h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Yes, you defined taxation and theft with the same definition, but the terms do not merit the same definition and do not have the same definition in the real world. You have made up a definition with which no one here agrees in order to support your flimsy argument.

I missed the yikesed post as well. Having missed it, I didn't know that it was about you until you (who also missed it) mentioned that it was about you.






Well, I think any points I'd like to make on this libertarian nonsense have been made.

You really aren't reading what anyone else has written, are you, Iluvatar? Your warped definition of taxation has already been admirably disposed of by anhaga.

And you're becoming less coherent. At this stage, I honestly have no idea what sort of society you're advocating at all. It should have services, such as roads, but no one is forced to pay for their construction. Everyone chips in voluntarily? Or do you have toll booths? It should have a government, but no one pays the ministers' salaries, which is fine as they don't do anything anyway. It should have no public health service, so contagious diseases run rampant. Welfare should be entirely dependent on private charity, so hypocrisy, the "deserving poor", the Lady Bountiful types will be in abundance, while the "undeserving poor" and those with mental illnesses (self-medicating with alcohol of course renders one "undeserving") fall through the cracks, and slums develop and spread (and more contagious disease). There is a lack of public infrastructure, such as postal systems, mass transport, and sewerage works (leading to cholera outbreaks).

And this is your paradise? One of us is clearly mad.

TRiG.

And by the way, you still haven't read Dickens, have you?

TRiG.

TRiG, that's just silly!


There couldn't be toll booths on roads in Iluvatar land: that would be forcing people to pay for their use of the roads, and that would be theft. There would have to be nice little collection plates, and people could through in a coin or two if they felt like it, but everyone would be allowed to use the roads.

You don't want inheritance taxes.

Odd.

I thought you said you wanted everyone judged on their own merits, not on handouts. Kids of rich parents already have all the advantages, even if they go to the same schools. They have the quiet and the space to study. They have privacy. They have backup. They don't need to worry about where their next meal is coming from. They don't need to work alongside their schooling.

And then they get all their parents' money too?

So you really don't support any form of taxation at all? None? See my post above. If people are to live together, some form of public infrastructure is absolutely necessary. Your world simply doesn't make any sense.

***

And a word on entrenched privilege. In the world you want to set up, some will do better than others. The disabled, the mentally ill, the sheer unlucky, the artsy types who flourish only in a good economy, will all fall by the wayside. Merit, perhaps.

But what about the next generation, and the one after? Wealth accumulates. In short order you'd have practically a feudal society. It would get messy very quick. And, as the inequalities really start to take hold, you're beginning to sow the seeds of a revolution.

The next step is gated communities and security guards, to protect the wealthy from the justifiably contemptuous and furious slum dwellers. Then comes a general breakdown in social order (not that there was much social order to begin with). And then the revolution comes. And revolutions tend to be messy.

***

Remember the principle that when you're setting up a social system in your head you should keep in mind that you might end up at any stratum in that system. Thus you will be more likely to create a fair and equitable system.

Do you see yourself in a slum? No? Then why create the circumstances where that may happen?

TRiG.

'Do you see yourself in a slum? No? Then why create the circumstances where that may happen?'


shouldn't that be 'the circumstances where that certainly will happen'?

Hmm.

I'm taking this from your personal space, anhaga:

"No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable. It is but equity, besides, that they who feed, clothe, and lodge the whole body of the people, should have such a share of the produce of their own labour as to be themselves tolerably well fed, clothed, and lodged."

What would a libertarian society do about climate change? http://www.vueweekly.com/article.php?id=13295

ask for voluntary reductions? hope that charities would build solar panels and give them away?

TRiG. What the right wingers never seem to realize is that Adam Smith was in many ways what we would term today a 'socialist'. I suspect that most who talk of 'The Wealth of Nations', the invisible hand, and Adam Smith have never bothered cracking any of his writings.

Stick their fingers in their ears and sing very loudly?

TRiG.

"There couldn't be toll booths on roads in Iluvatar land: that would be forcing people to pay for their use of the roads, and that would be theft. There would have to be nice little collection plates, and people could through in a coin or two if they felt like it, but everyone would be allowed to use the roads."

