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snitko
searching PlanetScale…
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53 ms
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511.
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by
snitko
13y ago
For god's sake. It's just a piece of paper. If a name is too long for it, well, damn, spend some additional time and customize it and print this one special id.
512.
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by
snitko
13y ago
As a side note: you feeling that you're not being robbed has nothing to do with what actually happens, which is extracting money by a threat of force. You may not think about it this way, but it becomes painfully obvious once someone r
513.
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by
snitko
13y ago
Fine, you feel you're not being robbed. I know quite a few people from the US who feel that taxes are theft. Granted you agree they have the freedom to believe in whatever they want, how do you justify the fact that if they don't
514.
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by
snitko
13y ago
Theoretically. In practice, as soon as you get power, you have very little incentive to serve those who elected you and all the incentives in the world to make money from special interest groups. You can't fix that with any number of n
515.
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by
snitko
13y ago
No difference. Why do US citizens have to pay for wars and killing a great number of innocent people in them, or Guantanamo, or NSA, or TSA... when the majority clearly opposes it? Democracy is a nice myth, which gives surfs a false feeling
516.
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by
snitko
13y ago
I have no doubt that most low-ranking government employees believe they are doing good and I don't blame them. But it doesn't matter and it doesn't change the fact that they are involved in extracting money from people with a
517.
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by
snitko
13y ago
And yet I still see people saying "no, how dare you compare government to a bunch of thieves?".
518.
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by
snitko
13y ago
I'm sorry, but your definition of theft doesn't make any sense. If you say I steal from society, then certainly I do it without even a threat of force, without lying and by asking people to get into businesses relationship with me
519.
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by
snitko
13y ago
So if you yourself admit that you won't voluntarily donate money and help the poor unless you really have some extra, what moral right do you think you have to tell other people they should? Why do you think it's ok to take care o
520.
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by
snitko
13y ago
Well, let me say that your opensource software analogy is great and here's why. I use Rails and make money building apps with it. Am I expecting @dhh or other Rails devs to knock on my door and demand their fair share? Of course not. I
521.
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by
snitko
13y ago
What do I owe to society and why? Can you be more specific? And why do I owe it to society as a whole and not some particular individuals?
522.
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by
snitko
13y ago
Look, I respect and acknowledge your right to have an opinion that taxes are not theft. Would you respect the opinion of your fellow citizens, who, like me, believe taxes are theft? Because if you do acknowledge their right to think so, the
523.
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by
snitko
13y ago
So what you're saying is that if I have to go to a hospital and can't afford it, it's okay for me to go and rob other people?
524.
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by
snitko
13y ago
I can't extract my existence from the country not because it's technically impossible, as you claim, but because state prevents me and others from doing so. If I wanted my kids to go to a private school or if I wanted to homeschoo
525.
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by
snitko
13y ago
It's not the question of how things are in Russia vs how they are in the US. It's a matter of principle. If you happen to not convince your neighbor and your candidate wins, then your neighbor is paying for what you believe is rig
526.
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by
snitko
13y ago
I trust you. My point is not that we shouldn't help poor people. My point is that it should be done voluntarily, not through taxation. Your example, btw, is not very ordinary. I find it hard to believe that 46 million people in the US
527.
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by
snitko
13y ago
Convince people to help voluntarily by donating, without any fear of consequences if they decide not to pay. If you can't convince them, then you're forcing them to agree with you and pay, basically acting like a bully.
528.
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by
snitko
13y ago
Great, convince others to help, don't just tax them. If you can't convince a person that you're right about helping those people, and decide to simply impose an additional tax, then you're coercing them and treating yo
529.
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by
snitko
13y ago
It always amazes me how these people are always ready to extract money out of other people's pockets by force, essentially, to finance their equality and poverty elimination ideas. Why at least one of them wouldn't just commit to
530.
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by
snitko
13y ago
If you're a libertarian, then you should realize that these money would come out of other people's pockets without their actual approval. Have a fund for poor financed voluntarily. Don't force people to pay for things they di
531.
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by
snitko
13y ago
Well, let's see. Do people have the power to stop paying a congressman his salary immediately or do they have to wait for the next election and hope another guy wins? Or maybe they can take a congressman to court for not keeping his pr
532.
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by
snitko
13y ago
Not just the tax money. If tax money were completely irrelevant, nobody would bother to collect them.
533.
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by
snitko
13y ago
Contacting congressfolks is useless. I don't know where you guys get this idea that it actually works, but if you simply look at incentives (not expectations of how it's supposed to be) government officials have absolutely no ince
534.
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by
snitko
13y ago
The reason the native population was wiped out was primarily because of the diseases brought by Europeans, not because Europeans were particularly brutal. In fact, Indians were as brutal to the colonists as colonists were to Indians. The fi
535.
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by
snitko
13y ago
But you don't invite them to your house. What makes you believe that somehow you have more right to land that doesn't directly belong to you than another human being from Earth? America is a big country with plenty of land where m
536.
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by
snitko
13y ago
Would you say that immigrants from certain countries are by nature more violent? If you don't believe that, then there must be something else involved. Maybe, it's that they have incentives to become criminals, because they are be
537.
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by
snitko
13y ago
Slightly offtopic: The whole idea of the immigration restrictions is ridiculous. There is not a single justification for it. Unless of course you believe that somehow your people deserve better than everyone else. When people bring up the f
538.
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by
snitko
13y ago
You should start with the question of why do you need someone to be in an office in the first place. And if the position is indeed so valuable and necessary, why can't you just hire and pay this person, instead of voting for him and as
539.
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by
snitko
13y ago
How is that? Voting is beginning your masters for changes (and, why should they listen? Where are the incentives?). You can only vote with your money. If you stop paying your ISP because your connection is crappy, and all your neighbors do
540.
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by
snitko
13y ago
If you jail half the population you'd have to pay for extra prisons, guards and policemen and you're gonna have to get these money out of someone else's pockets. Whose pockets? Modern states are certainly powerful, but not to
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