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You seem to be starting from the assumption that the former is obvious and proven, and the latter is OK. Both assumptions seem wrong to me. 1) I don't believe

You seem to be starting from the assumption that the former is obvious and proven, and the latter is OK. Both assumptions seem wrong to me. 1) I don't believe gender imbalances today are due to past prejudices in past eras. Many other people don't either. There's overwhelming evidence that gender disparities have other explanations. 2) Well run governments don't rack up huge debts. The ones that are doing, like the USA, need more fiscally conservative governments to get it under control, although nobody in America seems to care much about the deficit or getting it under control. This is not true of every country however.

tptacek 8y ago
You haven't so much answered my question as talked around it. Plenty of people disagree just as strongly or more strongly with the decisions their forebears made with the national debt as you do about the "overwhelmingly evidence" you claim to have about the cause of gender disparities. Are taxes that repay those debts a form of "blood corruption"?
- repolfx 8y ago
  No. Corruption of blood is a constitutional term that specifically means penalising children for the crimes of their parents. It's related to crimes. Racking up the national debt is a bad thing to do but it's not a crime, and it's something that affects everyone equally, not specific individuals or subgroups. Arguing, as so many people on HN unfortunately do, that white men deserve to be dumped on because in times gone by some other white men did something the speaker did not like, is a lot closer to the original concept of corruption of blood, even though it's not exactly the same thing as what the constitution is talking about. But I don't understand why you dragged us down this irrelevant tangent. My point was that explicitly penalising people for things their ancestors did or supposedly did is bad and wrong. Yes, I am also a supporter of balanced budgets because making children pay for the mistakes of their parents is also bad. This has nothing to do with the general principle of tax - it's just a logical fallacy wrapped inside a straw man. Governments can easily tax and spend whilst also not borrowing.

tptacek 8y ago

You haven't so much answered my question as talked around it. Plenty of people disagree just as strongly or more strongly with the decisions their forebears made with the national debt as you do about the "overwhelmingly evidence" you claim to have about the cause of gender disparities. Are taxes that repay those debts a form of "blood corruption"?

repolfx 8y ago
No. Corruption of blood is a constitutional term that specifically means penalising children for the crimes of their parents. It's related to crimes. Racking up the national debt is a bad thing to do but it's not a crime, and it's something that affects everyone equally, not specific individuals or subgroups. Arguing, as so many people on HN unfortunately do, that white men deserve to be dumped on because in times gone by some other white men did something the speaker did not like, is a lot closer to the original concept of corruption of blood, even though it's not exactly the same thing as what the constitution is talking about. But I don't understand why you dragged us down this irrelevant tangent. My point was that explicitly penalising people for things their ancestors did or supposedly did is bad and wrong. Yes, I am also a supporter of balanced budgets because making children pay for the mistakes of their parents is also bad. This has nothing to do with the general principle of tax - it's just a logical fallacy wrapped inside a straw man. Governments can easily tax and spend whilst also not borrowing.