ALL HAIL PRESIDENT TRUMP

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CanHasPants wrote:

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Aim_Deep wrote:

To me anyone who takes taxes is a crook. Basically mafia extortion racket legalized. In fact it's opposite of democracy. One should be able to invest fruits of labor in what they see fit in real democracy. But these insiders take thievery to a whole new level.

I think this is a perfectly valid opinion. Not sure where I’d agree or disagree, so wouldn’t put my name to it. What would you replace taxes with?

A democracy costs money to run. Who do you want the people running the democracy to be indepted to? Mega corporations? The church, perchance? The actual mafia? No, I'd think you would want a democratic government to work for it's citizens as a whole.

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CanHasPants wrote:

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Aim_Deep wrote:

To me anyone who takes taxes is a crook. Basically mafia extortion racket legalized. In fact it's opposite of democracy. One should be able to invest fruits of labor in what they see fit in real democracy. But these insiders take thievery to a whole new level.

I think this is a perfectly valid opinion. Not sure where I’d agree or disagree, so wouldn’t put my name to it. What would you replace taxes with?

Donations. Like you want something done you pay for it. Since everyone likes democracy and all. One dollar one vote.

Dont worry about billionaires disproportionate "vote". There would be none, Every billionaire is created by the socialist state. Bill Gates got cash from IBM on huge no bid gov contract. Carnegie wiped out native Americans with US army to build rail roads. Every instance of billionaires is aided and abbeded by the state which woulda never happened without taxes.

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Upandatem wrote:

A democracy costs money to run. Who do you want the people running the democracy to be indepted to? Mega corporations?

I think it's funny how progressives say stuff like this then literally demand the mega-rich not only become the primary funding for government, but also fund pretty much all the poor people using the government as an intermediary. Who do you want people to be indebted to, indeed.

The role of progress is about educating the poor and removing poverty as a by-product, not 'feeding the poor with donations'. That's just stupid. In my country, at least -I suppose there must be something similar to US- there is a mandatory requirement for younglings to finish their basic education (there has been some debate of extending it). If people think it's just their personal choice, they are not only useless but harmful to their community. And I'm not talking about formal titles but about raising civilized, aware citizens. Without knowledge their children will also be condemned to poverty and their communities to perpetual ignorance. Not to mention how general ignorance of things will contribute negatively to any national political system.

If a country does have a lot of poor people, it's not progressing. Even if there is a lot of capital -which US admittedly has- it is not progressing as a nation by aforementioned standards.

For the love of all it totally baffles me why anyone thinks education could ever be left to willingness of individual donators. It was the collective legislative effort that made general education system possible more than hundred years ago.

Of course, education is an example here, albeit an important one. It's just the easiest one to argue for, since its positive externalities are so easy to identify. American health care debate to me is also from another planet.

"progressives" "liberals" "democratic socialists" of whatever they call themselves these days have ruined US education. We score near bottom in every category and SAT scores crashed. Actually pretty much everything big gov gets involved with gets ruined thats why so many Republicans have advocated abolishing Department of Education and return educating student to localities - some even advocate vouchers so poor can attend private schools. Whts funny is many super left European countries have vouchers. Anyway how US schooling started was all volunteerism. One room school houses arose from citizens pooling cash together and hired a teacher and it worked fine.

The problem arises when you want "the other guy" to pay for it instead of you. Then regulatory capture, institutional rot, bureaucracy, leeching middle men (like layers of administrators in education) step in and ruin the investment since you don't care it's not your money after all.

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vmt80 wrote:

The role of progress is about educating the poor and removing poverty as a by-product, not 'feeding the poor with donations'. That's just stupid.

That's more your opinion than a view representative of progressivism. Indeed, progressives tend to see removing poverty as the main goal and educating the poor as a means to that end. Most progressives do not think feeding the poor with donations is stupid.

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vmt80 wrote:

In my country, at least -I suppose there must be something similar to US- there is a mandatory requirement for younglings to finish their basic education (there has been some debate of extending it). If people think it's just their personal choice, they are not only useless but harmful to their community.

You really need to elaborate this point. I don't see how a highschool dropouts are inherently useless or harmful.

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vmt80 wrote:

I'm not talking about formal titles but about raising civilized, aware citizens. Without knowledge their children will also be condemned to poverty and their communities to perpetual ignorance.

You're assuming that people in poverty are having children. Would you want people in poverty to be adopting children?

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vmt80 wrote:

Not to mention how general ignorance of things will contribute negatively to any national political system.

You do realize that you can't teach a history of the future in a classroom, don't you? (You might, arguably, be able to preach it.) The best one can hope for, in terms of education, is to teach the rules by which the political game is played and various philosophies of the game, such that some in the future have the combined learning and intelligence to properly analyze the moves that will be made in time, and the rest have good intuition in terms of whose answers to copy.

This education doesn't mean much if those appointed as experts in revealing and analyzing the moves -- that is, the media -- are compromised by incentive systems that discourage them from honestly playing their part. For instance, right now FOX News is avoiding coverage of the James Gunn firing and subsequent advocacy for his rehire... not because FOX News is owned by Disney, but because it might soon be owned by Disney. You're worried about how well our society's anti-ignorance forces can do their jobs, when the bigger problem is whether they want to do their jobs at all, versus faking it. And these same problems apply to educators as well.

