6 ms·

> Second, taxes don't disappear into nothingness - they pay for civilization You've never worked in government it sounds like. It's a bonfire of money.

AnimalMuppet 6y ago
Both are true. It's a bonfire of money. And it gives us civilization. It's horribly inefficient and wasteful, and yet very few of us want to live without it. (But more efficiency would absolutely be welcome.)
- ghostwriter 6y ago
  Civilization is being created by the creators of wealth. Before you can distribute anything, that anything has to be created. Once it's been created, it belongs to its creator by the unalienable right of property, the right that made the Civilization that you are currently living in possible. If you believe otherwise, you should sell, let's say, 95% of your total assets immediately and distribute that wealth among memebers of your local community to make it a slightly better part of the civilization you want to live in.
  - patmcc 6y ago
    Walk me through how you have property rights without the state enforcing then.
    - ghostwriter 6y ago
      Where have you seen mine claiming that there's no role for the government as a protector of property rights? In fact, it's one of a few only valid purpouse of any state. Not welfare, not free stuff, but the protection of unalienable rights of individuals.
  - vladTheInhaler 6y ago
    I'm so tired of this boring old fairy tale where mythical "job creators" will the entirety of civilization into existence like gods raising the earth from the ocean with a touch of their spear, or Athena leaping fully formed from the head of Zeus. Frankly, the mythologizing serves to justify a level of deference to the ultra-rich that they simply have not earned. In order for the "wealth creators" to work, they need a stable legal system and a currency just to start. Those things aren't free. And if they wanted to create, as a completely random example, a company that sells and delivers books, they might find it convenient for there to already be a well-developed trans-continental transportation infrastructure (and traffic laws, vehicle safety standards, air-traffic controllers, publicly-funded universities training students in logistics and supply-chain management), ports to receive goods from overseas (and trade agreements with other countries, and a navy to protect shipping lanes, and internationally standardized shipping crate sizes), a fire department to come rescue your investment when a warehouse full of books is burning, and perhaps a revolutionary global telecommunications system to let customers buy books with the click of a button (and a government research agency to invent it). "Wealth creators" exist as a part of the system - not apart from it. Their attempts to create new and better products should be encouraged and even celebrated. But we should never forget that those opportunities only arose because of a collective investment by all of America, funded by American tax dollars. No investment - no Amazon, which is why Jeff Bezos doesn't live in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. So when "wealth creators" refuse to contribute to that investment, they are stifling the innovation and creative potential of the next generation of dreamers and inventors. And as an aside, property rights are a social fiction. They exist only as long as it serves the collective interest of society. You "own" a particular piece of land because you happened to see it first, just as much as you "own" the front seat because you called shotgun. If you believe otherwise, you should immediately return your land to the native people it was stolen from.
    - ghostwriter 6y ago
      > If you believe otherwise, you should immediately return your land to the native people it was stolen from. Define native people. Did any other peoples live on that land before them? Did any tribe fight with the other for the same piece of land? > And as an aside, property rights are a social fiction. I'm glad you said that. Next time robbers get into your house don't call the police, instead suggest your service to them. > In order for the "wealth creators" to work, they need a stable legal system and a currency just to start. Before you have any currency you need a valuable stuff to be created so that you can measure its value by your currency. Before you have a legal system you have to agree on the fundamental principles foundational to your way of living. Unalienable property right is one of these fundamental principles that made possible all the stuff around you and that you benefit greatly from. If you believe otherwise, try a lifestyle in Venezuela or Somaliland for a change. > they might find it convenient for there to already be a well-developed trans-continental transportation infrastructure Infrastructure is created by the same wealth creators https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Northern_Railway_(U.S.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Northern_Railway_(U.S.) Your government doesn't produce it out of nowhere, and before the government is able to contract any kind of infrastructure work, it has to extort money from those who created this currecny-measured value in the first place.
  - dimnsionofsound 6y ago
    Your tax dollars as a wealthy individual also pay for the police forces to keep the less wealthy people from coming and just taking your property, as they might in a state with zero taxes and thus zero public services, without you spending extra money to hire security who would be loyal only to your dollar and who you couldn’t trust not to turn on you in an instant since it might just have no consequences for them without a judicial system.
    - ghostwriter 6y ago
      > Your tax dollars as a wealthy individual also pay for the police forces to keep the less wealthy people from coming and just taking your property No disagreement with that, I am willing to pay for police protection of my property and myself, after all that's a valid purpose of a government. Yet this topic is not about paying for your protection, is it? This topic is about ever-growing attempts to extort money for an unknown cause under a pretense of virtue.