Of course there could. How is voluntarily paying for a service forcing people? There are many private small roads here anyway. The road I grew up on, for example, was owned by the people living on it. Highways would have to be toll. That or some very rich generous road builder comes along (unlikely).

again. I was talking about climate change.



We seem to be managing this conversation very well without Iluvatar.



I've only just remembered the hootoo tradition of breaking up long posts with the popcorn smiley. It seems to have died out of late. I've not seen it recently. I used asterisks above. Should've used popcorns, but I'd forgotten.

TRiG.

And he's back. And he's ignoring our main points. Again.

TRiG.

'Twas a joke, my friend. The road I live on is owned by the people living on it as well. We call the people living on this road 'citizens' but you would probably call them 'thieves' or 'victims of robbery'.


Yes, there could be toll roads in Iluvatarland. Expecting payment for service is neither forcing people nor theft. People who don't want to pay can find a different way to get to their destination. If they hang around and use the road without paying the toll, that would be theft (of service), a recognized principle of common law. If they don't want to pay the legally instituted fee for the service, they should go elsewhere. (but, before they go, they should remember to pay their debt to Aesclepius.)

"Do you see yourself in a slum? No? Then why create the circumstances where that may happen?"

I am attempting to show how to keep that from happening. Wealth does not lead to poverty. Evil people who desire control lead to poverty, and poor lazy people as well.

"I thought you said you wanted everyone judged on their own merits, not on handouts."

No, I never denounced handouts in general. I denounced taking from an individual to fund the handouts.

"And then they get all their parents' money too?"

Yes, if the parents give it to them. Should we have a law saying no rich person has the right to freely give their money either? Not only do we take money from people, but we also do not let them give the remaining away freely.

"So you really don't support any form of taxation at all? None? See my post above. If people are to live together, some form of public infrastructure is absolutely necessary."

Yes it is. But that has nothing to do with taking money. It has to do with working and building etc. Whoever does this work should be paid by whoever wants to use it. If I don't use it, I shouldn't have to pay for it. Now, what does infrastructure have to do with taxes? Other than the fact that that is how we currently pay for them, there is no reason to make this correlation.

"But what about the next generation, and the one after? Wealth accumulates."

Exactly. The next generation will be better off, and the next, and so on, as long as we continue to protect people from other people.

"Yes, there could be toll roads in Iluvatarland. Expecting payment for service is neither forcing people nor theft. People who don't want to pay can find a different way to get to their destination. If they hang around and use the road without paying the toll, that would be theft (of service), a recognized principle of common law. If they don't want to pay the legally instituted fee for the service, they should go elsewhere."

Finally someone gets exactly what I was saying without needing to clarify!

"If I don't use it, I shouldn't have to pay for it."

If you don't use the sewer, everyone has to pay for it.

Grow up.

TRiG.

'Finally someone gets exactly what I was saying without needing to clarify!'

too bad you didn't understand *in any sense whatsoever* what I was saying. That is, without a doubt, the most dense encounter I've had in I don't know how many years of hootoo.

Your statement about a user-pay policy for everything reminds me of the asinine comments from the rare idiot who thinks he shouldn't have to pay the school fee portion of property taxes since he doesn't have any kids. If you don't understand what is wrong with that, Iluvatar, you are more dense than the paving stones I helped my neighbor put down behind his house this past summer.

I am growing slightly weary of being called names simply because I believe in a fair, just, and moral society.

Of course I shouldn't be forced to pay for some kid to go to school simply because his parents want to shirk their responsibility. If you don't understand what is wrong with threats for nonpayment of dues made up by those who want the money, solely because they have the majority on their side and can thus throw away the minority with careless ease, you have no business in civilized society.

"Democrocy is 2 wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner"

OOOh a slaughterfest! Sounds civilized to you! Go live in that society, and be forced to become a wolf or die.

You did not in any sense understand what I was saying in the post in which you foolishly thought I was simply understanding what you are saying. I think most here understand quite clearly what you are saying. The single most glaring exception is you.

As for sheep and wolves, you desire a society made up of very aggressive carnivorous sheep with large teeth and rabies.

You're welcome to it.