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vmt80 wrote:

If a country does have a lot of poor people, it's not progressing. Even if there is a lot of capital -which US admittedly has- it is not progressing as a nation by aforementioned standards.

Depends how you define "poor." The systems that pull everyone up at the same rate are simply not as efficient as the systems where a single benevolence pulls up everyone a little but the benefactor more than anyone else. This is because the greater the piece of the pie the benefactor keeps, the more incentive he has to do something instead of nothing. Indeed, if everyone gets the same benefit as the benefactor, then one gains as much convincing someone else to do it as they gain doing it themselves.

Because of this, all systems that incentivize benevolence generate income equality. Given a stasis of ability, this would lead to extreme wealth inequality over time, but real life isn't Groundhog Day so incomes change over time because individual ability changes over time.

However, given that ability doesn't fluctuate too rapidly, the general pattern of a society that motivates benevolence is that the rich get richer at a higher rate than the poor get richer -- in other words, the gulf between the rich and the poor widens. That isn't necessarily the sign of an immoral society, because it is a required trait of a moral one.

The real question isn't how the poor are doing relevant to the contemporary rich. The real question is how the poor are doing relative to the historical poor. And by that standard, I actually just saw with my own eyes that El Paso, Texas -- if not the whole US, is doing better. I'm currently tapping on my phone standing outside a homeless shelter I stayed at 4 years ago, where I just volunteered to serve breakfast. There are so much fewer people here now, and they seem to be doing so much better, on average, than before.

The US is progressing. You just have trouble fitting that into your narrative.

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vmt80 wrote:

donators

lul. Public education werks.

I wish I dropped out of HS. Seriously wasted many hours there when I coulda been making money or playing. Actually middle school woulda been better. Everything I learned in life didnt come from school but my parents or books written by experts not some sociology major who couldn't find a job in RW so got teaching credential..

My mom is actually a teacher too (a uni professor with PhD). But it's not for everyone. I knew at 10 what I wanted to do and does not require formal education. Entrepreneur like my uncle and grandfather (although my grandfather has a civil engineering degree he opened a bar as first business).

Edit. One thing that bugs me is teachers they call "service" when it's just the opposite. teachers and all gov workers extract producers money by force of law. Job performance matter little to none. Thats not "service." Thats "extortion."

Real "service" is Jeff Bezos, Mr. Wilson, and other entrepreneurs and workers at their companies who make world go around and MUST provide good service and product to make a living.

So ultimately I like to say I'm in the public service business.

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vmt80 wrote:

The role of progress is about educating the poor and removing poverty as a by-product, not 'feeding the poor with donations'. That's just stupid. In my country, at least -I suppose there must be something similar to US- there is a mandatory requirement for younglings to finish their basic education (there has been some debate of extending it). If people think it's just their personal choice, they are not only useless but harmful to their community. And I'm not talking about formal titles but about raising civilized, aware citizens. Without knowledge their children will also be condemned to poverty and their communities to perpetual ignorance. Not to mention how general ignorance of things will contribute negatively to any national political system.

If a country does have a lot of poor people, it's not progressing. Even if there is a lot of capital -which US admittedly has- it is not progressing as a nation by aforementioned standards.

For the love of all it totally baffles me why anyone thinks education could ever be left to willingness of individual donators. It was the collective legislative effort that made general education system possible more than hundred years ago.

Of course, education is an example here, albeit an important one. It's just the easiest one to argue for, since its positive externalities are so easy to identify. American health care debate to me is also from another planet.

There are elected politicians in the USA who think that if too many people are on an island, it will tip over, like a boat.

There are elected USA politicians who think black hole is a racist term.

Just recently there was an elected USA politician who thought USA border laws were passed by Trump, and said she was confused when she was told otherwise.

I would never want people this stupid in charge of my healthcare or my college. They already ruined public schools.

If USA politicians want to control more stuff, then they should fix public schools, social security and Medicare first. Only an idiot would want to give them more stuff to ruin, if they cant fix the stuff they already control.

OMIGOD elected officials are totally stupid YES! I have never met one with an IQ over dull normal. I used to work in campaigns for awhile in college and I've met more than the average person. Nothing to do with party either. In a sane world they would have trouble keeping a job on an assembly line. Instead the gullible public send them to fed or state capitals to "represent" them.

Check out what Ocasio Cortez said on the daily show - who's a shoe in her district. Total ignorance.

http://video.foxnews.com/v/5815087314001/?intcmp=obnetwork#sp=show-clips

Like I said before - at best politicians are only venal.

When you add ignorance too you get democratic city/state budgets and problems.

BTW that venality extends to generals who say everything is fine in Afghanistan while they ride failure out until multi-million dollar board position opens at a defense contractor they retire to and most top echelons of gov workers.

Well known phenomena and why founders wanted very very very small gov with citizens having most power over their lives
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venality

aka "power corrupts"