The Budget Deal - Page 18

Originally Posted by tonton

And you're welcome to move to Brazil, which reflects your preference fairly well.

Originally Posted by MJ1970



Wrong. Chile. Mauritius. Hong Kong. These are better examples. They are at least going in the right direction. Heck even Canada is a better example...but I hate the cold weather.

It's interesting that if I would like to keep, expand or restore freedom (for everyone) I'm the one who should move, but those who wish to take freedom (from all) get to simply stay and impose it on whoever they wish.

Here's the problem: You are more than welcome to build your socialist/communist/Marxist Utopia within a sea of liberty. But the reverse is not true.

For example: The entire US could be mostly free as a default, but individual states (e.g., California, New York, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, etc.) would be free to implement socialism within those states. Or, better yet, states remain mostly free as a default and individual counties or cities could implement socialism within their borders. Surely it will be so attractive that many people will voluntarily move their but those who don't see the "benefits" of socialism could live freely in the next town (or state) over.

Why not simply have freedom as the default, and let those who want to have socialism band together to voluntarily have socialism for themselves within that sea of freedom?

I suspect it's because they wish to impose (i.e., force) their values on everyone else.

Originally Posted by jazzguru

tonton:

"Freedom is a condition in which a person's ownership rights in his own body and his legitimate material property are not invaded, are not aggressed against." - Murray N. Rothbard

Sweden does not fit that definition, nor does your distorted view of anarchy where "the little guy gets crushed by the big guy".

Originally Posted by tonton

What good is ownership when you have less of an opportunity to achieve it?

Freedom is just being left alone to think, to speak and to do as you please, as long as you don't infringe on anybody else's right to do the same. Freedom does not guarantee health, happiness or success. You can be free and unhappy, unhealthy and a total failure.

The fact is that a majority of Americans are not as keen on freedom as you would think from listening to the rhetoric. Most Americans have, by this point in time, bought into the philosophy of redistribution of income. That involves a loss of freedom.

When private individuals give their own money to others, it's called charity. When government takes money from people who have earned it and gives it to a person who has not, that is redistribution of income. Like everything government does, it is coercive. Taxation is not a voluntary program. Today government subsidizes everything from large corporations and the middle class to the genuinely poor. I dare say that not many Americans would exchange their government checks for more freedom.

Government is another thing many people seem to not understand these days. It is exactly as George Washington defined it — institutionalized force. Mao Tse-tung was more poetic. He said the power of government comes out of the barrel of a gun. Exactly so. If you don't believe that, write the government a letter and say that from now on, you are not going to pay any taxes. Then see what happens to you.

Other groups not so keen on freedom are the liberals and the professional civil-rights crowd. Freedom means equal opportunity. It means everyone must take the same test, must meet the same requirements. Alas, many people say they believe in equal opportunity until the equal opportunity produces unequal results. Then they cry for a double standard, commonly called affirmative action. Give the job or the promotion or the admittance to this person because of his or her sex or race, they say. Well, of necessity, that involves unjustly denying the qualified people their earned opportunity.

While equality before the law and equal opportunity in the private sector are worthy ideals to pursue, the human race is not uniformly equal. As I have often quoted, an author once observed that the characteristic of nature's creation is profusion, not uniformity. We are not equal in our mental and physical traits, and in a free society, this inequality will be reflected. Some of us are not smart enough to pass the tests. Some of us lack the energy and drive to become entrepreneurs or to climb the corporate ladder. Some of us are too foolish to save and invest. Some of us have the bad luck to be born into circumstances that present obstacles to success.

Rather than try to achieve phony equal results with double standards, we should try to construct a society in which everyone, regardless of his or her abilities, can find a niche in which to live with dignity and respect. A good janitor should be no less admirable than a good CEO. If we put more emphasis on character and less on income and position, we might realize that.

Originally Posted by tonton

True or false, Jazzy, MJ, under a free market system as you define it, does the big guy have the freedom to crush the little guy, or not?

Originally Posted by tonton

There is far more freedom in Sweden than there is in the United States.

Originally Posted by tonton

What you want is not 'freedom' for the majority.

Originally Posted by tonton

One kind of freedom the majority want is freedom from oppression by employers due to the inequality of the power structures that is inherent in the 'absolute' free market system.

Originally Posted by tonton

Freedom to grow a small business without being crushed by the monopolistic structures that would result from an absolute free-market system.

