads is the best method of improving them. Quality naturally increases and costs naturally decrease. People often say that nobody could or would pay for some of those things, but we must remember that we all pay for them already through taxes. Yes we would pay directly, but it would become cheaper, we wouldn't have to pay taxes, and we would remove an expensive and unnecessary middleman in government.

You say there's no successful civilization that didn't levy taxes (don't confuse the two, government isn't the same thing as civilization). First, they're not successful because they collect taxes. You could just as easily say there's been no successful civilization in which they didn't see rainfall. Second, every civilization in history has failed. Most likely all the current ones will someday fall.

I believe that taxation is simply legalized theft, and it's enforced through the initiation of violence against taxpayers. Even if taxes "work", they're still immoral.
#132 to #107 - anonymous (05/09/2013) [-]
Then please stop using the roads, police, fire, education and social services that I pay for, thanks.
#140 to #132 - douthit (05/09/2013) [-]
If I'm being stolen from, I might as well use what's available. A slave is no less a slave because they live in slaves' quarters their master provides.
User avatar #10 to #3 - gorginhanson (05/09/2013) [-]
Nah, all they have to do to get out of that one is say "no", and then slam the door
User avatar #20 to #10 - douthit (05/09/2013) [-]
But that's why you have a government police force in place, so you initiate violence against them if they won't pay.
User avatar #6 to #3 - thepyras (05/09/2013) [-]
I've said this before and I'll say it again, you speak your mind regardless of whether or not you're thumbed down. This site needs more people like you.
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