AnimalMuppet 6y ago

Both are true. It's a bonfire of money. And it gives us civilization. It's horribly inefficient and wasteful, and yet very few of us want to live without it. (But more efficiency would absolutely be welcome.)

ghostwriter 6y ago
Civilization is being created by the creators of wealth. Before you can distribute anything, that anything has to be created. Once it's been created, it belongs to its creator by the unalienable right of property, the right that made the Civilization that you are currently living in possible. If you believe otherwise, you should sell, let's say, 95% of your total assets immediately and distribute that wealth among memebers of your local community to make it a slightly better part of the civilization you want to live in.
- patmcc 6y ago
  Walk me through how you have property rights without the state enforcing then.
  - ghostwriter 6y ago
    Where have you seen mine claiming that there's no role for the government as a protector of property rights? In fact, it's one of a few only valid purpouse of any state. Not welfare, not free stuff, but the protection of unalienable rights of individuals.
- vladTheInhaler 6y ago
  I'm so tired of this boring old fairy tale where mythical "job creators" will the entirety of civilization into existence like gods raising the earth from the ocean with a touch of their spear, or Athena leaping fully formed from the head of Zeus. Frankly, the mythologizing serves to justify a level of deference to the ultra-rich that they simply have not earned. In order for the "wealth creators" to work, they need a stable legal system and a currency just to start. Those things aren't free. And if they wanted to create, as a completely random example, a company that sells and delivers books, they might find it convenient for there to already be a well-developed trans-continental transportation infrastructure (and traffic laws, vehicle safety standards, air-traffic controllers, publicly-funded universities training students in logistics and supply-chain management), ports to receive goods from overseas (and trade agreements with other countries, and a navy to protect shipping lanes, and internationally standardized shipping crate sizes), a fire department to come rescue your investment when a warehouse full of books is burning, and perhaps a revolutionary global telecommunications system to let customers buy books with the click of a button (and a government research agency to invent it). "Wealth creators" exist as a part of the system - not apart from it. Their attempts to create new and better products should be encouraged and even celebrated. But we should never forget that those opportunities only arose because of a collective investment by all of America, funded by American tax dollars. No investment - no Amazon, which is why Jeff Bezos doesn't live in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. So when "wealth creators" refuse to contribute to that investment, they are stifling the innovation and creative potential of the next generation of dreamers and inventors. And as an aside, property rights are a social fiction. They exist only as long as it serves the collective interest of society. You "own" a particular piece of land because you happened to see it first, just as much as you "own" the front seat because you called shotgun. If you believe otherwise, you should immediately return your land to the native people it was stolen from.
  - ghostwriter 6y ago
    > If you believe otherwise, you should immediately return your land to the native people it was stolen from. Define native people. Did any other peoples live on that land before them? Did any tribe fight with the other for the same piece of land? > And as an aside, property rights are a social fiction. I'm glad you said that. Next time robbers get into your house don't call the police, instead suggest your service to them. > In order for the "wealth creators" to work, they need a stable legal system and a currency just to start. Before you have any currency you need a valuable stuff to be created so that you can measure its value by your currency. Before you have a legal system you have to agree on the fundamental principles foundational to your way of living. Unalienable property right is one of these fundamental principles that made possible all the stuff around you and that you benefit greatly from. If you believe otherwise, try a lifestyle in Venezuela or Somaliland for a change. > they might find it convenient for there to already be a well-developed trans-continental transportation infrastructure Infrastructure is created by the same wealth creators https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Northern_Railway_(U.S.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Northern_Railway_(U.S.) Your government doesn't produce it out of nowhere, and before the government is able to contract any kind of infrastructure work, it has to extort money from those who created this currecny-measured value in the first place.
- dimnsionofsound 6y ago
  Your tax dollars as a wealthy individual also pay for the police forces to keep the less wealthy people from coming and just taking your property, as they might in a state with zero taxes and thus zero public services, without you spending extra money to hire security who would be loyal only to your dollar and who you couldn’t trust not to turn on you in an instant since it might just have no consequences for them without a judicial system.
  - ghostwriter 6y ago
    > Your tax dollars as a wealthy individual also pay for the police forces to keep the less wealthy people from coming and just taking your property No disagreement with that, I am willing to pay for police protection of my property and myself, after all that's a valid purpose of a government. Yet this topic is not about paying for your protection, is it? This topic is about ever-growing attempts to extort money for an unknown cause under a pretense of virtue.