5 ms·

> What then also of the minority that lives under these laws? I never once consented to them, and yet must submit to the majority. And you receive their benefi

by mullen 5y ago

> What then also of the minority that lives under these laws? I never once consented to them, and yet must submit to the majority. And you receive their benefit too. You might not like paying taxes but you receive the benefit of paying taxes, that is why you are forced to pay taxes like everyone else. Some people get more benefit than others but we all get something from paying taxes. If you don't like paying taxes, then you are free to move to a place where there are no taxes and no benefit from them. I recommend Somalia, I heard it's lovely this time of year.

reedjosh 5y ago
And what of the wars?
- munk-a 5y ago
  The US has a severe representation issue. Other folks have spoken well about the advantages of proportional representation vs. FPTP but if you're looking for something to blame for an effective lack of representation I'd look there first. Honestly, if the US election before this previous one didn't have primaries and was an open field race there is almost no chance the former president would have been elected - and if the government was run on a parliamentary system even if his party had won there's no chance they would've brought him in as PM. I am a one issue voter and my issue is proportional representation.
  - reedjosh 5y ago
    I like CGP Grey on this issue. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo I completely agree as far as voting methods are concerned and do think it would be a better system, but I still don't like giving a group of people rights to commit acts considered immoral when done by an individual.
    - munk-a 5y ago
      I wanted to first address the question of being overridden. When you enter into any sort of relationship - dating, marriage, inhabiting a city, living in a country - you are agreeing to compromises to grease the wheels of society. Some people are always going to lose sometime - ideally those aren't always the same people and nobody loses an excessively burdensome amount but... If you live in a city of three million you probably fervently disagree with a few hundred thousand of the other residents on some issues you consider particularly important. On the topic of actions considered immoral (or I'll start with illegal) when done by an individual - war actually only fits into this category in some countries, in a lot of areas murder in self-defense is legal and if 100 ninjas tried to murder you and it was clearly a case of self defense where all other actions were barred your actions might be legal in the US - they would probably be universally recognized as moral by everyone except the most staunch utilitarians which I assume would respond: "Dude - take the trolley in the face, duh - even if they started it it's 100 vs 1 lives lost". That all said, war is frequently not a case of self-defense and is often abused for silly things like resource acquisition and prestige. Better representation allows us to severely punish governments that either look like they're going to go against the societal will or remove them after the fact - buuut there will be times when a country goes into unpopular wars justly due to either domestic misinformation or classification of information creating a different breadth of knowledge between law makers and the populace - with the former seeming more likely and the latter being pretty repulsive. And the freedom to act in response to aggression is one we need to keep separated from the slow response time of something like a pure democracy. This was actually the case in Athens where Strategos were free to act during their term (assuming an agreement between the then Strategoi) and were only subject to removal during regularly scheduled sessions. I am strongly against war myself but I would be pretty happy with the US entering and occupying posts in civilian areas on both sides of the israeli/palestinian border to dissuade both parties from continuing attacks - I'm similarly okay with cypric occupation since that situation seems similarly unresolvable. War is pretty complicated but I don't think it's all that distinct from other issues a nation needs to deal with, poor representation leads to actions that go against the public will.
sneak 5y ago
> If you don't like paying taxes, then you are free to move to a place where there are no taxes and no benefit from them. That is false for US citizens; the US taxes you on your worldwide income, even if you don't live or work in the US.
- darkarmani 5y ago
  Once you are no longer a US citizen, you are in the clear.

by mullen 5y ago

reedjosh 5y ago

And what of the wars?

munk-a 5y ago
The US has a severe representation issue. Other folks have spoken well about the advantages of proportional representation vs. FPTP but if you're looking for something to blame for an effective lack of representation I'd look there first. Honestly, if the US election before this previous one didn't have primaries and was an open field race there is almost no chance the former president would have been elected - and if the government was run on a parliamentary system even if his party had won there's no chance they would've brought him in as PM. I am a one issue voter and my issue is proportional representation.
- reedjosh 5y ago
  I like CGP Grey on this issue. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo I completely agree as far as voting methods are concerned and do think it would be a better system, but I still don't like giving a group of people rights to commit acts considered immoral when done by an individual.
  - munk-a 5y ago
    I wanted to first address the question of being overridden. When you enter into any sort of relationship - dating, marriage, inhabiting a city, living in a country - you are agreeing to compromises to grease the wheels of society. Some people are always going to lose sometime - ideally those aren't always the same people and nobody loses an excessively burdensome amount but... If you live in a city of three million you probably fervently disagree with a few hundred thousand of the other residents on some issues you consider particularly important. On the topic of actions considered immoral (or I'll start with illegal) when done by an individual - war actually only fits into this category in some countries, in a lot of areas murder in self-defense is legal and if 100 ninjas tried to murder you and it was clearly a case of self defense where all other actions were barred your actions might be legal in the US - they would probably be universally recognized as moral by everyone except the most staunch utilitarians which I assume would respond: "Dude - take the trolley in the face, duh - even if they started it it's 100 vs 1 lives lost". That all said, war is frequently not a case of self-defense and is often abused for silly things like resource acquisition and prestige. Better representation allows us to severely punish governments that either look like they're going to go against the societal will or remove them after the fact - buuut there will be times when a country goes into unpopular wars justly due to either domestic misinformation or classification of information creating a different breadth of knowledge between law makers and the populace - with the former seeming more likely and the latter being pretty repulsive. And the freedom to act in response to aggression is one we need to keep separated from the slow response time of something like a pure democracy. This was actually the case in Athens where Strategos were free to act during their term (assuming an agreement between the then Strategoi) and were only subject to removal during regularly scheduled sessions. I am strongly against war myself but I would be pretty happy with the US entering and occupying posts in civilian areas on both sides of the israeli/palestinian border to dissuade both parties from continuing attacks - I'm similarly okay with cypric occupation since that situation seems similarly unresolvable. War is pretty complicated but I don't think it's all that distinct from other issues a nation needs to deal with, poor representation leads to actions that go against the public will.

sneak 5y ago

> If you don't like paying taxes, then you are free to move to a place where there are no taxes and no benefit from them. That is false for US citizens; the US taxes you on your worldwide income, even if you don't live or work in the US.

darkarmani 5y ago
Once you are no longer a US citizen, you are in the clear.