Originally posted by: Zebo
Simple. At it's most basic level Bill Gates has more to protect than you do, therefore pays a higher premium for that protection, just like any kind of insurance.
Bill Gates is terrible example. Bill Gates' entire fortune is basically based on state imposed copyright/patent protection on software. Hence, in this case I agree. Since Bill Gates owes his entire super-rich lifestyle to the government, I have no qualms in saying that I don't give a damn that Bill Gates pay taxes, especially a percentage.
This is a blatant misdirection of the argument put forth by Zebo. You have focused on a questionable interpretation of the details of the life of his example. You have done nothing to refute the position that the wealthiest individuals, as a whole, have more to lose from lack of government protection. That argument remains unscathed.
If you want to get into nuances of how much Bill's company benefits from having a publically educated workforce, a vast tranportation infastructure and legal system vs. you get from those benefits we can do that too, but the numbers are harder to pin down, but I assure you his business would only be possible in one of these % taxed countries.
A publically educated workforce?!! Hahahahaha. That's a good one. I spent 18 years of my life in public schools, and I can honestly say that it was almost a complete waste of my time. If I owned a company and someone offered me a publically educated workforce, I would show them the door and tell them to never come back. However, Bill Gates certainly did benefit from living in a brainwashed society full of worshippers of political demagogues, telling them that copying CDs is against the law.
Ummm...for all intents and purposes, the entire US workforce is publicly educated. Are you proposing that, as a company owner, you would refuse to hire publicly educated individuals? Good luck filling out your workforce. If you do, good luck managing those payroll costs.
Methinks you have again misdirected the argument because it is easier to bash public education than to address the valid points of the original poster.
you cannot escape the extortion....oops I mean *cough* transaction *cough* by just walking out of a shop.
Sure you can. Walk accross the Rio Grande, mexicans do it everyday the other way. But if you want to live here you have to abide by the rules. Taxation is no more "extortion," than imprisonment is "kidnapping," killing enemy soldiers in war is "murder," or other laws compelling compliance on pain of fine or imprisonment are "extortion." If you catch someone breaking the law, you have no individual right to lock him in your basement for some period of time, or to form a "necktie party." Such rights are exclusive to the government -- proving that the government has rights, you don't.
Your entire 'argument' begs the question by assuming that the government is a legitimate entity in the first place. In reality, democracy and politics in general is an ad hoc and artificially created system that has no tenable theoretical basis.
You're absolutely right that government is an ad hoc and artificially created system. However, there is a legitimate theoretical basis for its existence. By grouping together to form an entity more powerful than any given individual, you provide a mechanism whereby the weakest members of society are not inevitably preyed upon by the stronger. Since relative strength and weakness are highly dynamic, it is in everyone's best interest to embrace some form of rule. Now, the extent of government necessary to accomplish this in a complicated society, where human beings continually develop new ways to prey on one another, is debatable
Rights that are exclusive to the government? Interesting. You are essentially saying that the government consists of individuals who wield super-human absolute authority. If those in government possess super-human absolute authority, where did they get it from? If I do not have it, how could have I or anyone else given it to them? Supposedly their 'right to rule' is granted by deluded inviduals going into voting booths, but from where I am standing that is nothing more than a cult ritual akin to rain dances and throwing coins into a well for good luck. You have proven nothing, except that you are very bad at tricking people with circular logic.
Rights are "granted" to a democratic government because a significant portion of the population enters into an unwritten social contract wherein they bestow some of their otherwise individual rights to the group in exchange for protection (in whatever form it takes).
As for the federal government's specific power to tax, it is found in Article I Section 8, where the Congress is given the right to "lay and collect taxes . . . to pay the debts, and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States."
The Constitution was a document signed by men who have been dead for hundreds of years. To me it is nothing more than a historical document. I would have to be deluded to think that it binds me in any way.
The Constitiution binds you in the sense that the government that it has established has the might, for want of a better word, to enforce it's provisions. If you do not wish to be bound by it, you can break the social contract and not partake in the benefits our government provides. Note that this includes the market system that US society has enabled. If you wish to take advantage of that market system to make "money", then you are reaping the benefits of government. You are then obligated to upheld your end of the contract which, in our system, includes paying taxes.
The government provides a vast array of services and infrastructure such as roads, schools, the banking system, port facilities, air traffic control, hydroelectric dams, communications satellites, R&D into a vast array of technologies such as radar and semiconductors -- not to mention the most basic functions of establishing and vindicating your basic commercial rights in property and contracts.
Wow, a 'vast array' of demagoguery. Of course they 'provide' a 'vast array' of sh!t. Not only does that allow them to make it look like they are actually providing some kind of service, but at the same time it allows them to expand their bureaurcracies and power. The banking system is a complete fraud based on banks that do not even have enough paper, let alone any kind of precious metal. My basic commercial rights in property and contracts? That's interesting, the last time I checked the government was the largest violator of private property rights around.
Again, you are addressing flaws in the current system, not the fundamental concepts of government and taxation. Those remain unrefuted.
In other words, your "hard earned money" wasn't earned in a vacuum. You aren't Robinson Crusoe -- as proven by the fact that you don't live like he did.
Who said anything about a vacuum? Coercion does not have to precede cooperation.
The commercial enterprise where you work -- or that you own, as the case may be -- operates within a society that has a vast public infrastructure that someone has to pay for. But of course, that vast public infrastructure also creates vast opportunities such that the taxes you pay reap you tremendous returns.
By the sound of it, I would have thought you were a minarchist. Infrastructure this, infrastructure that. The truth of the matter is that this 'infrastructure' B.S. you talk about is a fraction of total government expenditures. The majority of outlays now are just welfare and warfare. However, I don't think minarchy is what you are arguing, so I will just point out the disingenuous nature of your post here and leave it at that.
More "nitpicking" about the current system, not the fundamental concepts. You can certainly disagree with how the government uses your tax dollars. But I thought we were discussing the right to take them.
The proof of that is the fact that the twenty wealthiest nations on earth -- as measured by per capita GDP -- all have an extensive public sector. Every one of them.
First of all, there is no such thing as the 'public sector.' What people call the 'public sector' is really just a government racket. The fact that the twenty wealthiest nations on Earth have extensive government rackets just goes to show that politics is one of the most practiced religions on Earth. That's all. It says nothing about what would happen if there was one day a widespread disbelief in this religion.
For all its corruption and bloat (again, details of implementation), the infrastructure provides its citizens with numerous protections and enables the market economy that wealthy individuals so enjoy.
"Minimalist government" countries, with low taxes and little public investment in infrastructure and government services, are impoverished cesspools -- except for a handful of wealthy elites.
Their governments are smaller just because they have less to loot to begin with.
Go right ahead, open your waffer plant down in Panama. After your un-succesful VC call, your non-existant government backed loan, your joke of a stock market then try and find educated employees to crank out waffers AMD is waiting on. Best of luck.
Good luck finding your elite 'publically educated workforce.'
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