Originally Posted by tonton

Absolute freedom is not freedom by any stretch.

Originally Posted by MJ1970

Here's the problem: You are more than welcome to build your socialist/communist/Marxist Utopia within a sea of liberty. But the reverse is not true.

...

Why not simply have freedom as the default, and let those who want to have socialism band together to voluntarily have (an island of) socialism for themselves within that sea of freedom?

Originally Posted by Hands Sandon

"Twenty-five of the 100 highest paid U.S. CEOs earned more last year than their companies paid in federal income tax, a pay study said on Wednesday.

Originally Posted by Hands Sandon

It also found many of the companies spent more on lobbying than they did on taxes.

Originally Posted by Hands Sandon

Yeah you really care about veterans, heck it wouldn't even pay for them to each get a plaster.

Originally Posted by Hands Sandon

Yeah you really care about veterans, heck it wouldn't even pay for them to each get a plaster.

Originally Posted by jazzguru

Money pays for stuff. Taxes are money that has been forcibly removed from you to pay for stuff whether you want to or not.

Originally Posted by tonton

And the founding fathers of the United States saw taxes as a source of revenue for the stuff that needs to be paid for by the government. They saw payment of those taxes as the duty of the citizens.

Originally Posted by e1618978

The founding fathers saw the federal government as very small, maybe 10% the size it currently is (or smaller). And the only taxes that they wanted were import duties, not payment from citizens.

Originally Posted by jazzguru

So why did the Constitution have to be amended in 1913 to expressly grant the federal government the power to collect an income tax?

Originally Posted by tonton

Oh, really. I didn't think you were that old.

Seriously. If they wanted to exclude taxing the citizens, they most certainly would have put that in the Constitution. They explicitly gave Congress the power to enact taxes, and not just "import duties". Although those may have been the only original taxes, they certainly envisioned the need for changes to taxation in the future to match future budgets.

As I said before, the idea was always, "no taxation with out representation," not, "no taxation."

Originally Posted by e1618978

But the only taxes that they passed originally were import duties, and the current federal government has twisted the commerce clause to allow themselves to grow way past the constitutional limits of the federal government.

http://usafoundingfathers.blogspot.c...-tax-plan.html

In Jefferson's Second Inaugural Address (March 4, 1805, he points out:

"At home, fellow citizens, you best know whether we have done well
or ill. The suppression of unnecessary offices, of useless
establishments and expenses, enabled us to discontinue our internal
taxes. These covering our land with officers, and opening our doors to
their intrusions, had already begun that process of domiciliary vexation
which, once entered, is scarcely to be restrained from reaching
successively every article of produce and property...

"The remaining revenue on the consumption of foreign articles, is
paid cheerfully by those who can afford to add foreign luxuries to
domestic comforts, being collected on our seaboards and frontiers only,
and incorporated with the transactions of our mercantile citizens, it
may be the pleasure and pride of an American to ask, what farmer, what
mechanic, what laborer, ever sees a tax-gatherer of the United States?"

Originally Posted by BR

Excellent rebuttal to tonton's point. Oh wait. I misused the word "excellent."

Originally Posted by tonton

To clarify what some people saw as an ambiguity, which is something we should be doing more often. They didn't remove or retract any restrictions from the Constitution regarding Federal Income Tax, did they? That's because there were no restrictions there in the first place.

Originally Posted by jazzguru

They did it because it wasn't in the Constitution in the first place.

There was nothing in the Constitution granting the federal government the authority to collect a federal income tax. It was made very clear by the 10th Amendment that unless a power is specifically enumerated as a federal power, it lies with the states or the people.

That's why the Constitution had to be amended - to give the federal government power it had until that time not been expressly granted by the Constitution (and intentionally so, I might add).

Originally Posted by jazzguru

Economy Gains No Jobs in August, Rate Holds at 9.1%

It's the first time since 1945 that zero jobs have been added in a given month.

Another feather in the cap of big government.

Originally Posted by jazzguru

Economy Gains No Jobs in August, Rate Holds at 9.1%

It's the first time since 1945 that zero jobs have been added in a given month.

Another feather in the cap of big government.

Originally Posted by BR

The entire process of government has essentially been ground to a halt by a party who runs on the idea that government doesn't work. They succeed when they prove their own party platform...and the country suffers as a result.