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> I don’t pay taxes to help other people. I pay taxes to protect myself. This seems like a very strange model for taxes; maybe it works for military spending?

• FredPret 5y ago
  Yes it is to solve a shared problem. But it myst be a problem shared by the person paying the taxes, otherwise it’s simple extortion / social engineering
  • MauranKilom 5y ago
    Does "support disabled people" count as a problem shared by you if you (and your family) are not disabled? Or is that social engineering/extortion?
    • FredPret 5y ago
      That’s a form of insurance that covers me
      • SamoyedFurFluff 5y ago
        Wouldn’t a global fund for any disaster in the world also be a form of insurance that covers me? I would be happy that there’s a global fund for me if my country goes down the shitter.
        • nradov 5y ago
          By the time your country goes down the shitter the corrupt unaccountable bureaucrats who manage that global fund would have embezzled all the money.
          • SamoyedFurFluff 5y ago
            Wouldn’t that apply to any kind of disaster or disablement fund? I don’t get it.
            • FredPret 5y ago
              Smaller scale is better. It’s closer to the non-politician voters. The UN is many layers removed from me and I have no actual control over what they do or who works there, whereas I can write to and vote for the person who runs my neighbourhood, city, etc.
              • MauranKilom 5y ago
                That's a reasonable take, but a far cry from "extortion".
    • donw 5y ago
      That depends on many factors. What do you mean by "disabled"? Unable to work? As declared by whom? Merely needing reasonable accommodation? Is that a universal? A chunk of familial diaspora is "disabled", but only on paper. Speaking frankly, they're just lazy and worked the system so that they could focus on their real passion: porn and drugs. A climbing gym I used to frequent installed wheelchair access at great expense, because a lawyer was running around and filing suit against any business that didn't adhere completely to ADA requirements. It's... a climbing gym. If by "disabled" you mean "unable to contribute to society", since when? Resources are finite, and every culture has to figure out where it draws the line. Socialized healthcare uses political power to determine who lives and dies -- the Prime Minister and his friends are guaranteed better care than your grandma. Privatized healthcare uses money -- Jeff Bezos and his friends are also guaranteed better care than your grandma. At least in the latter case, your family and friends can pull together to put more money into grandma.
      • MauranKilom 5y ago
        > A chunk of familial diaspora is "disabled", but only on paper. ...what does "some might game the system" have to do with whether society needs to support disabled people? > A climbing gym I used to frequent installed wheelchair access at great expense [...] ...what does any of that have to do with whether society needs to support disabled people? > If by "disabled" you mean "unable to contribute to society", since when? Ever since people were moved by hardships of those around them. Beggars have existed for all of recorded history I believe? And they don't beg for fun. > Resources are finite, and every culture has to figure out where it draws the line. Could you spell out what you are implying here? "Resources are finite" only contributes to the "taxation is extortion" argument if you insist that any non-zero amount spent improving the lives of non-contributors is better spent maximizing economical gain. Following that logic quickly leads to "kill retirees immediately". > Socialized healthcare uses political power to determine who lives and dies -- the Prime Minister and his friends are guaranteed better care than your grandma. Not to a significant degree, no. If they get cancer, they'll more or less have the same treatment options available to them. Also, why shouldn't the prime minister get more encompassing treatment? Society also pays for bodyguards for them, but not for grandma. Why is that? > Privatized healthcare uses money -- Jeff Bezos and his friends are also guaranteed better care than your grandma. Again, how is that relevant to "should society support disabled people"? You've tried really hard to come up with scenarios where society is (under certain narrow criteria) worse off chipping in. That... does exactly nothing to answer the question whether there are cases where society should chip in. And whether taxation to accomplish that goal is therefore extortion or not.
• m4rtink 5y ago
  That's a Neville Chamberlain reference: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_in_Our_Time https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_in_Our_Time
  • saurik 5y ago
    Ok, I do know/appreciate that it is was itself in that context a Neville Chamberlain reference (though he said "for", not "in" ;P), but I think the contemporary Marvel reference was what people would try to make fun of me for (if they didn't know I "walked into it willingly") because Ultron was a bad idea that caused lots of suffering, particularly among people from an Eastern European country that were already experiencing massive strife due to foreign intervention (a la Ukraine, which was what is being discussed here).
• HideousKojima 5y ago
  "Peace in our time" isn't from Ultron (originally). It's a quote from Prime Minister Chamberlain justifying his policy of appeasement towards Nazi Germany.
  • saurik 5y ago
    Ok, I do know/appreciate that it is was itself in that context a Neville Chamberlain reference (though he said "for", not "in" ;P), but I think the contemporary Marvel reference was what people would try to make fun of me for (if they didn't know I "walked into it willingly") because Ultron was a bad idea that caused lots of suffering, particularly among people from an Eastern European country that were already experiencing massive strife due to foreign intervention (a la Ukraine, which was what is being discussed here).
• lettergram 5y ago
  > This seems like a very strange model for taxes It’s been the basis of taxes for all time. You pay taxes because someone with guns tells you to. In return they try to protect you, such that you keep paying them. Beyond that, you probably wouldn’t pay taxes. You’d buy something. It would be much more efficient to buy some shared solution to a problem, as opposed to let someone take your money by force to solve some problem that may or may not impact you.
  • saurik 5y ago
    Oh, "because I am forced to at gunpoint" is not at all how I read "I pay taxes to protect myself" in the context of public safety / war expenditures.
    • wombatpm 5y ago
      Classic Libertarian argument. Government has a legal monopoly on the use of force that they employ to obtain tax revenue. The proof of the statement lies in what happens if you don't pay taxes. Eventually, someone with guns will place you in custody or garnish your wages or seize your property.
      • saurik 5y ago
        I am not claiming I haven't heard that argument before or that I don't understand it: I am claiming that I don't think this is what the person I was replying to meant when they said they pay taxes to help themselves and not other people, particularly given the explicit explanation "don't tax people in one country to help another".
    • HKH2 5y ago
      Being forced to buy protection doesn't mean you wouldn't buy it anyway; you just can't shop around.
  • Retric 5y ago
    That line of thinking breaks down when you consider people can generally move somewhere else. Taxes have historically paid for civil infrastructure like irrigation systems well into antiquity. It’s unclear when such things originated because they significantly predate any systems of records. In that context taxes are rent paid to live in a society.